She shivered and shook her shoulders, like someone resisting a caress. ‘Where we were going to have our “bitter” …’

He glanced down at her empty table. ‘You’re not drinking?’

She looked quickly at him. ‘Whatever you are drinking,’ she said.

Soon he was back.

‘Long overdue,’ clinking glasses.

She took a sip. It was a half-pint of Marston’s Old Empire. ‘Not bad,’ in a neutral tone.

‘You’re being polite.’

‘I am not so,’ she said in her strange accent. ‘But I like it. Quite,’ scrunching up her small nose. ‘I think.’

A smell of garlic came from the kitchen. Her green jersey was the colour of billiard cloth.

He dropped his eyes, and made circles on the beermat with his glass. ‘How’s Vasily?’ he risked.

On a leather cord around her neck was a silver leaf. Katya touched it now and then, as, without going too deep into the subject, she told him about her son. He was studying for Common Entrance. He hoped to get into Harrow. The transition from Moscow to Oxford had not been smooth, but Vasily was happier now, she said: ‘Although he is finding English history hard. The “Rocket” of Stephenson …’

Dyer laughed. ‘Leandro has the same problem with Trafalgar.’

She searched his face. She had such a broad naked smile when he talked about his son.

Grateful to Katya for not alluding to the incident which had sabotaged their flirtation, he told her how it took Leandro three terms to find his footing, despite Dyer’s connections with the school.

‘I was rung up in the first week to say Leandro didn’t have the correct black shoes – trainers wouldn’t do.’

Not even in his trainers must Katya run away with the idea that Leandro always excelled on the sports field. In his inaugural rugby game, Dyer said, never having played rugby, Leandro failed to observe the boundary lines and was shouted at by the coach.

‘He kept running right off the pitch and into the crowd. Mr Tanner yelled at him in such a mean way.’ He picked up his glass. ‘If I’d been Leandro’s mother, I’d have given him a very expensive Lamy pen to make up for it.’

‘Why didn’t she?’

‘His mother lives in Brazil,’ said Dyer quickly. ‘She doesn’t communicate much. And to be fair to her, nor do I.’ He hadn’t told Nissa when Leandro had nits.

‘Brazil is long way,’ she reflected. ‘Longer than Moscow.’

‘It is far.’

‘And Leandro – he misses her?’

‘Of course,’ said Dyer. ‘Well, I say that, but I think he realises she’s not there for him. She’s remarried, has other children.’

‘Do you miss her?’

‘Leandro’s mother? No. Yes. I don’t know.’

‘You feel about her what I feel about this?’ She picked up her beer and shutting her eyes took another sip. Her eyes when they opened had a sterner expression. ‘What happened?’