Fleur. He wonders if she is happy inside this cocoon of wealth. What he remembers of her most vividly is her awareness of her own girlish sexuality. It was as if she took more pleasure in the excitement she aroused in men than in sex itself. There are many forms of self-affirmation, of course. More and more he hears people speaking the language of self. Their lives are a work in progress, as they attest to becoming more confident, more assertive, more independent and happier. It’s a delusion fostered by lifestyle and celebrity babble on television. Celebrity on the Daniel Day-Lewis scale, for example, depends not on having your breasts enlarged or going to parties, but on possessing a real transformative talent. Fleur, sadly, was no actress. He had wanted her to be great, but her acting was not intuitive; it was more an imitation of acting than acting itself. Great actors, like great writers, draw you into their world. They reshape the world minutely by their work. How do you explain that to a bank? He rings his lawyer, the legal eagle, Barnecutt, but of course it’s a Wednesday and he’s relaxing at home with his sex animal Lowenna, after working his fingers to the bone on Monday and Tuesday.

A taxi arrives. He opens the door allowing a seagull-speared and wind-racked day to enter briefly. It’s Melinda from the Globe.

‘Melinda. How are you?’

‘Melissa. Windswept but fine, Mr MacCleod. And how are you?’

‘On the record, I am fine, and Thomas is playing to packed houses. But I have to accept that – off the record – things are not good. On the plus side, Daniel Day-Lewis’s agent has replied. Obviously, I can’t tell you the contents at this stage, but let’s just say there is hope. I’ll put some coffee on. I managed to find some of Signor Lavazza’s Crema e Aroma in the cupboard. My favourite. Sit over there by the window and look at the heron-priested shore. My assistant is still AWOL. Ah, here we are, Cre-ma e Ar-oh-mah.’

He proclaims as if he’s Richard of Gloucester: ‘ “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer . . .” ’ Melissa is amazed at how many vowels and their little subsets he can find in a phrase. She looks at the half-submerged wreck out in the estuary while Artair puts the Bialetti on the stove and spoons in some coffee. His hair beneath the little hat is like the eaves of a thatched house. He is wearing a crumpled but vividly green T-shirt which bulges over his stomach.

‘You know as I was waiting for you, Melinda, I was thinking of past lovers. There’s nothing quite so melancholy as lost love. And do you know why? Because it’s not recoverable. At the time you move on, but you leave something of your innocence behind. It’s leached out. OH FUCK.’

‘What happened?’