Nissa was upstairs, in colour, on a wall in Leandro’s bedroom – with a smile on her face that Dyer could imagine darting between their son’s ribs every time Leandro looked at it. Her beauty was not in doubt, only what it let her get away with. That she might be a stove that smoked whenever it blew, as his aunt tartly put it, Dyer had been slower to recognise than Vivien who, after at last meeting Nissa, observed to him while she thoughtfully adjusted the knitted cosy on her teapot, ‘I like her, John, I do. I just can’t help feeling that with Nissa the half seems always more interesting than the whole. It’s something Hugo’s noticed, too. Did I ever tell you what he said after our first meeting? “A great face always comes with a price tag,” and it’s perfectly true, my dear.’

Had Nissa ignored Leandro altogether, it might have hurt less. For the first year, she was content with the progress reports that Dyer made a point of writing to her at the end of each term. Yet now that her twins were down for an English prep school, she had started to show more interest. A fresh demand plopped through the letter box every few weeks, along with the gas and electricity reminders. For Leandro’s school report, his team photograph, his waist and neck measurements, as if she was trying to reclaim him by reaching out through the arms and legs of the shirts and trousers that she wanted to send. The clothes arrived, but Leandro wouldn’t touch them. She would have made a perfect Phoenix mother, thought Dyer, who had not seen it coming. What he saw, he did not tell Leandro – who had never asked – was that the woman he believed he loved had escaped him for someone wealthier. Which wasn’t how Nissa saw things. ‘It’s not me you’re fucking.’ She wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘It’s Astrud.’

Marvar was still looking at Astrud’s photo. It was taken on her parents’ terrace in Petrópolis, at dusk. She was leaning against the barley-sugar irons of the balustrade, staring at him. Not beautiful, not ugly. Her candour had nothing artificial about it. She was telling him to get a move on, she needed to turn down the gas on the moqueca. She was three months pregnant.

‘What’s her name?’ Marvar asked.

Dyer’s mouth formed the word. He felt a phantom heartbeat just saying it. He remembered saying her name for so long. It wasn’t something you could talk away or find words to soothe; it was a part of himself which was empty and would never be filled. The same with their baby daughter. He could see her growing up, but she would never grow up.