Her husband presented the most extraordinary spectacle, staring at Danilo with a mute fixity that Claudia found completely inexplicable.

‘Riccardo!’ his wife admonished.

‘ Certo, si. Arrivo. Anzi, andiamo. Cioe… ’

Claudia vaguely waved and smiled.

When the front door finally closed behind her guests, she rose from the sofa.

‘I’m going to slip into something more comfortable,’ she said, turning her back but not moving.

Danilo obediently stood up and unzipped her dress. Claudia walked off into the hallway leading to her bedroom, the garment already tumbling off her shoulders and down to her waist. Leaving the door open, she unhooked her brassiere and breathed a soft sigh as it fell to the floor. She kicked off her shoes and wriggled out of the dress, then stripped off her stockings and unlatched the hateful corset. With a lilt she stepped across the ruins and slipped silk on like a younger skin.

‘So what was all that about?’ she remarked, returning to the living room.

Danilo was now standing by the sideboard stacked with photographs of Claudia’s son Naldo at every age from birth to twenty years. He was still nervously shuffling the cards.

‘Raffaela seems to be taking life terribly hard, poverina. Not that maturing is easy for any of us, but imagine a steady diet of four decades with the ghastly Riccardo, and then realizing that the clock has run out. It must be like being confined to one’s bed with some terminal illness when one’s never done anything or travelled anywhere.’

‘Whereas you’ve travelled from bed to bed, done everything and never been confined anywhere.’

Claudia wound the ankle-length robe loosely about her and uttered a practised laugh.

‘Honestly, the things you say! I always behaved perfectly while Gaetano was alive.’