‘I suppose. But I will find it easier in England. But maybe he will not ask me to marry. I don’t know. He is happy just like we are.’

‘And you love him very much?’

‘So much. So much. So it must be enough for me.’

Cuckoo pressed her ‘joint’ into the trunk of the tree, crushing it flat.

‘It was not so good?’ said Leni anxiously.

‘Well. Not terribly. I mean I’m not radiant with joy all of a sudden.’

‘Maybe it was cheap stuff. And perhaps old. Is possible?’

‘Not an expert.’ She pulled on her hat. ‘He was only going for a drink, wasn’t he?’

‘He said. Maybe one hour.’

‘Should be back soon then, it’s nearly seven.’

‘At night sometimes, you know, I wake up just to watch him sleeping; he doesn’t know and I can look at him as long as I like.’

‘In the dark? Leni!’

‘Well, I “feel” him there. Hear him breathing. He speaks sometimes, you know? While he is quite asleep.’

‘Heavy sauces and cheese at dinner. I’m afraid. So unwise, but Bruna will do it.’

‘Maybe. Dreaming.’ Leni squashed out her own ‘joint’ on the back of the cigarette tin, blew the ash away, slid the tin into her pocket. ‘What is a shrimping net?’ she said.

Cuckoo raised her head suddenly, looked up across the rows of tidy vegetables and fruit lying below; Tonnino had started the evening watering, spraying the hose high in crystal arcs.

‘For catching shrimps. In the sea. Little grey things … you know.’

‘Oh yes. I know. Once he said, in a very clear voice, “Cuckoo! There is no shrimping net. Not without the net!”’ She looked down at the spraying water, the dripping leaves. ‘Isn’t that a funny thing to dream? And you were in it.’

‘Most odd: to be in it.’ She got to her feet. ‘Tonnino puts me to shame. I have done nothing.’

‘My fault. And I have been very boring, I think only of me.’

‘Rubbish! Come along, we’d better collect the forks and then go up to change. I’m so glad you told me everything. It’s far easier once one shares a problem, don’t you find? It makes things less of a burden, one doesn’t have to carry it all on one’s own, that’s hideous. So you just pick the right moment and tell him the other part of your life.’

‘My two souls,’ said Leni. ‘Goethe says: “Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust”.’

‘Does he?’ said Cuckoo taking her hand and starting down the grassy slope to the vegetables.

‘It means, “Alas! I have two souls in my breast”.’

‘And very lucky you are, dear; some people don’t even have one,’ said Cuckoo and pushed through the raspberries.

Minerva saw him at the traffic lights at Pont St Jean. Wound down the taxi window, stuck out her head.