Over dinner, Minna told the dottoressa about the arguments that she wished to present to John Berger. ‘Why consult a man about your path in life?’ asked the dottoressa. ‘Every one of my husbands put his faith in maps. We’d arrive in a new place, and he’d stand on a platform, trying to find north. I would simply go.’ She eyed Minna. ‘What has happened to girls your age? You run after men instead of ensuring that they run after you. And you, with your interest in fashion, look at the way you’re dressed. It suggests a fundamental lack of imagination.’

Minna looked as if she’d been slapped. She was wearing a paint-splattered navy-blue boilersuit – chosen to convey her commitment to working people – but as soon as we’d eaten, she began to drag clothes from her pack. Her green coat appeared, and a top made by joining the upper half of a striped shirt to the lower half of a checked one with big blue stitches. She laid out everything on the floor, arranging garments to show how they clashed. The dottoressa studied it all carefully and said yes, Minna did have a flair.

After a while they grew mutually complimentary, Minna saying, ‘Socks with slides is so great.’ She began setting out her theory of uglification. ‘It’s really a complication, which makes it anti-authoritarian – have you noticed how tyrants love things to be simple?’ A little later, the dottoressa asked, ‘Do you loathe Frida Kahlo?’ and Minna answered, ‘Of course!’ I lay on the rug, beside the sleeping dog. The dottoressa said that he’d never been heard to bark, but muffled yelps were rising from him now, and his legs quivered as all the cats in the world fled before his might.

Derek arrived, a compact man with yellow-grey curls who looked packed into his skin. He was wearing wide shorts and carrying a bottle. He placed it on a table by the door and adjusted his balls, crying, ‘Hello, hello, hello!’ – did he always greet them that way? ‘How are you finding Italy, love?’ he asked Minna. ‘Bit of a change from the big country?’

When his mistake was revealed, Derek looked at me. Wonder flitted over his face and was succeeded by dismay. For the moment it lasted the look said, as crudely as a neon sign, Not a Real Australian. I’d never seen that look in France. The French, knowing nothing about Australia, wouldn’t have thought it strange if my skin were striped.

Trained in diplomacy, Derek recovered well. He removed a geisha doll from a chair with a practised swipe, sat down and spread his knees – there they were again, Hello, hello, hello! Then came the usual interrogation about how long, where from, et cetera. All his life, Derek had believed one thing about Australians, and now people like me were showing up and taking that belief apart. How could he not look on us as a gimmicky trick? I felt kindly towards Derek. He was stuck in the spider web of the past. Future Him was Dead. Meanwhile he’d brought us another bottle of very good champagne.