For three weeks he had looked to be left alone, and now loneliness had installed itself. He had reached the point when he couldn’t face staying at home. He found all he ever wanted to do in the residence was to sit down, spread out a sheet of paper and write the words “Dear Catharine”. The longer he spent in the house the stronger became the impulse.

“ . . . to end the news, the main points again.” The summary spoke of war and famine and political stalemate. From the table Wavery picked up Zamora’s abridged history of the enclave. He found his place and prepared to submerge himself in Abyla’s past. But he was distracted by the silence. He heard every noise. A scuffling in the handkerchief tree. The quarter-hour bell of Santa Maria. Don Ramon shouting to his wife not to close the shutters because they needed more potatoes.

“Christmas is an exciting time on the World Service . . . ”

Wavery misread a sentence. It proved more interesting than what he then reread. He turned the page, but his mind was impossibly elsewhere. Because, Don Ramon was saying, his voice uniting with the bell and a noise from the leaves, what goes on between a man and a woman is more interesting than any book. It is more interesting than the world. You can’t cry for the whole world.

For Christ’s sake, Wavery, replied the diplomat in him. Concentrate. It’s only Ham chasing grasshoppers in the tree. He read another paragraph, blotting out the sounds with an appraisal of Prince Henry’s legacy. This time a number of black specks moved over the print. The specks were the birds he had seen in the sky. They were the marks on a trouser leg. They were smudges on a shirt.

“Tomorrow, the Queen’s speech . . . ”

In eight months’ time, remembered Wavery, she would be spending the night in this very house. He switched off the radio.

6

Mohamed, pacing by the window, hands behind back, looked out between the Access, Credibank and Mastercard stickers and saw a face staring in from the night. Were those the Eyes? But it was Señor Wavery. He explained that the kitchen was closed, tonight was Christmas Eve and if he wanted a meal –

“I’ve eaten.”

Mohamed bowed.

There were two other people in the café. Ghanem the Mute watched television and in the red and blue light of the bar sat Joseph Silkleigh. His longish, thinning hair was combed wet over his scalp. He was peeling a hard-boiled egg. When he saw Wavery he put down the egg.

“Ambasadoro!”

Wavery waited for Mohamed to take up his position behind the bar. A miniature fir tree decorated the counter, untidily draped in twinkling lights.

“So how is it among the apes this night?”

“Look,” flashed Wavery, “if by chance you’ve got something to do elsewhere . . . ”

“Kara mia, steady on,” said Silkleigh. “We can’t fall out. You may wish you were in Tangier, but we’re the only people we can talk to. Besides, it’s Christmas.”