‘Excellent. I’ve got shares in a Cessna out at Dunkeswell. East Devon from the air is a real treat. We could have a bite to eat afterwards. The pleasure would be mine.’

He produces a calling card and scribbles a mobile number on the back before striding back to the hole. I watch him seize a putter and miss the simplest of shots before I slip the card into the pocket of my jeans. My acceptance of this little come-on appears to be a formality.

After lunch, Evelyn takes me down to the public hall where a writer called David Barrie is appearing as the literary festival comes to an end. As a thank-you for last week’s tour de force, Evelyn has the pick of events that aren’t fully booked but, in the light of last night’s exchange, she’s spared me a talk on British cathedrals which I happen to know she’d been keen to attend.

This is typical Evelyn, generous to a fault, but David Barrie more than makes up. His forte is animal navigation and he treats us to a grand tour of the mysteries of the natural world. Dung beetles that steer by the light of the Milky Way. Ants following patterns of light invisible to the human eye. Sea turtles tuned in to the earth’s magnetic field. Birds of passage that can find their nests on a tiny island after crossing an entire ocean.

Emerging back into the daylight, sharing a brolly against a thin rain, I can’t help thinking of Malo and the Twilight Fund. Christopher Columbus was undoubtedly a genius and GPS, I’m sure, is a miracle of technology, but the image of the super-rich fleeing certain death, thanks to Sylvester Penny, fills me with despair. Humans have no sense of direction, I think. Unlike a thousand other species, we’re lost.

As a thank-you for the talk, I treat us both to afternoon tea. L’Image is a café in the High Street that I know Evelyn loves, and the minute we step in I understand why. It’s a stylish essay in creamy-grey décor and elegant wicker chairs, and the scatter of tables are surrounded with displays of women’s couture. This combination shouldn’t work but somehow it does, and it reminds us both of similar places we used to haunt together off the Bayswater Road. Evelyn has already commandeered a table beside the window but I linger for a moment, running my fingers through a rather nice chenille sweater dress. I have my back to the door, and feel the draught on my bare legs as it opens.

‘My dears, I knew I’d find you here.’ It’s Bill Penny. Like us, he’s been to listen to David Barrie. ‘I saw you as you were leaving,’ he says. ‘I waved but you weren’t looking.’