His cigarette had grown a caterpillar of grey ash which he let spill on to the red tiles beside him: stubbed the butt against the shutters, pressed it into the tangle of bougainvillaea framing the windows.

No; that’s what it was. He was ‘saying it’ all right. No doubt about that. Looking back on it now it’s as clear as clear. I was a little bewildered down there with him, but I can see it all perfectly now. ‘The little things which other people overlook.’ Almost an implied threat, you might say. Keep off, young man. I know. You fancy my wife.

Perfectly potty.

You can’t stop people looking at each other, or how they look at each other, can you? Any rules against that? I don’t know exactly how I look at her: with pleasure, that is certain … and happiness. Is that bad?

I suppose that I’ve got to admit that she looks at me in a different way. I’ve seen it sometimes when I have turned suddenly and caught her unaware. It’s terrific. Clear, wide, very calm. Brimming. Makes me want to laugh aloud with delight; sometimes I have laughed. And she joins me, and we’ve said nothing. But I’d just like to take her in my arms and swing her round and round, like we did as children … just to hug her to me, all laughing. To hold her.

That’s all. Nothing wrong in that; is there?

He hunched forward looking through the balcony railings. Across the dark water the sapphire light of an ambulance winked urgently along the coast road to Nice. Turned at the point, was lost.

Except it seems to worry him. Archie Charlie. All that heavy-breathing stuff about age, Dodos … making everything sound ugly. I mean, that’s desolate! That’s really negative: and then saying that the ‘baton’ was valueless currency. He didn’t know I meant that I’d taken it from Cuckoo. Not him … and that it isn’t valueless; I know it, and so does she and the hell with him; I’m running, I’ll stick the race.

‘Be gentle at the parting,’ he said. Come on now! What does he think I’ll do, for Pete’s sake? Run amok, have hysterics, clobber the staff. What?

I’ll be gentle. I know that far better than he does … and I know that it’s time to go now. Time to leave: you get a sort of feeling; it all starts spilling out a little faster every day. Feel the emptiness coming up behind you. You’ve got to go.

He got up, pulled the shutters close, felt his way across to his bed, cracked his foot against cool brass, eased himself on to crumpled sheets, reached out a hand and touched Leni’s shoulder. She murmured, turned towards him, sighed. Was still; soft breathing. He looked up into the dark. Time to go. And tomorrow old Desmond again. Nice to see him. I feel quite glad; no, really glad. Lot to tell him. He’ll have a lot to tell me. Wonder what the ‘surprise I’m bringing with me’ can be? Never can tell with Des. A pound of Walls’ sausages, maybe the Range Rover he wanted; grown a moustache? It could be anything.