‘Take it off.’ His voice was low and thick with lust. Victoria fiddled with fastenings, barely able to see his face. His back was to the house. There was a glimmer of light about his eyes, perhaps the reflection of their glowing cigarettes. The dress dropped around her hips. She unfastened her bra. The evening air was cool on her breasts. Her nipples were instantly hard, aching for his lips.

The wind sprang up again, fiercer this time, swaying the branches of the mulberry tree above them.

‘Oh Massimo . . .’

‘Yes, baby . . .’

‘I want it so much . . .’

‘You got it, baby . . .’

‘I mean . . .’

Another gust of wind, sharp, like a whip. Branches knocked together audibly, shedding leaves and twigs on to their heads, on to her shoulders.

At least she thought they were twigs.

She brushed the top of her head, and was horrified to feel something soft and very obviously alive between her fingers.

Another blast of wind, and they were pelting down on her, into her hair, on to her shoulders, her breasts.

She screamed. ‘Oh my God! Caterpillars! Christ! How disgusting!’

She ran towards the safety of the house – and in the light she could see them, foul white larvae with blind brown eyes, stumpy legs sticking out all along their appallingly ridged bodies. She screamed again, panicking now, beating at herself as if she was on fire. Caterpillars scattered on the terracotta tiles of the terrace, on to the table, on to their plates, drowning in olive oil and the dregs of wine in their greasy glasses.

‘Don’t just stand there grinning like an idiot,’ she shouted at Massimo, who was leaning against the pillar with an infurating smile on his face, ‘help me get rid of these disgusting maggots!’

He did nothing.

‘Do you know what they are, these “disgusting maggots” of yours?’

‘Yes. They’re fucking . . . wa-hah-hah!’ A caterpillar had just landed on her cheek. ‘They’re fucking horrible!’

‘They’re silkworms, in fact.’

‘I don’t care what kind of worms they are.’ She flicked at herself with a napkin; the last few caterpillars dropped from her hair, and writhed on the terracotta floor.

‘A wild relative, at least, of the domesticated silkmoth, Bombyx mori, from the Latin morus, the mulberry tree. A native of Asia and Africa.’

‘Oh God.’ She was panting in fear. ‘This is a nightmare.’

‘There are mulberry trees all over this part of France,’ he went on, casually smoking. ‘Do you know why?’

‘I don’t bloody care at the moment.’ She sounded like a harridan, and she was furious – half naked, and bombarded with caterpillars, it was no laughing matter, certainly no time for a lecture on the cultivation of the mulberry.

‘To introduce silk production into Europe, in an attempt to compete with the mills in the Far East, notably China.’ He stepped up on to the terrace, and casually squashed a few writhing larvae with the toe of his expensive brown leather mocassin. ‘It didn’t work, of course, but the mulberries remain, and many, many of these fellows.’ He picked a grub off the mosaic table top, held it up to the light. It wriggled, this way, that way, this way, that way.