His expression didn’t change. “The barman tells me you’re English.”

Which was what I thought he was at the time, for his Irish upbringing was indicated more by tricks of speech and phrasing than accent.

I shook my head. “American.”

“You don’t sound like it.”

“I spent what they term the formative years in Europe.”

He nodded. “I don’t suppose you can play ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’?”

“As ever was,” I said, and moved into a reasonably straight rendering of the beautiful old Irish folk song.

It lacked John McCormack, but wasn’t bad though I do say it myself. He nodded soberly when I finished. “You’re good – too good for this place.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Is it all right if I smoke?”

“I’ll tell the barman to send you a beer,” he replied gravely.

He returned to the bar and a moment later one of Coimbra ’s flunkeys tapped him on the shoulder. There was a short conversation and they went upstairs together.

Lola came across, yawning hugely. “You’re losing your touch,” I told her.

“The Englishman?” She shrugged. “I’ve met his kind before. Half a man. Big in everything except what counts.”

She moved on and I sat there thinking about what she had said, working my way through a slow blues. At that time I was inclined to think she was talking into the wind, probably out of a kind of professional pique at being snubbed. A man didn’t have to be the other thing just because he wasn’t particularly attracted to women, although I’ve never seen any virtue in not indulging at every opportunity in what is one of life’s greatest pleasures as far as I’m concerned. The Sicilian half of me discovered women early.

I came to the end of the number I was playing and lit a cigarette. For some reason there was one of those sudden lulls that you sometimes get with a crowd anywhere. Everyone seemed to stop talking and the whole thing became curiously dreamlike. It was as if I was outside looking into the packed room and things moved in a kind of slow motion.