“I was only joking back there,” said the driver. “That bit about doing the same thing twice. Only joking.”

“Of course,” said Matthew.

“I count the air strokes on my golf card,” the driver went on. “Put them all down. Which is more than some do.”

“Naturally,” said Matthew.

They paid and got out of the taxi. “I’m afraid that I don’t believe him,” said Matthew, as they walked through the doors into the terminal.

Elspeth disagreed. “Why?” she asked. “Why disbelieve him?”

“I bet that he tried it twice.”

Elspeth shook her head. “You have to believe people,” she said. “You have to start off by trusting them.” She felt that, of course, but then she thought for some reason of Tofu, and Olive, and of the facility, the enthusiasm, with which they distorted the truth. Bertie was the only completely truthful child she had known, and perhaps Lakshmi. The rest…

They went to the check-in and handed in their suitcases. The woman behind the desk smiled at them. “Honeymoon?” she asked.

Matthew showed his surprise. “How did you know?”

“Because you have that look about you, and…” She paused for effect. “You didn’t say that you were on honeymoon. So many others do. Looking for special treatment. And then you look at the finger, and what do you see? No ring.”

Matthew glanced at his left hand. So strange; it was so strange, this public declaration of commitment, this announcement of love, made gold in this modest band.

“We’re going to have such a marvellous time,” he whispered to Elspeth, who looked up at him and said, “Yes.”

He was thinking of life; she of Australia.

13. A Poser for Bruce

Bruce Anderson, erstwhile surveyor and persistent narcissist, had not been invited to Matthew and Elspeth’s wedding, although he had heard about the engagement and had congratulated Matthew – in an ostentatiously friendly way – when they had bumped into one another in the Cumberland Bar one evening.