— Ostentatiously, Christine apologised. — We were awful show-offs. While the others made daisy chains or played French skipping with knotted elastic bands. And we were terribly bored by the Manifesto, couldn’t understand a word of it, we preferred historical novels, really. It came from the bookshelves at home: this was when Dad worked for governments in Africa, advising on primary health care. My parents in those days had a sort of mild hopefulness, in relation to communism. They thought things had gone sadly wrong in Russia, but were optimistic for the Third World, as we called it then. They believed that a lot of the bad news we heard was only American propaganda.

— Quaint, said Alex.

That old hopefulness seemed as remote now, she agreed, as believing in phrenology or mesmerism. — They didn’t know any better. But innocence has consequences, I know. It isn’t really innocent. Like all of us in the West now, having our cake and eating it. And borrowing money against our cake, as if we’ll never have to pay for it.

She tipped back and forwards on her wrist a horn bangle she’d bought the day before, from a Senegalese girl selling between cafe tables; when they’d asked the girl if she missed her home, she said she was going back there in three weeks. Afterwards they’d wondered if that was her stock reply. Perhaps it made the tourists more generous, if they weren’t afraid of her as a permanent fixture.

— Talking of cake, Zachary said, broaching the question of dessert.

When they’d finished eating and had coffee and paid the bill, they stayed sitting on at their table. — The cathedral’s really good you know, Zachary said. — And it does shut at four. But we don’t have to move from here, if you don’t want to.

They all agreed reluctantly that they must move on, and got up dreamily, eventually, in slow motion and lightly intoxicated, looking around them at the restaurant with regret, as if for something lovely and exceptional that could have been prolonged, but must be given up at last.