‘And I was excited by the village,’ she went on. ‘At first. Or at least the village was excited by me, which amounts to the same thing. I took on the role they gave me, that of a dangerous and exotic visitor from another world, elusive, mysterious, hard to hold, and soon to be gone. I’d catch the village boys looking up at me with black eyes. The first fisherman I kissed’ – I’d come back to that; Oh, I’d strip the flesh off that one – ‘trembled in my arms. He shook like a baby. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. He would stare at me and rub his eyes as if he thought I might at any moment vanish, like a mermaid. And all I wanted was to go out fishing with him.’ (Liar, Camilla. Liar.) ‘He wouldn’t leave me alone. He insisted that I take his arm whenever we were in the harbour, in sight of his pals. He offered me everything he owned to go and live with him, even his boat. His wife wasn’t too pleased with me.’

‘And did you go?’ I asked. I couldn’t wait after all.

Camilla shook her head. She seemed to be still regretting the boat. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I married a farm labourer instead. He was much younger than me. He was just a boy. I only stayed with him one night. His mother and sisters sang hymns of joy when I left.’

She didn’t fail to notice my stupefaction. There was a total collapse of my facial musculature. My mouth actually did fall open.

‘Well,’ she said, with a wan smile, as if her nature had surprised her once, also, ‘he used to take me on his tractor.’

It wasn’t just the fisherman’s wife and the farm boy’s mother and sisters who didn’t like Camilla. None of the village women did.

‘In an earlier age they’d have hung me for a witch,’ she told me. ‘As it was they were perfectly capable of making life uncomfortable for me in other ways. They murmured when they passed me in the village streets. They actually made a growling sound in the backs of their throats. Some of the shopkeepers refused to serve me. They accused me of strange and pointless crimes: stealing and poisoning their pets, making anonymous phone calls, scratching their cars, intercepting their mail. I can’t tell you how many times the police came round to question me.’

‘And all this because they suspected you of sleeping with their husbands?’ I ventured. I had hoped to get away with asking that question without any hint of throatiness in my voice, but I hadn’t succeeded.