Soon they were sitting in the grating chairs, and Sotos Louloudis was prepared to fill the gaps people leave in conversation.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t believe, would you? Not unless you were told.’

‘Is it, now? Is it a fact?’ he would inquire from above his plaited hands, and add perhaps: ‘I suppose it is, isn’t it? It only goes to show!’

Twisting his thin legs together inside their inferior cloth.

Only towards the end of an evening Sotos Louloudis might suddenly look out at those others who had been in possession of it. His eyelids would twitch, he would appear to emerge from the end of the tunnel, no longer so very perplexed and surprised. Each time it happened Poppy Pantzopoulos would remember having been fascinated by Sotos on similar occasions, by the sudden closeness of his distance. It was something one quickly forgot, however.

She certainly did not think of it now, because here was Sissy Kamara coming out. And then Sissy’s cheek. And not so much a perfume as a recollection of doors opening into the house on Frankish Street.

‘Oh dear,’ Sissy Kamara exclaimed, ‘here you are! I am so terribly glad to see you, darling Poppy!’

If Poppy Pantzopoulos had not known Sissy she might have wondered. She could hear Basil making that little noise, the clicking sound at the back of his throat.

‘And Basil too. That goes without saying,’ Sissy added, and put her luggage on the table. If she did not notice Sotos, it was because he was her husband, and always there.

‘Do you care for pelargoniums?’ she asked. ‘I wonder whether I do. Too straggly. They refuse to be guided.’

Even so, her hand could not resist an attempt.

‘Well, we shall eat, at least. We hope.’ She laughed, and blew out some smoke. ‘Are you hungry?’

She did not expect an answer.

‘I have discovered a young man, an action painter,’ Sissy Kamara said.

Poppy was terrified, a little for herself, more for Basil, but most of all for Sissy Kamara.

Sotos Louloudis only smiled, who knew that his wife must always do right. He went and left her to it.

‘Your young man, I hope he isn’t a genius,’ Basil was protesting.

‘I shall show you,’ promised Sissy Kamara, ‘afterwards. Oh dear, there is so much to tell and hear. Poppitsa!’

She clapped her hands together, and all the little oriental bracelets chattered.

Sissy Kamara was a dry-feverish woman of an ugliness accentuated by the attention she drew to herself, Basil used to say. Basil was not so much uncharitable as the victim of his own fastidiousness. That voice, that laugh, he said, the cigarettes of course were half to blame. The dash of dry rouge she gave to either cheek certainly made her look rather hectic, added to which her high hair, it must have been designed that way, though it gave the impression of having got squashed, as though Sissy Kamara had just risen from sleep and a couple of aspirin.