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hot breath behind her scorching off the paintwork.’
    Gomer took me by the shoulder and told me to stay close to Cynlais and keep reminding him of his duty to Meadow Prospect, and Uncle Edwin gave me a few discouraging things about romantic love to pass on to Cynlais if the chance arose.
    Cynlais stood a modest five or six feet from Moira. I stared at Moira, my senses candent and amazed. Her eyes had the searing, purposive lustre of opened furnaces and in the hem of her skirt, almost as far away from the ground as the flag on the pole, a new dimension of arrogance was given to sex. Moira’s body and urges were meant to last and it was a relief to turn from her to study the resigned limpness of the flag, from which the starch of a dynamic tribalism had long since been laved.
    Cynlais just stood there with a dropped jaw and I had to give him a nudge to remind him that if he did not want Gomer and Milton Nicholas and the other fanciers to be closing in on him and applying violence, the best thing he could do was to deliver some simple message to Moira and marshal his thoughts for a bit of foot-racing. Cynlais pulled his jaw back into position and a beauty of longing settled on his face. In that mood he could have come out with a splurge of words that would have struck a new top note in bedroom rhetoric. But all he said was:
    â€˜Hullo, Moira. Oh, it’s good to see you again after so long.’
    â€˜Don’t talk to me, Cynlais Coleman,’ said Moira. Her voice was sharply impatient, but even Moira’s wrath had an edge of lubricious softness. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself. First of all jumping about like a madman at the head of that band, half naked and putting the preachers on edge, then sending those two jokers to my front door to get around my mother, indeed. What kind of serpent are you developing into, Cynlais?’
    â€˜They didn’t tell me they were going, honest. Gomer and Edwin were working off their own bats, and you know what a pair of terrors they are for being deep and unexpected. Can I see you tonight, Moira?’
    â€˜Not tonight or ever. I’m meeting Moelwyn Cox in front of the Gaiety at seven. Plush seats, back row, one and three, made to measure. Have you ever seen Moelwyn in his bullfighter’s uniform? After that you’ll always look very colourless to me, Cynlais. Has your heart ever been in the orange groves of Seville?’
    â€˜Never. You know that, Moira. The furthest I’ve been is that bus trip to Tintern Abbey with the Buffs.’ The last word came out like a sort of groaning gasp, as if someone had knocked all the wind out of Cynlais from behind. I thought this a very poor augury for the race and I was on the point of giving Cynlais a monitory kick on the shin when Moira let out a laugh that was so loud, contemptuous and yet passionately stimulant it put her instantly under the same shawl as Carmen. Gomer Gough was making that very point when we got back into earshot of the Meadow Prospect group.
    â€˜You hear that laugh?’ Gomer was asking. ‘The sight of Moelwyn Cox’s satin breeches has got that girl into a state where she could give a night-school course on lust as a tactic. Come on, Cynlais. Forget about Seville and get your knicks on. The only answer to Moelwyn Cox showing his cloak to the bull is you showing your butts to all humanity by leading the field here today.’
    â€˜I don’t go all the way with Nietzsche,’ said Uncle Edwin, ‘but the only recipe is the brutal force of triumph for that sort of girl.’
    Cynlais looked puzzled by that statement and Gomer had to explain. Then Cynlais looked downcast again.
    â€˜I couldn’t look at my knicks today, Gomer, not after that. I haven’t got the heart. Not after that.’
    â€˜Come on,’ said Milton Nicholas. ‘Think of the prize money.’
    â€˜ A ye, and the stinging way those judges spoke to you last Monday,’ said