The darkness faded in the light of the rising moon through the open windows. Across the bay the ragged hills were soft against the pale sky, lights sparkled, the sea lay silent, black oil marbled through with silver.

Wiped out tapes, I said. Stuffed birds in dusty cases, dinosaurs rattling about in a lost-time machine. What the hell was I thinking? I had no comparisons. It was a new world for me. It still is. But I was right about one thing. They know who they are, no confusion there. Not the very least particle of doubt. Secure, sure, belonging. That’s the whole crunch to life, I can see. And in knowing who they are they make you feel that you know who you are, confident, brave, alive and daring. It’s a bit like it must be when you do your first solo on the High Wire, flying through the air without a safety net, your heart in your mouth because you dared, and might not make it, and then you are caught on the other side in steady hands. The catchers. That’s Cuckoo and Archie Charlie, I’d say; the ‘steadies’, the ‘know-how-to-do-its’. I mean, this afternoon, Leni scared half to death, overcome by the car, the house, the whole bit: Cuckoo giving her a kiss, right off, thanking her for coming! As if she was doing them the favour and not the other way around. Now, I mean to say, honestly … that is something, that’s amazing! Could you see Decca doing that? Christ! You see? And because of that moment Leni was ‘secured’. She’d have gone right back and tried a bloody double somersault just to feel the safety in those hands again.

And Archie Charlie, down by the pool this evening, tall and slender, all in white, smelling of lemons, his hands outstretched shyly in welcome. ‘Don’t move! Don’t move! How pretty you look sitting there. Oh, if only Matisse could have seen you like that. They are his colours, you have his line. What a great pity.’ I don’t suppose that she knew what he meant but she laughed, and that was that; ice shattered. But he was right, absolutely right; she did look fantastic suddenly, bare feet, that old kimono Gus Bender gave her ages ago, a big red scarf round her waist, the collar of silver spoons she had made herself, a jug of anemones on the table beside her. I could see just what he meant, but I’d never have been able to express it … and she’d been so panicked before, nothing to wear, all that. And knew he meant it, wasn’t sending her up.

‘Oh, please!’ she had said. ‘I’m not pretty, you know.’