‘There is one other thing, very important, I want to say to you. When the time comes, don’t let Archie fuss me into some ghastly clinic. I don’t know how you are going to stop him, but you must. I won’t prolong anything which I find to be unbearable, ugly, distressing or undignified. I’ll make sure of that; and when that moment comes I want to to be alone with you, here, in this room, at this window, looking at this sky. Just us? Do you understand me?’

Bruna didn’t trust her voice, so she nodded. After a time she cleared her throat. ‘Ah, ma belle! I wish, oh! how I wish …’

Cuckoo stopped her with a swift raising of an arm from a billow of ruffles. ‘Bruna dear! If wishes were horses beggars could ride,’ she said.

He was sitting at the far end of the pool, a book propped up against his knees, among the tumbled blocks and capitals. She stood under the Albertine arch, a half hoop of dead blossoms rather like, she thought, dirty handkerchiefs. Starting down the steps, calling to him as she went, seeing him look up and lift a hand in welcome, she took a deep breath. Strange how one really does do that before something unpleasant: like cleaning up dogs’ messes, washing a hundred pots and pans; telling a lie …

‘Alone we are! Deserted? How odd!’

‘Well, Leni’s gone to have her hair done. Or something. terribly secret. She’s in a great state, hatched some plot with Uncle Desmond’s doxy.’

‘Doxy? Surely not?’ She laughed and sat on a block beside him.

‘Something like. Probably going to dye it green, I wouldn’t wonder.’

‘What are you reading? You are almost at the end.’

‘Persuasion. I promised Archie Charlie to get it finished before I left. But there won’t be time for “questions and answers”. And I liked that.’ He closed the book, laid it aside. ‘Also I wanted to just be here, alone. I love this place.’

‘I’m interrupting!’

‘Oh God! No! Never. It’s just last-day nostalgia. You know. Trying to burn it into my brain so I’ll always remember, every stone, crack in the stone, every bud on the Morning Glories, all of it. These tumbled columns. Mars over there, the pillars, it’s all a bit like Pompeii, isn’t it?’

Oh, how marvellous, she thought, an oar thrown to help me steer my course.

‘Pompeii! I was just talking to Bruna about that: how odd. You’ve never been there though?’

‘No. Never. Pictures. A movie. Read about it.’

‘I always think that this house is a bit like Pompeii,’ she said. ‘Can you possibly imagine what I mean?’

‘No. Frankly. Pompeii is dead, isn’t it? Ruins?’