Domenica disagreed. ‘I don’t know, Angus,’ she said reassuringly. ‘You’ve achieved something, surely. Your work is well regarded. You enjoy the privilege of being able to devote your time to painting – which is what you love, I believe. Many would consider you fortunate.’

Angus shook his head. ‘No. That’s kind, but no. I paint portraits of company directors and the like. That is all. I leave nothing of worth behind me – no great work, no painting that really adds to our artistic patrimony. I am, I’m afraid, something of a failure.’

Domenica frowned at this. Angus was not given to self-pity – something that she had heard him railing against in others. Was Angus coming down with delayed Stendhal Syndrome? Who would be next? Cyril? Was there a veterinary equivalent of the unusual condition; a version that struck dogs who were suddenly confronted with a tantalising choice of exotic scents?

‘Oh, I am aware of my relative good fortune,’ Angus said quickly. ‘And there is only one respect in which I might be more fortunate than I am already. And that is if you were prepared to …’

She looked at him politely. ‘Prepared to what?’

He was staring at the sky, as if inspiration were to be found in that quarter. Somewhere, over the hills, there was the drone of a tiny engine. Somebody is cutting wood with a buzz-saw … The line from that poem about angels in Italy; so evocative. And then, over the brow of a hill, still a speck in the clouds, came a minute aircraft – a wing under which a man was suspended by rigging yet invisible.

‘Icarus,’ muttered Angus.

Domenica looked up. ‘About suffering they were never wrong,’ she said quietly.

Angus had heard the line before; Domenica had quoted it to him on more than one occasion. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Auden is so right, isn’t he? Icarus falling – the boy’s white legs disappearing into the green sea – all unnoticed because the rest of the world has to get on with its business.’

There was a silence. The tiny aircraft approached and was soon overhead. Icarus could be made out quite clearly, and he spotted them and waved. Cyril, looking up, barked, in greeting or warning – it was hard to tell.

Domenica returned her gaze to Angus. ‘You were saying: would I be prepared. Prepared to do what?’

He took a deep breath. ‘To marry me,’ he said quietly.

It was easier than he thought. Icarus did not fall from the sky; the ground did not open; the earth did not wobble on its trajectory.

If Domenica was taken aback, she did not show it. ‘How kind of you, Angus,’ she said. ‘What a sweet question.’

He did not know how to interpret this. ‘I know I’m nothing much,’ he said. ‘And I have Cyril. And my clothes, I know, are a bit old-fashioned.’