‘It must have been ruined long before your time,’ murmured Stephen, politely. She could not be more than thirty, he thought, though he had no way of judging the bloom on an oriental skin. Certainly, the Vietnamese who had boarded the plane in Paris had looked far, far older than his new friend. They had belonged to another epoch.

She wanted to know why he was interested in Indochina. He was hard pushed for an answer. ‘Is mainly the French and the Americans come there,’ she said. ‘Is not for the English. English did not fight there. No English missing soldiers to collect.’ She asked if he planned to stay in Bangkok, and if so at which hotel. He named his hotel. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘Is old and not so nice,’ she said. ‘Many fine hotels in Thailand now.’

She spoke as though she owned half of them. Perhaps she did.

‘Writers do not stay in nice hotels,’ he tried, tentatively, more for his own benefit than hers, and realizing as he spoke that he was talking rubbish. The Grand Hotel in Cabourg had been one of the finest hotels in the world. She treated his remark with the contempt it deserved.

‘Is not necessary stay in horrid places,’ she said, firmly. ‘Is not necessary see poor people and horrid places.’

‘What if they are one’s subject?’ he suggested.

‘Why choose subject? People not want to read of horrid things and poor people. People like nice hotels and jewels and nice things. And if poor people necessary, use . . . ’ (she searched for a word, and, triumphant, found it) ‘use invention. Is correct, invention?’

‘Yes, correct. Invention. Imagination. But these things have their limitations. They cannot make something out of nothing.’

‘Why not? Films and stories make out of nothing. Look.’ She gestured towards the silent screen, where a bronzed and derivative hero ran through long com beneath a lowering, circling pursuing helicopter. ‘Look, is nothing. Is no person and no-thing and no place.’

He laughed. He was entranced by Miss Porntip. She was surely no-thing herself, she was surely a dream. Commandant Parodi flew on, five miles high over the Euphrates, towards the lopsided melon moon of Karachi.

The New Trocadero Hotel, Surawong Road, does not strike Stephen as particularly new. Surely it must be the old Trocadero, with a new neon sign? But it is new to Stephen, as indeed is the whole of this strange city, this City of Angels. He is not surprised that Miss Porntip had disapproved of his hotel. He is half inclined to disapprove of it himself, but checks himself sharply. He is not here to enjoy himself, after all.