“I’ve got to pack. Hilda and I –”

But the Foreign Secretary had remembered. “Good Lord, Derek, did I never congratulate you?” Not for the first time, he reflected on the unexpected light which pulsed beneath the dour bushel of his colleague. Cullis in print was unlike the Cullis he knew, dramatically unlike. The prize-winning verse returned to the Foreign Secretary as they walked down the stairs, in the soporific Scots lilt of a shipping-forecast.

My Hilda though simply divine

Is shy both of men and of wine

But with Dornoch Vine’s label

She’s simply unable

To think of the English for “Nein!”

A voice trilled up the staircase. As always when he heard that voice, the Foreign Secretary experienced a terrible foreboding. Somewhere in the world, he thought, a catastrophe is about to happen. His hand found the grey marble bannister. “I wonder who she wants this time?”

They both listened.

“Telephone for Mr Queesal. Telephone for Mr Queesal.”

“Funny,” said Cullis. “He was here a moment ago.”

Again came the voice and this time concern was expressed there. “He says he’s calling from Africa . . . ”

PART FIVE

Chapter Thirteen

I

THE SKY WAS a bowl of Fezzine blue. It was the day of the Virgin, the day for which Abylans had waited five years and their promontory – once more to have been reunited with Europe – since the beginning of history. The day which was to have celebrated the Straits Tunnel opening.

The new bell of Santa Maria de Africa joined the band of the Third Africa Regiment. On her custard-coloured bier, the permanent Mayoress of Abyla inched out of the dark interior into the butterfly sunlight. She was supported by members of the regiment, concealed by the ornate frame of her bier except for their white spats. The spats shuffled to a halt at the top of the steps while Lieutenant Casares whispered directions through the shoulder-borne tracery of wood. Hesitantly, magnificently, a quivering barque, the Virgin of Africa was launched on the square. She was dressed in black. She sat on a dense bed of red and white carnations, her left hand gripping an olive cane at the level of her breast. Called upon to relinquish the symbol of her power, the Virgin had not failed her city.

By the world at large, Abyla had been left alone. Before yielding her freedom, the wayward daughter was to have thrown an unprecedented party, to be attended by Kings and Queens (as well as an actress from The Strong Tend to Leave). No one wished to visit a city where such a party had been cancelled.

At least, that is how matters were perceived on the Peninsula. Abyla felt otherwise. This was still her day, the fiesta of her patroness and possibly the last such fiesta. If there was to be no tunnel opening today for the populace gawping at the Virgin as she jelly-wobbled along the Marina Española, at least there remained the sensational corrida de toros. There remained the prospect of Periclito.