“Until then you can be my spy. The next time you go I want detailed descriptions of everything. Especially the house and gardens. Are there naked statues? Who still comes to stay? And find out what his opinions are on writers today. Who he rates. Who he hates. And his friend, of course. Do find out about him. By all accounts, the last one, Gerald, was a complete drunk and a rotter. Tell me, were there lots of boys? Was there an orgy?”

“No. That was disappointing. Maugham’s friend and companion is a man with bad psoriasis named Alan Searle, who’s also his secretary. Not obviously queer, unlike the nephew, who I’m surprised to find that I like. He’s very genial and I think something of a war hero, on the quiet. It was all a very long way from Petronius.” I shook my head. “If it comes to that, I liked the old man, too. Felt sorry for him. He’s got all the money in the world, a beautiful house, famous friends, but he’s not happy. Turns out we have that in common.”

“You’re not happy?”

I laughed. “Next question.”

“Is he writing?”

“Essays.”

“Oh. Nobody’s interested in those. Essays are for schoolchildren. Did you get a look at his writing room?”

“No, but he told me you can see an exact reproduction of it in a television film called Quartet that was filmed in a studio three or four years ago.”

“When are you going back?”

“I don’t know. When they ask me, I suppose. If they ask me.”

“Do you think they will?”

“He’s eighty-two. At that age anything is possible.”

“I’m not sure I agree. Surely—”

“Time is short for someone like that. Chances are, yes, they’ll ask me again.”

It so happened that it was the following night when I received a call at the hotel front desk asking if I might be free that evening; I was.

This time the great man was in a more expansive mood. He talked about meeting the Queen, and the many other famous people who’d been to the villa, including Churchill and H. G. Wells.

“What was Churchill like?” I asked politely.

“Looked like an old china doll. Very pink. Very doddery. Hair like spider’s web. If you think I’m senile you should see him.” He sighed. “It’s very sad, really. Before the war—the first war—we used to play golf together. I made him laugh, you see. Lord, that must have been what—nineteen ten? Christ. Doesn’t time fly?”

I nodded, and then for no reason that I can think of except that I wanted him to know I could, I quoted Goethe, in German.

“‘Let’s plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will—it’s only action that can make a man.’”