This auspicious beginning to the trip put Angus in a particularly good mood for the journey from Pisa to the villa. Their hired car, a Fiat Venti Cavalli, was big enough for the entire party and all their luggage, but only if Cyril sat on Angus’s lap. This he was happy to do, sticking his head out of the window and sniffing with intense interest at the passing Italian air. The smells, of course, were quite different from those attendant on a comparable Scottish journey, and none of the human passengers had even the faintest inkling of how exciting was the olfactory tapestry that Cyril now enjoyed. The world as it reveals itself to the canine nose is far richer than we can possibly imagine, and includes not only that which is there – which is interesting enough – but also that which was there before. So, while the human eye may see signs of the impact of man – farm walls, grain towers, well-worked farms – the dog picks up much more: historic scents that have been layered upon the landscape and have not gone away. We, then, may look at a Tuscan field and see furrows, stones, dry white earth; this would be thin fare for the dog, who knows that those furrows were ploughed by oxen, that birds had pecked at the seeds sown by the farmer whose boots in turn left behind them a story quite of their own, of tramping upon a cellar floor, of walking among olive trees and of so much else. All this Cyril now picked up and relished, quivering with excitement at the intellectual challenge of interpreting and classifying this bewildering array of scents.

Domenica was at the wheel. Nothing had been said about this; she had merely announced that she had arranged the car. Angus did not own a car and, although he possessed a licence, had more or less forgotten how to drive; Antonia, by contrast, would have driven had Domenica not been – in her view – so controlling.

‘I’ll be very happy to share the driving with you,’ she said as they left the suburbs of Pisa behind them. ‘Just let me know when you want a break.’

‘How kind,’ said Domenica. ‘But, alas, I appear to be the only driver listed on the car rental contract. How very unfortunate.’