In Hungary, they don’t say ‘I don’t want to play devil’s advocate here.’ They say ‘I don’t want to paint the Devil on the wall here.’ I think I prefer their version. I learned it from Reka, who grew up there. I woke up to the sound of her coming home at around two last night. Her bar job means she’s often home late, but this time I suspect she’d been on a date. Couldn’t see the guy’s face properly but he was her usual type: all shoulders, leather and hair. Motorbike. Reka has told me she has no interest in what she calls ‘gamer boymen’ of around her age, and her dates all tend to be around fifteen years older. Men with strong jawlines and engine oil in the folds of their hands. She is very matter of fact about it when one of them proves unsuitable, just as she is matter of fact about almost everything. She is an individual who makes a decision about what she wants and does not swerve from it, no matter whether or not it is expected of her. She decided she wanted to make a life in Britain, and, three years ago, came to Britain, alone. She saw the moor on a TV nature documentary, decided she wanted to live here, as long as it was within a couple of miles of a bus route to the city, and answered the ad I put up in the post office. She said she would learn to drive, and did so, within not very many weeks, and found a functional car for less than a thousand pounds. She is a good housemate, but has a habit of leaving full glasses of water at various points around the building. If she has been home for any period above three hours, I’ll usually find at least four of them on tables, sideboards, sinks and the floor. When she leaves for work, they disappear, but she never comments on this, and I wonder if she thinks it happens by magic. Before I take them back to the kitchen to be emptied and washed, my cat, Rafael Perera, enjoys drinking from them. Reka was not a cat person when she moved in here, but has been converted, and Rafael Perera, who is named after a doctor who once saved my life, now sleeps on her bed as often as he sleeps on mine. She commented the other day that he was ‘wide asleep’ on there. I enjoyed this hugely and only reluctantly explained to her that it was a malapropism. Upon me then responding to her request to explain what a malapropism is, she told me that in Hungary malapropisms are referred to as ‘golden spit’. I told her I would like to learn Hungarian but she replied that I should not bother, as it is ‘crazy, a devil’s language’ and would take me at least twenty years of hard work to get the hang of.