‘What is she saying?’

‘She thinks you don’t want her. She says she won’t come if you don’t want her.’

I know that Benjamín is lying to me, I know that Duval has been lying to me and I think of all the things I should do. Confront them both, ring Chavez and have him send a posse of his finest agents over to arrest everyone in sight, but I look at Benjamín’s crooked face and I look at Dolores’s shiny red lips and the pistachio nylon blouse which I know she’s got herself all dressed up in to come over here – and the only feeling I can squeeze out is one of wretched middle-class guilt.

‘No, Benjamín,’ I sigh. ‘Tell her she can clean for me. Tell her it’s fine.’

I wait. For the dust to settle. For Emmy to get well. She’s pretty subdued for a day or two, but once the antibiotics kick in, she improves fast, morphing in an inordinately short time from adorably wan Camille, stoically suffering life’s injustices on her deathbed, to Idi Amin, issuing ever more outrageous demands and holding the entire household in the grip of a three-day reign of terror. I leave nice, mute Dolores to change her sheets while I take Emmy to the medical centre in Ague, where the cute bearded resident delivers exactly the same diagnosis as Louis. Yes, she has an ear infection. No, it’s unlikely she will have another fit. No, I’m not to worry, but she must be kept quiet and encouraged to drink plenty of water. I manage to purloin the doctor’s home number for future emergencies then drive to Nogales and present Chavez with our passports. He makes a big fuss of Emmy, showing her his Degas ballerina and giving both her and Jack more of those little wrapped sweets which he keeps in his drawer and which the children again spit out, much to my embarrassment, straight into their hands.

Dolores cleans the house. She keeps out of my way and says little, and, except for buenas tardes and gracias, I say little back to her. As a housekeeper she’s a disaster. Unable to grasp the idea that removal of dirt as opposed to relocation of dirt is where it’s at, she pushes the broom in front of her as though it’s a lawn mower that has run out of juice. She moves so slowly and dreamily round the house that having never had the least desire to become a domestic goddess, I itch to snatch the brush from her hands and furiously clean the floor with quick efficient strokes. I don’t even bother to ask her to cook. She doesn’t know why I’m angry. Possibly she thinks that all gringa employers are equally cold, unsmiling and ungrateful. Possibly we all are.