He licked his lips, and spoke in a falsetto voice, “‘Mr Silkleigh, I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but in my day they wouldn’t have let you through the green baize door.’ Which is beyond the pale, frankly, even if I do happen to come from Yeovil. If she was English she would probably come from Yeovil. She’d be called Mannering and insist you pronounced it Main-waring. She also has that thing I never really admire in a woman. A slight cast in one eye. Still, she’s an improvement on her husband who taught Rosita to sing those terrible songs. I hated the man. When he dropped dead, I thought, Good. Bloody justice. Sorry. Oh, yes, ambasadoro, anything you need to know about Genia and Ernesto Ortiz,” and he thumped his yellow chest, “ask Comrade Silkleigh. I know it all. It’s all going into that book of mine, every word.”

Wavery had met Silkleighs the world over. Watching him hurt Rosita in the Café Ulises, he had thought, Yes, I know your type. Silkleigh was one of those who saved the true expression of themselves for the right time, the right person. The time had gone by and the right person had not come along and the day had arrived when in the middle of some mundane action – inserting a key in the lock, paying for a coffee – he found he had lost all awareness of his best expression. The only person left to him was himself and the only solace creativity, and that, no doubt, was why he had taken refuge in autobiography.

“It’s going to contain everything I know and quite a lot I don’t know.”

“Tell me about Genia Ortiz then,” said Wavery.

“Evgenia Nikolaevna Polotseva Ortiz,” began Silkleigh.

Oxygen cylinder on shoulder, he followed her towards the lake. He knew which tree she would pause before, what she was thinking.

Her summer memories were of this lake. It was her mother’s lake and stocked with large, red mirror carp. As a wedding present the Tsar had instructed his water-bailiff to net from the lake at Gatchina fifty-eight of these fish – her parents’ combined age in years. Rings on four of the carp proclaimed them to be as ancient as the walnut trees on the drive.

Every evening at six the shoal swarmed towards the sound of a cow-bell on the south-west bank. The bell was shaken by Genia’s mother, ambling between the trees. She carried a basket of bread and over her shoulder, if the weather was warm, a towel the size of a sheet. At the edge of the lake she stopped. She dropped the bell in the grass and she stood a moment on the bank savouring the sight of her water, calm but about to erupt, goosepimpled by whatever moved beneath the surface. Then she peeled the cloth from the basket.

In summer Genia would find her mother floating naked among pieces of bread, feeling the carp swirling against her long legs, nibbling at her skin. Genia was too young to understand such sensations. On summer evenings she collected mushrooms in the walnut drive. It was like gathering stars, she told her father. Her winter memories were of snowfights in the dark on Christmas Day. After dinner the household would spread out along the frozen banks. They divided into groups, each holding a torch. During their last Christmas together a snowball landed against Genia’s throat. The ice slipped between her shirt and coat, down against her skin, dagger cold, knifing away her breath. She fumbled with her coat, but she couldn’t find the ice. It spread out into a cold patch on her heart where it had remained ever since.