“They say you can get by anywhere in the world if you speak English. Well, that’s nonsense.”

One thing alone had held him up. “I need a title,” he said. It was absurd, very possibly it couldn’t be understood by someone who was not a writer. But he found it impossible to write a word, a single word, until he had decided on the title. So far the story of Joseph Silkleigh’s fifty-four years was contained in six Lion Brand notebooks which only helped to remind him of the moments when with an absolute certainty and clarity of vision he had decided to call his autobiography Summoning the Wind or The Dust We Play In or A Shadow in Love with the Sun or Dying in Paradise or Sisyphus Happy or The Nomad of the Time Streams or Stolen Air or I Had a Wild Thyme Too – none of them, he realised a day or so later with the same clarity, any bloody good at all.

“I’ve got the story, old soul. That’s the easy part. Once I’ve got the title,” Silkleigh said, “everything else will flow.”

Wavery was on the point of telling him about Penny and the problems she would have with her paintings, but at that moment Silkleigh glanced at the stage. There was alarm in his eye.

“Oh, no,” he said.

The lights were switched off. The only light in the café came from the stage and from the television set on the opposite wall. Mohamed turned down the volume. The curtain parted and a small woman was revealed standing awkwardly in the silence. Her stomach was cramped into a belt of gold braid and she wore a tight red shirt. Her hair was tied into a bun with black lace and a black shawl draped her shoulders. She adjusted the shawl, making sure. The guitarist offered her a glass of water and she drank. He began playing. She breathed in. Her hands came together, then her dark eyebrows. She stepped forward, her eyes concentrating on the pillar and the portrait of Lieutenant Zamora. At Silkleigh’s feet, Emilio’s dog gave out a frightened bark.

“ . . . a minha terra, a minha gente, a saudade e a tristeza que magoa.” She hurled her song across the room. Her body swayed as she sang, her shoulders lifting, her fingers moving occasionally as if she were releasing something from her clasped hands.

“Fado,” whispered Silkleigh. “You can see why it never caught on.” When she had sung some more he pinched Wavery’s arm.

“‘Canoe, take care’,” he translated. “‘If you’re run over by a boat you’ll never return to the wharf’.” He leaned an elbow on the counter, his heel falling and lifting with her doleful cadences. “It might explain why her brother has za-za’d off to South America.”

After a while he translated some more.

“Really, there’s no need,” said Wavery. “I used to live in Portugal.”

“Oh,” said Silkleigh. “Right you are, old soul.”