Stanley rose too. ‘I don’t want Pushkin to go. He was so full of, what’s the word? Chutzpah. Can you ask him to come back? This is where I want to be. Going back to my real life is just too, well, complicated.’

‘His time is up. When our time is up we have to leave. This is the unexpected nature of death. It is your time to go back too. To complete. Do not feel too sorry for him; he has more than enough self-pity. Perhaps that is why you two understood each other. In years to come your self-pity will make you an embittered old man. Be forewarned.

‘As for my Alexander, he thoroughly enjoys replaying his death scene. When next we meet he will ask if it had the desired effect. In my heart he will always be the little boy who walked alone in the woods when his family summered at Zakharovo and my granddaughter was busy preening herself. I would walk beside him, willing him to sense my presence, but he did not possess the gift. He is probably dancing in the aisles of a James Brown concert now, or that other one he likes from Nigeria, that Fela Kuti fellow, who, Alexander tells me, sings in his underpants, accompanied by a chorus of women who lift their skirts and shake their ample, uncovered bottoms at the audience.’ He paused. ‘What is your world coming to?’

The heels stopped outside the room and a short woman entered in a smart blue skirt suit and stilettos, followed by a motley crew of tourists. She spoke in a clear, loud voice: ‘Every aspect of the harem was exercised in accordance with ceremony and tradition. According to Islamic law, the Sultan was allowed four wives and …’

Life after the Camp Deserter

STAGE ONE: RAGE

Stabbing

(messy).

Drowning

(he’s stronger than me).

Run him over so’s he’s flattened like a cardboard cut-out

(physically impossible).

Plant drugs, then shop him to Turkish police

(I might be implicated).

Sedate, smother in sleep, smuggle out to car, dump over cliff

(best yet, but he’ll be too heavy).

Douse with petrol and set alight

(might arouse suspicion).

Poison, chop into manageable portions,

make mincemeat sausages,

preserve in deep-freeze of camp kitchen

and sell as hot dogs in Fethiye all winter

(most sensible, creative and profitable).

STAGE TWO: REGRET

The sun is running out of petrol.

Summer is speed-walking towards the horizon.

The drunken haze of heat is too soon sobered up.

Daylight is handing back its hours to darkness.

Wind is resurrecting the strokes of its cruel whiplash.

The lagoon is abandoned.

The camp has dismantled.

No more nightly gatherings.

No more kum ba ya singalongs.

I sleep with two single beds.

And nothing comes in the post.

(All the men I’ve loved and lost.

Oh, all the men I’ve loved and lost.)

These terrible departures.

These horrid ever-afters.

STAGE THREE: RECOVERY

Step 1 Money