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holding the lorgnette and looking intense. Rather than have to talk to her Ellen left.
    It was too early for dinner so she went back to her room and ordered tea. The same waiter as had brought the Perrier came and after she had tipped him he still stood there, beaming.
    ‘Parlez-vous français?’ he said.
    ‘English,’ she said.
    ‘Anglaise …?’ he said: She nodded.
    ‘Ah Anglaise …’ he said triumphant.‘ I fear I have mislaid my bus ticket.’ He said it excitedly and laughed. They both laughed. The foolish laughter of strangers. She had to make it clear when she wanted him to leave.

Chapter Six
    T HE DINING-ROOM HAD A terrace. White tables stretched from one end to the other, and beyond the tables the palm trees were visible. Yellow floodlights flared on the trunks of those suave trees and on the tables there were candles alight. The grease of seasons had thickened on the sides of the candlesticks. Every colour candle had burnt in those thick bottles, every colour grease had encrusted itself. She thought of his story about the cochineal and wondered if they would be friends at Christmas time and could she give him a present? She sat with an American doctor who had marginal diabetes. It meant he had to pick his diet most carefully.
    ‘You come from?’
    ‘England,’ she said. She was tired of saying it and anyhow it was not true. But saying one came from Ireland resulted in tedious stories about fairies and grandmothers. He was a family man himself on a medical course. He was lonely.
    ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said, ‘I’m a happy man.’
    The kids and the hamburgers meant everything.
    ‘What about you?’ he asked.
    ‘I’m happy too,’ she said and looked down at her wedding ring to hint. Might they go gambling later?
    ‘Be my guest,’ he said. She shook her head and tried to reply but a fish-bone had got in her throat. He gave her a crust and told her to chew it hard.
    ‘Chew it,’ he said, very loud. He chewed fiercely to show what he meant. He was extremely coarse.
    ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘I just take the little lady out for the evening and we have fun.’
    She looked at him with distaste.
    ‘I’d hate to think you were getting the wrong impression. If I thought that I’d never speak to a strange woman again.’ His eyes were beginning to anger. She kept looking down at her napkin where it had been darned. The darn was old and from various washings the thread was almost the same white as the linen.
    ‘Let’s see if you’ll like it?’ he said.
    ‘Stop asking me,’ she said suddenly. He snapped his hand then and called the waiter. A young boy came over and the American told him to cancel the order for dessert. The boy did not understand. The American repeated the command and left.
    She kept her eyes on her plate for a while in case anyone else should engage her. But by nine o’clock everyone was seated and most people were half-way through. There was a feeling of agitation: pancakes burnt theatrically over flaming stoves, waiters talked angrily among themselves, overfull plates of soup just missed being bumped against, young boys knelt reverently to pick up a piece of cutlery that had fallen; and the diners talked and chewed with the savagery possible only in a strange public place where everyone else is talking and chewing as fiercely.
    And as surely as they had all come, and debated over what to eat, and eaten it, so they all filed out again, sluggish now that they had been replenished. The main lights were turned down and the fever of the room began to subside. Waiters pushed trolleys of used dishes towards the kitchen and other waiters carried clean white cloths under their arms and set about restoring the tables. She was last.
    It had fallen dark beyond the region of the dining-room. The light changed to ink without a dusk to forestall it. She’d eaten well. A raspberry seed had got caught in her tooth. Sitting there trying to worm it out, her eye fell on a