Then I made up my mind. The new bag would go in the office, in the conference room. Completely useless, but it was so beautiful and elegant – a piece of decoration, a bathroom salesman would have said – that it could happily hang in an office as a designer item. My colleagues wouldn’t be offended, thinking that I hadn’t appreciated their gift, and I wouldn’t commit an act so horrible as that of betraying an old friend.

I took some duct tape, stuck it over Mr Punchbag in the places where the cracks were most noticeable and gave him 33a little punch, just an amicable little punch. Partly because without gloves, friend or no friend, it hurts. He looked at me with gratitude, and the crisis was over.

All right, I’ve digressed.

So: I had a rucksack full of transcripts and a specific schedule.

First of all I went a few rounds and chatted a little with Mr Punchbag.

After the punches, a few press-ups and some work on the horizontal bar. The horizontal bar was a novelty. Months earlier, on the fitness trail at the San Francesco pine grove, I’d had a bet with Annapaola about which of us could do the most pull-ups. I’d lost, eleven to her fourteen. Now, eleven wouldn’t be all that bad for a man over fifty – the problem is that mechanisms as irrational as they are difficult to control are triggered whenever you’re in physical competition with a woman. Even if she is more than ten years younger, used to be a semi-professional athlete and has the biceps of a good middleweight. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I’d had a horizontal bar installed in the entrance, made by a manufacturer who was somewhat surprised by the order, and now I exercised in secret every other day, hoping I would get my revenge for the humiliation sooner or later.

Having finished my exercises, I took a quick shower and, following the schedule I’d drawn up, made myself spaghetti all’assassina.

It’s a typical Bari recipe, deceptively easy to prepare.

I got the instructions, handwritten in an exercise book, from an old lady in Bari, and as usual I followed them strictly.

Pour a few spoonfuls of oil into a large pan and add some finely chopped garlic and chilli peppers. When the garlic is golden, add passata, some small tomatoes, washed and cut 34in half, and a pinch of salt. Cook for ten minutes on a low heat while you boil salted water.

Cook the spaghetti in the water for just three minutes, drain it and add it to the sauce, having first removed the garlic. Finish cooking the spaghetti in the sauce until it has absorbed it. Increase the heat until you’ve got rid of the moisture and the spaghetti is seared and crunchy.