‘I burned my hand on this miserable little Eyetie gizmo.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘No, but I will survive. Just a mild scorch. Right coffee – caffé espresso – first the crema then the aroma.’

He pours into two chipped cups, one from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the other from the National Theatre. She sips: she’s never had coffee this strong before.

‘Espresso. The finest.’

‘It’s strong. Oh my God.’

‘It’s supposed to be strong. It’s supposed to hit you right here.’

He makes a chopping motion with his hand against the back of his neck and takes it in one.

‘Puttana di merda, as the Italians say. Right, fire away.’

She feels she is being underhand, but she sees that this is the way journalism works.

‘Well, I wanted to know a little bit about your plans. The editor wants an update and he’ll send a photographer tomorrow to Newquay. He thinks you could be photographed outside the theatre. He’s very keen that you should be funded properly. And personally, I would like to know about your film project.’

‘The first few dates have been a huge success. We open tomorrow night in Newquay, as you rightly said, and I’ll be going down there this afternoon just to keep an eye on the production.’

‘Did you suggest that there was no progress on the grant?’

‘I’ve not had a reply from the trust, but my lawyers are on to it. It must be a foul-up. You know what these big organisations are like: we’re barely a speck in their eye. It will be sorted out soon, I am sure.’

But Artair seems to have been diminished in the days since she last saw him. His voice is confident but his eyes are cowed.

‘Have you tried speaking to your ex-wife?’

‘I did send her a message through the family solicitors, but so far there has been no reply.’

‘I saw on the wires that Sir Harry Trevelyan-Tubal has been flown to London for treatment. He’s had another stroke, apparently.’

‘Yes. Poor Fleur.’

‘Why poor Fleur?’

‘She’s a dependent person, very needy as they say now. She needs the admiration of men. Like Blanche Dubois. Pauline Kael said nobody else in theatre had this quality of hopeless feminine frailty.’

Later, she Googles Blanche Dubois. She is not a real person. Melissa wonders if Artair isn’t being harsh on Fleur because she left him. Also, Pauline Kael, she finds, was a famous film critic.

‘Could your taxi give me a lift into town?’ he asks. ‘We could talk on the way. I have to sort out one or two small problems with the production en route.’