“Why is Daddy filming them, Grandpapa?”

“For his documentary, child,” said Senator Zamora, explaining how the subjects of his thesis – and now Tromso’s documentary – had introduced bullfighting into North Africa, the Moors taking it with them into Spain.

“Remember that footprint we saw at Cap Spartel?” In Phoenician legend, Hercules fought at the edge of the wilderness with a bull-headed monster and was killed.

“Will Periclito be killed?”

The President tapped his foot to this familiar tune. What was this music? he wondered, unable for the moment to place it. Whatever the tune, it was strikingly unoriginal.

“Not if he fights well –”

He leaped to his feet. “Clotilda!” His youngest daughter had paused at the low gate into the box. She was scanning the crowd for someone. When she heard his call she looked round, at the same time jerking back her head. Senator Zamora saw a wasp had become entangled in one of her pigtails. He hurried to her and lifted up her long corn hair. “There,” he said. “Gone.”

Relieved, she hooped her hands around his neck. She rubbed a kiss onto both of his cheeks. “Thank you, Father,” she said.

Asunción followed two steps behind. She wore a pale blue skirt, a spotless white blouse and a red silk jacket that reached her knees. She smiled down at her husband in the bullring. Afterwards, Tromso had invited them all to dinner at the Café Ulises.

“Don’t close the gate! Your mother-in-law’s behind.” He waved. “Madame Amaral!”

4

Wavery waved back, until he realised the President did not intend his salutation for him.

“Señor Wavery,” nodded Marie Amaral, taking her place beside him. She had not spoken to the Consul General since the evening on his terrace. A finger admonished him. “Who has ignored me?” she said, rocking herself comfortable on two foam cushions.

“The mother of the matador.” Wavery resumed his place. “I am honoured.”

“I was so emotional,” she said. “I am sorry. I never told you how grateful I was.”

“Not at all, Marie.” But there was no resonance in his voice, just as there had been none when he had greeted Dolores, or ten minutes earlier Joseph Silkleigh.

Silkleigh asked anxiously if Wavery had seen Rosita. He had not.

“She may have stood at the back of the queue when God was handing out noses, old soul, but I simply can’t get her out of my mind.”

“Your first bullfight?” asked Marie Amaral, too excited to appreciate anything but her own happiness. She indicated the ring. She could see Tromso’s bald patch. He was directing the cameraman. He was appealing for quiet, like David’s God in her dreams. Last night she had woken again, laughing.

“No,” said Wavery. “But it isn’t quite my cup of tea.”

Marie Amaral understood his Anglo-Saxon revulsion. It was the same revulsion she had felt when her father first introduced her to the ring in Oran. At the age of seven, she wished nothing so much as to vomit into her mother’s black satin lap.