Thirty-five minutes later, the lack of stimulation drove all three of us into motion. I was the first to tire of watching the humming-birds in the fuchsias.

“I'm going to see if I can find something to read. Can I bring either of you anything from the house?”

Donny leapt up with an eagerness that betrayed his own growing need for action. “I'll take a stroll into the village and see if I can find a paper,” he declared.

“Mrs Gordimer will be happy to get you one,” I offered.

“Nope, I'll stretch my legs and then I can be a sloth the rest of the day. And I want to know how the baseball went.” But before I could comment on how unlikely and wholesome an interest in baseball was in a jazz-baby like him, he added, “I've got some money riding on it.”

Flo, too, was on her feet. “I'm going to put on my bathing suit.”

Donny left in the direction of the village, Flo disappeared into the house and came out in a skimpy bathing costume, settling onto her rug, and I returned to the hidden storage room. I searched every inch of its walls, examined every object on the shelves, pushed and manipulated every shelf and hook, but nothing gave way, no concealed entrance or trap door came to light, to lead me into the locked rooms of my dream.

There was nothing here.

When Donny came back, the bounce in his step proclaiming how the scores had gone, he too changed into his costume and persuaded Flo to bathe in the rather murky waters. After a while, I scrubbed my hands and went down to the umbrellas, where I found Donny had arranged three of the deck-chairs from the now sun-drenched terrace. He and Flo lay sleeping, hair damp from their swim, chairs three decorous feet apart, faces turned towards each other in slumber.

I smiled, and sat down in my own chair, remembering only as my backside hit the wood that I had neglected to bring a book from the house.

But I stayed where I was, effectively alone on the lawn, nothing to distract me but the sound of two men in indistinct conversation from the other side of the lake.

What had the hidden-room dream meant, if not an actual, physical place?