Mrs Camier, sensing that the conversation she had worked so hard to stimulate was about to dry up, and reluctant to be again exposed to the continuing monologue of Villiers Hadnett’s journey from Athlone, touched Finnamore lightly on the arm with the tips of her fingers and said she could easily see him adventuring in Africa—a claim that visibly startled the solicitor. Not understanding that Mrs Camier was seeking to set a carefree mood, he wondered why she had poked him with her fingers. It was unusual at dinner, he considered, for a woman to behave so; it seemed to him unusual, also, for a woman to keep opening and closing her eyes so much. Her husband, he noticed, was drinking a great deal of wine—which, if he only knew it, the Rollestons could ill afford. Mr Camier issued a short, barking laugh from time to time but did not speak much.

‘I have never considered life in Africa,’ he said. ‘I am not that kind of person.’

‘Then tell me, Mr Balt, what kind of a person you would say you were. Tell me without thinking. Say straight out. Lower your voice if you feel the need to.’

Further down the table, the Bishop’s wife spoke about her second son, who, in spite of not possessing his brother’s advantages, was also doing well, having established himself in Jacob’s Biscuits, where he was in charge of an accounting room. ‘At school he did the sums in his head. Never wrote a figure down.’ The Bishop’s wife nodded in support of her claim, disturbing a little the garnets on the folds of her neck as she did so. Lionel said he often ate Jacob’s biscuits.

‘So, you see, it is the year of the bridge.’ Re-filling the wine-glasses, John James endeavoured to keep things going on the other side of the table. ‘We shall remember 1931 as that. The bridge that never was, I’d lay a wager.’

‘I should have thought, more likely, as the year of Villana’s wedding,’ the Bishop corrected.

‘That too,’ John James willingly conceded. ‘Villana’s wedding.’

Lionel’s thoughts, also, were far removed from the conversation he engaged in. So were Villana’s. Mrs Moledy’s naked body had now entered John James’s and would not go away.

‘I think I am a serious person,’ Finnamore said in reply to further pressure from Mrs Camier. ‘I think I am a person who takes things seriously. I was a serious child. I have a serious disposition.’

‘And nothing else to add, eh?’