But neither did Adam nor the girls answer. “Can I try again after dinner?”

Half an hour later Wavery collected Catharine from her room. She wore a cinnamon scarf, and the rust-red jacket she had been wearing on the night they met. “I haven’t had it cleaned since,” she joked.

They dined in the Alfama, in a restaurant they had seen from the outside and liked. A fado was playing through a loudspeaker. “E quem me dera, ter outra vinte anos,” sang the waitress, joining in.

Wavery ordered champagne. They touched glasses too soon and their champagne overflowed into a bowl of salt which turned blue. They ate vegetable soup and grilled fish and didn’t finish their wine. “You’re not drinking,” he said. But she was untying her scarf. She was reaching over the table and in a voice so soft he could have wrapped it also round his neck she was saying, “A present.”

His hands moved over the table. They held her face. When he had begun the gesture he wanted only to thank her. Calmly, without excitement, he drew Catharine to him and kissed her. She did not respond immediately, but she allowed her head to stay against him, very still, to let him know he had not done anything wrong.

In the square outside their hotel, she said, “Tom, I do have to make that call.” He gave her his room key.

“I’ll wait here.”

She kissed him quickly and passionately and went indoors. He waited half an hour in the square. It was cold and there was a winter mist and in the mist he heard the sound of cats howling. In another month he expected to be living here, in the large residence in Lapa. He would know on Tuesday.

He looked at his watch. It had been more than an hour. There was no sign of movement in the room. No shadows on the ceiling. No window opened. At last he went up.

She was sitting on the bed, receiver in hand, staring at the floor.

“Catharine?”

Her voice was faint. “He said, ‘Are you tired of me?’”

Wavery closed the door.

“He said, ‘You won’t ever leave me? Promise you won’t leave me.’” She wrenched her eyes to Wavery. “Tom, I promised.”

He took the receiver from her hand, replacing it.

“I don’t feel guilty. Not about that.” Violently, she shook her head. “What I’ve given to you is something nobody else wants.”

“Catharine, what do you –”

“That’s not the only reason for ringing home.” She opened her arms to take in the room. “Can’t you see?” She wasn’t merely discharging a duty. She wasn’t just putting her maternal conscience at rest and patting the rest of her world on its head. “I’m confirming all this. I’m making our happiness more real. If I were to say, the world doesn’t exist, and draw down the blind, then I’m saying this is a dream. But it’s not a dream.” She shook her head. “It’s not a dream, Tom. But the only way I can help myself is not to take any step towards it.”