Just the sound of it – just hearing the numbers – it was humiliating, but it made Dan want to cry. He stood before Arun, dirty, exhausted and unshaven, having spent the day in a concrete barracks, his status as a nobody reinforced, yet again, as if he needed his nose rubbed in it; made to look back at his dingy childhood, have the notion of himself as a student of art sneered at, judging his marriage through the tainted lens of circumstance. The chance to change everything was close enough to touch. Arun stood quietly, waiting, the sleeves of his pale pink shirt were turned up crisply, to the elbow. His wristwatch sparkled.

‘His daughter means a great deal to him,’ he said at last. ‘You understand? He wants to see her financially secure. Sadly, every time, she turns him down.’

There was silence.

‘It’s a shame,’ said Arun.

Dan, impotent, nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Shame.’

He shook Arun’s hand and walked back through the parterre; along the gravel paths, past a vast mass of tall white lilies, bright white in the sun, down, round the chateau, to the back entrance, and the car park, to meet his wife.

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