‘I will go back to Harare,’ Francis said, gazing at the ceiling as if he could see the stars through the white plaster, through the other floors and the clouds and the ambient light of London. ‘I will spread wealth through all my mother’s family. I will take several wives, and grow old and fat surrounded by children, who will make the best marriages, and have grandchildren who will come and cling to my knees. I will take a huge old colonial house, something that used to be owned by the governor. I will have gardeners in white trousers, and a balcony from which to survey my gardens, always filled with the delightful chatter of sprinklers, so that the grass is green and soft. I will greet foreign dignitaries from Europe, entertain them in my house, and they will say, “Do you know, this is the son that disowned Lord Soulford. How generous, what a cultured soul, how unlike his father.” The girls will wear pink dresses, and the boys will be dressed in sailor suits. I will build an opera, a theatre, a hospital with gleaming corridors. I will hire a tutor, and read prodigiously in many languages. I will have aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, and everyone will depend on me, and the day I slip quietly away, an ancient and happy man in tartan pyjamas, they will declare a national day of mourning, and all the policemen will wear black cotton gloves, and my beautiful granddaughters will weep over my coffin.’ Francis seemed to visualize the scene in every detail, and tears stood out in his red-rimmed eyes. Cocaine had touched him with honesty, and where the vision strayed into the ridiculous it was an overflow of sincerity rather than deliberate irony. Jessica and I received our cue from him, and each of us lay back, enjoying our due, the right to describe our spending dreams.

‘I will make sure that I never have to rely on anyone else,’ Jessica said. ‘I will invest it, live quietly for a little while at university. Build a portfolio. Some property, some stocks.’

‘But you can’t,’ Francis exploded, ‘you have to spend it all now! What would happen to all that money if you were hit by a bus tomorrow? All that opportunity mouldering away in some distant bank account and a big ornate tombstone.’

‘Oh shut up, Francis,’ Jessica retorted, her sharp tone tearing the delicate mood. ‘You have no idea what it’s like not to have money. What you have to do.’

‘I have!’ Francis said, a tremble in his voice.

‘These last five months, you haven’t had as much as usual. But you had options, you had your food and fees paid, you lived in beautiful rooms. When my father went to prison . . . we spent two years trying to make things work, with no friends to help us. I’m pretty now, but when I’m forty I don’t want to be alone.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Francis said quickly, with a look of genuine sorrow, ‘I’m so sorry.’ He got up and came over to where we were sitting on the largest sofa. It was terrible to see him cut off from the steady flow of her approval. Like an embolism in the blood, an air bubble in the sap of a tree, the interruption of this vital life-giving force was more fundamental than any threat, more effective than any punishment. We were very close now, the three of us. Physically close. Francis put his arm around Jessica, and the hand rested lightly on my shoulder. I wondered if he knew he was touching me, or whether he thought his fingers were brushing the inanimate bulk of the sofa. I felt a tiny shiver, like a premonition.