The voice echoed high around the walls; like a voice in a church gaining energy and body as it beat from wall to wall.

Follie! Delirio vano e questo!

A breath of wind stirred the branches of the ginkgo. We stood in silence.

Pover donna, sola, abbandonata.

He put his hand on the back of my neck; his cool fingers lightly lay there.

In questo popoloso deserto …

I didn’t dare move in case he took his fingers away. I felt myself stop breathing

Che appellano Parigi.

Che spero or più? Che far degg’io?

God, I thought to myself, I feel like a Victorian miss, surprised by physical pleasure. I wondered if he also was holding his breath.

Gioire! Too right, Violetta.

Someone slammed down a window and the sound was swallowed back into the inside of the house. A pigeon flapped from the tree onto one of the window sills and sat waiting hopefully for food.

I hate pigeons.

I took a deep breath. He removed his hand from my neck. My skin was burning.

‘Callas,’ I said.

He stepped back into the room again.

‘How do you know?’

‘Well, I don’t really. I’m not an expert, but hers is the only voice that …’

‘That what?’

I turned and looked at him. He was staring at me. Grey eyes, quite sombre.

‘… takes away my breath.’

‘Is that what it was?’

I nodded. ‘I have white wine in the fridge. Will that be OK – or are you a spirits man?’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I like to stick with wine. Only the old or the very stupid fill themselves with whiskey or gin these days.’ He put out a hand and stopped me as I walked past him towards the kitchen. ‘Was it really Callas that made you lose your breath?’

‘Of course.’

‘Strange.’

I walked on towards the kitchen, hoping that there was some white wine. I opened the fridge and presto, there it was, a bottle of Sancerre, quite respectable really.

He was just behind me. ‘Strange,’ he repeated.

I handed him the bottle.

‘There’s a corkscrew on the table. Would you be kind …?’

‘Clara.’

‘… enough to open it, while I get the glasses?’

He turned abruptly and went back into the sitting room. By the time I followed him with two glasses, he had pulled the cork and was standing by the window, staring out at the garden.

‘I am just suggesting it is strange because I lost my breath too. Not something that I do often. In fact, it has never happened to me before.’

‘Callas,’ I put the glasses on the table, ‘has a very potent voice.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t Callas.’

That’s where I will stop for today.

There is something terrible about remembering, even remembering such moments of extraordinary excitement. Also there’s the notion in my mind that I am really inventing all this as I put it down. I am moulding reality into fiction. Is that something that always happens? I don’t know yet. I suppose I will find out.