Isn’t it funny how little we really know about each other? How much we manage to conceal. Even though we screw like ferrets, share the same bath water, eat the same meals, lie together in the same bed; we never quite tell it all. Strangers really. For most of our time. Keeping secret little pockets of individuality to ourselves. Not fully sharing. Not giving ourselves entirely away. Never open; really open. Holding on to fragments of ‘self’, the private ‘us’.

I wonder why?

A form of self-preservation, I suppose. Concealing the areas in which we can be hurt. Like she did last evening after I came back from ‘La Civette’. She very nearly succeeded, but not quite.

‘You were such a long time,’ she had said. ‘You told me just a drink, maybe for an hour?’

‘I wasn’t much longer. I had a drink on the ship, then met Minerva coming home.’

She waved an anxious hand. ‘I know. I know. It’s all right. I was just worried.’

‘Why? Think we’d sailed off and left you all forlorn?’

‘Something like that.’

‘I mean, what was I supposed to do? Send a pigeon or something? You’re going to be a nag.’

‘You mustn’t be angry. I was, just, well, you know … if you love someone.’

‘I do love someone. Now shut up. Sorry I was late.’

‘And the ship? Was it fine? You are glad you went?’

‘It was very fine. Yes, glad, it’s terrific.’

‘And they were all there? Lilli Scarlatti, the man with the glasses?’

‘Belluno. Yes, he took me round.’

‘And the Film Star one?’ Got to her at last.

‘She wasn’t there.’ Lie. Keep things tidy.

‘Oh. I thought she would …’

‘Gone to the hairdressers. All that lovely red hair.’

A long pause. Then.

‘At six o’clock in the evening?’

‘This is France, Leni. Not Shepherd’s Bush.’ Slipped round that one nicely.

‘Well, I’m happy it was so lovely.’

‘I didn’t say lovely. It was fine. Glamorous. And I didn’t screw Sylva Puglia.’ True.

‘I don’t know why you think I am so worried that you did.’

‘Of course not? You look as calm as a sitting hen.’

‘It’s because it is so hot. Thunder somewhere maybe. A storm coming.’

‘Clear as clear. And the film is off, as far as I know. We didn’t mention it.’ How the lies trip off the tip of the tongue. But ‘helpful’lies. Don’t do any harm; but it didn’t really make much difference to her, I knew that there was more than the film and Sylva Puglia on her mind: and of course it’s all come out tonight. But only now. The passport. As if a name mattered.