‘I’ve heard more about them here, since I came. Isn’t that funny?’

‘With Cuckoo and Charles? No. I’d say that that was right. I sometimes think that they invented them, but I can’t be sure. At least they keep them polished brightly, and you’ve noticed. That’s good. That’s just great. I’m so old that I’m time-frozen, I know that. I look, and I sound, like something in the “Late, Late, Late Show”. The forties were my happiest days; everything that came after them frightened me witless. So I rooted there; but even then principles were dying … but it was part of our tradition, our generation’s, to fight for them even if we weren’t all that certain what the hell they were, but we fought. The Cuckoos, the Charlies and the me’s: it’s an idiot’s war, we can’t win today. But I have a feeling that you’ve been doing just that yourself, this evening on the Papageno, and I think that’s just great, terrific! It gives me a kick, I drink to you, Mr Pollock, sir! Whatever means you used.’

She raised the almost empty glass and drained it. ‘Now,’ she said, pushing the earrings into her large Vuitton bag. ‘We must go. But just remember, illusions are for losing, Marcus. And when we get back to the villa, silence, okay? Nothing to Cuckoo or Charles; it’s not their affair, ours. Let’s not spread the muck. Let it lie, agree?’

‘Agree. There’s nothing I want to talk about.’

She collected the bag, stuck it under her arm. ‘Our secret then, ummm?’

‘Fine. Ours. I’m good at secrets.’

She smiled and bowed her head slightly. ‘I know you are,’ she said, and signalled for the waiter.

Chapter Ten

Marcus lay back comfortably in a wide buttoned-chintz armchair, Leni on his knees, her arms about his neck, looking through the pine to the lights of Villefranche away to the right, rippling in waving bars across the dark water of the bay.

Thunder rumbled and grumbled, rain platter-plittered through heavy leaves, the frail sound of an accordion and a lost melody drifted wistfully through the night. She pressed her lips into the hollow of his neck; he held her closer.

‘It’s going away. You hear? The storm.’

She nodded, kissed him.

A sudden, rolling crash of thunder, soft splashing, whispering; the accordion fading, loitering, under the mutter and murmuring; and then only the rain rustling, and the darkness.

‘All over,’ he said. ‘All gone.’ Switched off the cassette-player at his side. Leni brushed her spiky hair against his cheek.

‘I love it,’ she said. ‘It is so beautiful. It will always remind me of now, of here.’

‘Want any more? Play something else?’

‘No. No, leave it there, leave it with “Equinoxe”, don’t spoil it, the storm has gone; like ours. It’s funny, isn’t it?’