‘No, Artair, no. Thank you. I remembered so clearly how you used to recite to me and how we used to talk until dawn after a show.’

Show, her mother’s word.

When she’s back in control of her fragmenting self, she rings the bell and Luis picks up the wreckage of the Cornish lobsters and wipes away the mayonnaise pointillism impassively. While he is busy, Fleur sits, eyes downcast at the gleaming table, burnished by the years, and she remembers how young she was and how hopeful and she sees that Artair has done something heroic: he has kept faith with art and its power. She sees that Harry and the family, for all their taste and sophistication, never speak to their souls. They have taste, but cannot make art. They have style, but they don’t have love. They have wealth, but wealth has isolated them. They make polite, inherited conversation, but deep down they are disdainful and contemptuous. They have exquisite manners, but these are designed to hide their lack of interest.

Luis brings the pudding, a large slab of baked chocolate, exactly how Artair likes it; she doesn’t tell him that the Bournville Cocoa has been replaced with Paul A. Young’s finest, 70% cocoa solids, at £20 a bar. She has asked Luis to bring the open tin of Nestlé Extra Thick Cream. He has placed it on a silver tray, with a silver spoon next to it.

Artair is elated and touched. He pours the cream in a wave on to his huge slice of pudding.

‘This is magic. Absolute bloody magic. You always were a wonderful girl. “Luxe, calme et volupté”. Roy Campbell translated it as “There will be nothing but beauty, wealth, pleasure/With all things in order and measure.” Ridiculous but it rhymed. Yes, I will have some more.’

Artair is in full flow. It’s magnificent, grand and crazy. He talks about Olivier and Peter Sellers and Peter Brook and the giant Jim MacCool, Dickens, the Celtic bards, and he even speaks about the Israeli writers he has met in Jerusalem who were originally from Iraq.

Finally he pauses, upending the tin to get the last drippings of the cream, and Fleur says, ‘Artair, can I tell you about my proposal for your theatre?’

‘Oh, yes. Yes. Please do.’

‘I am proposing to give you £250,000 as an endowment for your company. It’s not from Harry’s funds or the family trusts, but my money, from my own trust.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He is frozen, with a silver teaspoon dripping Nestlé Cream on to the table. ‘I can’t accept that.’