“It’s not lovely, James. You know it’s disgusting. You know we only drink it because it’s hot and sweet and it’s all we can get. We drank proper coffee together in Egypt and you call this lovely? Why are you doing this? Why are you like this?”

“I really don’t—” he said, but I gave him no time to continue. I went and got the car keys.

“Don’t ask Mrs. Goodwin,” I said, putting on my coat. “It’s not her I want to talk to.”

If I drew a sketch map of my route out of Alver Shore, it would have nothing in common with the atlas or the motorist’s map. The tracks would wander, out of scale, the turns defined pictorially—a tree here, a barn there, a scarecrow in a field. I never learned a single road number or street name. When I set out after what I would come to call the Camp Coffee incident, I wasn’t even sure I’d find the place again. Luckily I came to a certain junction where the trees and verges and sky seemed a little brighter to the left, lit in some way by my memory, and I knew I was on the right road. Once more I climbed over the big bare back of the hill and came down into the village. It was the same for every following visit. I drove out of Alver Shore using a mixture of recollection and instinct. I didn’t want to see the village on the map, tentacled by real roads in black or orange that led all over the county. I pretended it was in another world, and I was the only one who knew how to get there.

—

The place seemed so much bigger and busier than before. I passed a grocer, a baker, a saddlery, a pub. I simply hadn’t noticed them the first time. Distracted, I almost overshot the turning. I parked where I had before, under the wall at the top of the lane.

The last bungalow on the left, the elderly man had said. Pointing with his cane toward the blind bend.

I set off. I was a mess of nerves, my heels slid over the wet ground, my breath was loud in my ears. I brought the umbrella low and the damped-down patter of the mild wet autumn raindrops, with their hint of saltiness, awoke an early memory, or the imagination of an early memory, of rain falling on the hood of my pram as my mother wheeled me along on a winter day in Alexandria when the air smelled of the sea.

Alexandria was still there, on the distant continent of Africa. I tried to picture the city but it seemed tiny, unreal.