In the summer of 1983 I was in Paris doing research. One night I turned on the radio, and Klaus Nomi was singing ‘Total Eclipse’. When the song ended, the DJ announced that Nomi had died. Hushed, jittery talk was going on everywhere about an illness that was killing gay men. Dieter and I had exchanged a few postcards, but it was months since we’d been in touch. My time in Montpellier already felt so remote that it seemed to belong to a book I’d once read. In the apartment opposite mine a baby was screaming. Its parents were holding a dinner party on their terrace and ignoring it. A sensation of cold made the hair float up along my arms. Dieter was dying – the baby seemed to confirm it, crying by itself in the dark. The next day I called the Berlin number I had, but the woman who answered had never heard of Dieter.

At this distance the pictures of Lucio that I hold in my mind merge with those of Nick. A lanky man slouches contented against my bolster. He has ears like flowers – which one is he? It was definitely Lucio who bought me tulips. He said that their purply-pink openness reminded him of my fica. Whenever I see that shade of pink it’s raining, Lucio is inside me, if I turn my head I can see a jug of tulips and a buttery plate.

I haven’t said how the rain put a sheen on the cobblestones that night of 10 May 1981, the night that gave Mitterrand the Élysée Palace. Montpellier had turned into a Chinese painting, all watery greys. There was a light, unpleasant wind. ‘All Shook Up’ was playing in a cafe where people were jiving. The dancers spilled out into a square that had a fountain and a tree. One of them was a woman with yellow taffeta petals around her head. Her skirt flew out like spray from the fountain. Pascal was flinging her about and pulling her near with polished ease. She still sends me a card every Christmas, Deb. It’s full of closely written news. Just as she’d planned, she got her pony and her three children – she got two of them with Angus and one with his best friend. She runs an organic farm in Kent and invites me to stay.

Late on election night, a crowd gathered at the lookout on the Promenade du Peyrou. When Lucio and I joined them, someone tapped my arm. I don’t think Felipe ever knew my name. The second time he spoke to me, it was as frank and impersonal as the first. I happened to be there, and the film that was always playing behind his eyes had been reversed at last. His sister was flying up from her well with her toes pointed, and Franco had never been born. ‘I’ve been waiting for this day all my life,’ Felipe said.