The next day she said it again: “Tomorrow, perhaps,” and after that it was as hot in the house on the beach as it was in the house on the hillside. At night, it was even hotter; the stone radiated heat that it had stored during the day. Night brought no relief.

I told her about August in New York, about the wet heat that clung to us like a hot, damp cloth when we stepped out onto the street from an air-conditioned building. Our money ran out and we looked for work. We also moved out of the Waldorf Astoria. The cheap hotel we found was on a street by the Hudson. Two rooms shared a bathroom between them, and if our neighbour forgot to unlock the door to our room when he’d finished, we had to knock on his door, or, if he’d gone out, get the surly porter to come upstairs to unlock it. There was only one bed.

“And?”

“I slept on the floor. It was so hot that I didn’t need a blanket. When I could not sleep, I climbed out of the window and sat on the fire escape, looked out on the lit street and the black river. Sometimes you would come and sit with me.”

“What did we talk about?”

“You had found a job in Brooklyn as a waitress. I’d found one at McDonald’s. We told each other about our jobs. Did you know that McDonald’s has its own university? The Hamburger University? When they took me on they promised that once I received my work permit, and if I proved myself, I would be sent to the university. As it was, I was happy when they moved me from the kitchen to the counter.”

Irene laughed. “You can’t help it, you have to make a career.”

“But not at McDonald’s. I wanted to be a lawyer again and I had found out that while I couldn’t take the bar exam in New York without first getting a law degree, I could in California. So I wanted to go to California. At the same time, we liked New York; we had seen how much the city had to offer, even to people with no money. We made friends, we had an apartment lined up. But then…”