They all five went on the boat to Torcello, and had lunch in a garden-restaurant beside the path to the cathedral, in the shade of an awning that flapped in a breeze so that patches of brilliance went darting across the white tablecloth. Nightingales sang in the undergrowth in the hot light of day, red wine poured from a glass jug fizzed against the tongue. It was all like Keats on antibiotics, Nathan said.

— So here we are, Lydia said thoughtfully. — Where are we?

— You’re going to love this cathedral, Zachary promised. — It’s all so simple, so anciently, divinely lucid. In its great fresco: the damned on one side and the saved on the other.

— The trouble with the saved, Christine said, — is that they can’t help looking smug. How good are the good, really, if on the Day of Judgement they’re enjoying being saved while all their dear sinful friends and relations are shovelled into the burning pit?

— Oh, I’d enjoy it, Lydia said. — Plucking away on my harp, feeling beatified.

— But Lydia, don’t disappoint me! Christine said. — Aren’t you going to hell? That’s where I’m going, because I thought you were!

All wounds seemed grown over in the present moment of pleasure as they talked and ate their pasta and grilled fish. They were flattered by the thick light under the awning, which burnished away marks of ageing in their faces, and they felt themselves significant – as if they were arranged around the table for a photograph, although they forgot to actually take one. The men were concentrations of darker mass, Alex holding something back, Zachary overspilling his place, jumping up and down to order more food, confer with the cook. Even Nathan in his shorts, knees spread wide, wolfing his food, was striking as if he might be famous, or very clever. The women in their summer dresses, Lydia’s white and Christine’s splashed with blue flowers, were the bright accents in the composition – Christine milky-pale under her sun hat, which flecked her with dancing points of light. And Lydia really did look like one of the blessed, with her long oval face and her hair bleached by the sun, knotted demurely at her neck.