Her nights were torn from the tunnel. She tried to sleep but her dreams were violated by black shapes in laughing silhouette copulating against an orange glow. There was no longer an irritating god to protect her. David’s god was in the death-ditch. He floundered there with the prawn heads, the clam shells, the pork gristle, the yellowy sediment flushed by Captain Panteco from the sides of his latrine, the Governor’s nail clippings, Señora Menendez’ dental floss, red-ringed copies of El Faro, flower heads, foetuses, all flowing in a dank tide through the tunnel in which the powers of David’s Gehenna seemed united.

Since dissolving into tears on Wavery’s terrace four days before, Marie Amaral had worked hard on Genia Ortiz’ dress. “Oh, madame! That’s going to be marvellous,” said the conductor’s widow, holding it against her chest. “Now, you’ll let me pay you properly.” They stood side by side, admiring the dress in the mirror. She was surprised Genia Ortiz didn’t notice her seamstress’ expressionless face.

She had accompanied Senator Zamora to the cemetery on the headland. After removing his anorak, which Minerva had never liked, and laying seventy-two iris on his wife’s headstone he pointed out the empty plot next to it, covered with red sallow. “Hideous aren’t they, but I will get the sun.” When the sun came out, why didn’t he see she cast no shadow?

The shadow she cast was inside her.

Blankly, she told the Dutchman of her requirements for the first week of August. “That’ll fill the lorry,” he said. “What’s it for? Tania’s wedding?” Tania, he had to remind her, was the nun in The Strong Tend to Leave.

“No,” she said, “we’re having a bullfight.”

She spoke again to Periclito from the telephone in Rosita’s shoe shop. After a weekend in bed, he had discharged himself from hospital.

“How’s your stomach?”

“I’m not walking gorgeously, but I will be. I will be.”

“How’s Rosita?”

“My nightingale! My singing Hesperides! She’s well, I think,” he said. “Although I’m not certain Peru is mature enough for fado.”

“Is she –”

But Periclito did not wish to speak about his nightingale. He had one thing only on his mind. The alternativa! He had thought of nothing else since Christmas. But nothing.

“Who am I fighting with, Maman?” She could forget that unfortunate episode at Huanta. In the past season he had fought with Raul Medniola, Gitanello de America and on a tedious and mediocre afternoon in Tumbes with José Antonio Canetero.

“Wait, Periclito. Wait. Let me get my spectacles.” She leaned forward, beckoning Rosita’s assistant to open the door so she could read the names printed on the poster.

“From Algeciras, Rafael Lara, ‘Larita de Algeciras’. From Cadiz, your sponsor, Antonio Troyano, ‘Troyanito’. I’m not sure I know him.”

“He’s exceedingly well known, Maman –”

“And from Abyla, Periclito Merimée Amaral. ‘El Terremoto’.”

“‘The Earthquake’!” He savoured his sobriquet. “You wait, mother. You wait. Only two weeks now.”

They both waited, he for his mother to say something, Marie Amaral because she didn’t know what he wanted her to say.