“Well, make sure you keep taking your anti-malaria pills.” Lulu pushed at her glass, wondering how Charlie would have dealt with the two young men in the pub. More gracefully than she had, doubtless, as her great-great-grandfather Bhaer had dealt gracefully with the annoying young Lucy. “How’s Javier?” she asked then, her mind turning to romance. “You haven’t talked about him lately.”

“Oh.” Charlie grimaced and sighed, pushing a puff of air through her cheeks. “I don’t know what to do about Javier. We get close and then we get non-close, you know? I know he likes me, but something seems to stop him.”

“Indecisive guys.” Lulu nodded sympathetically. She had been plagued at university by boys who did not know their own mind; stylish and beautiful Charlie had always been popular, and with men who had long outgrown the indecisive phase. “Remember that awful Will, who kept on telephoning me to ask whether I’d mind if he telephoned me and then not telephoning? It’s the worst, you just want to shake them.”

“Well, it’s not so much that he’s indecisive, actually,” said Charlie. She looked down, blushing a little. “We really do have a little bit of a genuine problem here, because I am … well … I’m sort of the boss’s daughter.”

“Oh.” This was an aspect that had not occurred to Lulu.

“And he’s obviously a decent enough guy that this matters to him,” said Charlie. “Which of course complicates it further.”

“Oh.” Lulu looked down into her glass. Each element of the situation Charlie described to her was so far outside her own realm of experience that she did not know what else to say.

“I don’t know what to do, Lulu!” Now having opened the floodgates, Charlie for once was the one doing all the talking. “It obviously really is an issue, and I don’t know whether to talk to him about it or not to talk to him. I’m not good at talking to people, you know that. And besides, if I did talk to him, what would I say? ‘Hi, Javier, I have reason to believe you fancy me, and, since I know that I fancy you quite probably more than I’ve ever fancied anyone in my whole life, do you think we might leave aside for a few minutes the minor fact that your employer just happens to be my father, who just happens to be one of the most powerful hoteliers in the world and in a position to make or break your entire chosen career with a single phone call, in order that you and I, his daughter, might get together to discuss the question of whether we both might want to start a relationship?’ How romantic is that? What if he just turns in terror and runs away? And … if he does say yes, where does that leave the romantic part for me? Don’t I have a right to want to be pursued? But on the other hand, I do also know that this is an unusual situation, and if I do hold out for him to make the first move, then am I doing myself out of a possibly wonderful relationship, which I think this really could be? I’ve thought about this and thought about it, and I just don’t know what to do.” She stopped and looked down again at her glass. “I think,” she added quietly, “that the answer to your earlier question, is that, yes, there are times when I miss my mother very much indeed.”