Domenica was thinking quickly. Why had Antonia asked Angus to go to Italy? Only one explanation suggested itself: she was making a play for him. That was the only possible reason, and it infuriated Domenica just to think of it. Antonia was a notorious man-hunter – utterly incorrigible. Of course she frightened off any half-decent man, and ended up with people like that Polish builder whose only English word had been ‘brick’. That had been a most unfortunate affair, but Antonia, true to form, had simply dumped the builder, as an expert bricklayer will toss aside an imperfect brick. No, I should not pursue brick analogies, she told herself, but it was a bit like that.

Domenica said nothing for a few moments. Angus was a free agent – he could go to Italy or not, as he wished. But unattached men were few and far between, and if Angus belonged to anybody, then he belonged to her, and not to the grasping Antonia. This meant that she could not possibly miss this trip; she would have to go and do everything within her power to stop Antonia from ensnaring poor Angus.

Then a further thought occurred. What about Cyril?

‘And his dog?’ she asked Antonia. Angus would never be able to leave his dog behind; they were far too dependent on one another for that.

‘One of these new pet passports,’ replied Antonia. ‘Angus has obtained one for him. Photograph. Usual occupation. Name and address of next-of-kin. The lot.’

10. The Return of Pat Macgregor

Pat Macgregor, Matthew’s former assistant at the Something Special Gallery, former admirer of Bruce Anderson, surveyor and echt narcissist (now reformed, apparently), former classmate of the curiously named and somewhat hypnotic boy known as Wolf, former … There were so many respects in which Pat, even though only twenty-one, was a former something, but to list them all would give the impression that her best years were behind her and that she was now somewhat washed up; which was far from being the case. In fact, as she strode purposefully across Middle Meadow Walk, on her way back to her flat in Warrender Park Terrace, she would have appeared to any passer-by to be anything but finished. Indeed, such a passer-by would have thought that this person was not a student at all – given the usually leisurely gait of students walking across the Meadows – but a person with a sense of wanting to get somewhere, even if that somewhere was only Warrender Park Terrace.