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Almost one of relief. Noah was about to ask April if she would be willing to leave her job and follow him to London, even though he was fearful of the answer she would give him.
    She lowered her eyes, set her coffee cup down, took a deep breath.
    ‘I won’t be coming with you,’ she said, in a low voice, as if whispering.
    ‘I see.’
    ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’
    And there he was, thinking he would have to say the words. Because he knew it was him. Because of him.

2
    On the Beach
    The rain falls differently here. Not the constant drizzle of a New Zealand spring, or the umbrella-defeating sideways spray of a British winter, but in great sheets that erupt so swiftly from the heavens that droplets bounce up from the steaming tarmac and soak my knees in the same instant that I am drenched from above.
    I sprinted the last two blocks to Zaza, the café near the seafront in Ipanema where I was scheduled to meet Aurelia for a late lunch. My sandals slapped against the footpath, flicking more rain up my calves with each step. My white short-shorts bunched up uncomfortably between my thighs, perilously close to exposing the lace hem of my underwear. I felt infinitely thankful that, for once, I was wearing a proper bra beneath my singlet, and not one of the drawerful of flimsy bikini tops that I had accumulated since my arrival in Rio de Janeiro six months ago.
    On my right, a wide expanse of sand stretched for miles, all the way from Leblon, where my apartment was situated, close to the famed Copacabana. Those beachgoers who hadn’t already sought shelter in the neighbouring bars and restaurants were hurriedly gathering up umbrellas, deckchairs and sports equipment, and shaking out brightly coloured towels that formed streamers of blue, green, yellow and red against the darkening sky. Tropical storms were so full of life, clouds brewing mighty occult movements with an underlying magic that always delighted me.
    On my left, tourists hurried into hotel lobbies, pink-skinned and paunchy alongside the chiselled perfection of local beach bodies. The plastic tables they previously occupied now stood abandoned outside, cigarette stubs still glowing in ashtrays. A fat man dressed in a pair of black and white horizontally striped jocks held the hand of his kaftan-covered wife and stared at two young brunette women strolling ahead of him, their unfeasibly firm and round buttocks delineated by the thin straps of their thong bikini bottoms. The girls sipped from respective cans of diet guarana soda and walked slowly along, indifferent to the rain. Their tanning lotion mixed with the water beating over their skin and pooled into shining pearls that ran in rivulets over their curves.
    I kept running. Another block, and the hotels and cafés drifted further apart; isolated islands of commerce separating high-rise apartment buildings sheltered behind security gates, their plain exterior shells painted in bland hues of cream and grey giving little indication of the wealth that lay within the homes of Rio’s richest residents, anonymous despite the enormous sheets of glass that offered broad views over the ocean but sat too high up to allow outsiders a glimpse in.
    Raoul, who worked behind the counter of the juice bar on the corner of Rua Garcia d’Avila and Avenida Viera Souto, called out after me as I passed.
    ‘Olá bonita! Did I scare you away?’
    I turned my head towards him and smiled instinctively in response to the sound of his voice. He was broad-shouldered, shirtless and ripped. He wore his dark hair long, and it shone as though he had laboriously blow-waved and straightened it. His front teeth were a little crooked, a flaw that did not discourage him from grinning widely when I stopped by most mornings to order a maracujá juice or suco de caju, for the first time in my life breaking my perennial daily caffeine habit.
    ‘Come see me later,’ he cried out, and began to laugh, secure in the knowledge I was unlikely to do so.
    I