An enormous thank you to JeanPaul Péraldi for help with research, and to JeanPaul and Françoise for their kindness forty years ago. Thank you also to Adele Ferguson, Madeleine Kelly, Myles Neri, Eamonn O’Farrell-White and Mark Williams. Thank you to Roberta Trapè for help with Italian and for support over time.

Many thanks to the three wise women, Clare Drysdale, Jane Palfreyman and Pat Strachan, and their wonderful colleagues at Allen & Unwin and Catapult.

For books, conversation and the sense of being in something together, thank you to all my writer friends. To Neel Mukherjee, my gratitude for a generous letter as well. And to Fiona McFarlane, for her perceptive reading of the manuscript and for all the breakfasts at The General.

Thank you to all at Lutyens & Rubinstein, and many, many thanks to Sarah Lutyens for unfailing friendship and guidance over the years. And thank you most of all to Chris Andrews, my dearest reader.