‘Much better idea if we always did that. History is very dull, life should be tarted up … more romantic: it doesn’t last very long.’

He suddenly took her hands, bent his head, and kissed them lightly. ‘You really are very sweet. Pretty too,’ he said.

‘Do I look all right, really?’

‘Really. Lovely. I was being very disagreeable … got fussed. You’re looking forward to all this, aren’t you? You’ve always loved a lot of people about you, I know that … I’m an awful stick in the mud.’

She withdrew her hands, kissed his lips. ‘You’re not disagreeable at all. You are very dear and you can be wonderfully charming.’

‘It’ll cheer you up, I think. You’ve been a little … sad, haven’t you? Recently?’

‘Have I? I didn’t feel sad.’

‘Looked it sometimes, when you thought I didn’t notice.’

‘Did I? Oh it’s just age … one gets weary.’

‘I notice things, you know. An eye for detail, after all; my job really … sifting through the things other people have overlooked. But I see. Come along … I’ll just take a quick shower while you mix me another Martini.’

She watched his straight back going up the stairs, elegant, spare. ‘Come to the pool when you are ready, darling. Drinks down there. You must meet the child before we dine; she’s made up her mind that you’ll terrify her.’

He raised a hand in agreement and went into the gallery. For a moment she stood by the table in the hall, snapped a yellowing frond from the fern in the Tuscan pot, crushed it in her hand. Sifting through the things which other people overlook. What an odd remark to make. I must watch my step. She went out into the late sun and walked slowly down the gravel path towards the point and the pool, past a sullen Tonnino replacing begonias with nicotianas.

She lay tightly curled up, completely covered by the thin, white sheet like one of the dead in Pompeii, of whom he had seen pictures. A tiny figure overtaken by the events of a hot summer morning. Only Leni wasn’t dead, thank God, even though she was hardly breathing. Just knocked out, that’s all. Overcome by the events of another summer day; out like a light. He kissed a spike of hair which was all that showed of her, slid into his own bed and put out the light between them. Stared up into the sudden dark, arms behind his head, too bemused to seek sleep. Amazed, serene. Peter Gabriel low on the pocket-transistor. A magic kind of day, you could say. Well, say it. Magic. They don’t come often. And a different night from last night up in the Bachelor’s Room sorting out the facts of a flash-back life. But I was different then.