They were standing in the passage that led from the stage into the kitchen and he had pulled her close. His lips were close to her ear as he murmured, ‘Although there’s nothing in the shops, we’ve got enough of everything. Although we’ve got enough of everything, everyone steals.’

His mouth rested on the favoured tender place of her neck, a fraction under the jawline.

‘Although everyone steals, nothing ever goes missing anywhere.’

Uncertain how to respond, she pressed her body against his, registering his slightness and thinness with a kind of terror. He pulled back an inch in order to look down into her face. ‘It’s Czech humour, Laure. We have a way of laughing at ourselves, at the system, at the idiocy of the universe. We don’t expect outsiders to understand it.’

She laid a hand flat against his chest, seeking to feel his heartbeat, all too aware of his separateness and longing to bridge it. ‘Everyone is very concerned to tell me that I’m an outsider.’

‘We also cry at ourselves. Particularly at the big paradox.’

‘Which is?’

‘Which is understanding that the world is a terrible place because you have to choose between the homeland that promises suffering and the suffering that afflicts those who choose to renounce their homeland.’ He grinned. ‘What is one to do?’

She said uncertainly, ‘So, the paradox is to choose between two sufferings.’

‘Which one do you choose?’

It was a rhetorical question and he didn’t expect Laure to answer it. Her exhilaration tripled. Somehow – how? – she had been thrust into a circle that treated subjects like this as important.

‘Come to the chata this weekend and I’ll tell you. The boys will be there. You’ll like it. It’s where we are at our best.’

She knew perfectly well what the invitation really was.

CHAPTER 18

LATE-ISH ON A HOT SUMMER FRIDAY AFTERNOON WAS NOT the best time to take the train out of Prague’s main station.

There was a long queue at the ticket kiosk where she met Tomas who was wearing his linen waistcoat and had his hair tied back with a black shoelace. ‘We’ll be lucky if we get a seat,’ he said.

The corridors in the train were packed. ‘Which do you prefer? Death by proximity in the corridor or in a compartment?’ They squeezed into a compartment, which was already fully occupied and stifling. ‘Sorry,’ said Tomas cheerfully to the occupants. He lifted Laure’s rucksack and stowed it in the luggage rack and balanced his guitar on top. ‘Very sorry.’

The passenger by the window raised his head and Laure was amused by his startled look as he recognized Tomas. Tomas favoured him with one of his smiles that could charm a monkey from a tree and shook his head when the man made to give up his seat to him.