'A toast,' said Senhor Rodrigues, getting into the spirit, 'to Olivia Coelho for making all this possible.'

We drank again and Olivia planted a red 'O' on my new white cheek.

'One more thing,' I said to the packed bar buzzing with beer, 'who fixed the scales?'

There were two seconds of frost-britde silence until I smiled, a glass smashed and the barber came in with a plastic bag which he presented to me.

'Your clippings,' he said weighing it with a kiss. 'A two-kilo bed for your cat.'

'Don't tell me that now.'

'It must have been what you had living in there that weighed,' said the mayor. We all looked at him. He fingered his microphone. Antonio put three more beers on the counter. Olivia and I turned into each other.

'Me?' I said to her quietly. 'I think it was the past all tangled up in it.'

She licked a finger and wiped the lipstick off my cheek, her eyes brim-full for a moment.

'You're right,' said Antonio, suddenly between us, 'history's a weight, a dead weight too… isn't that right Senhor Rodrigues?'

Senhor Rodrigues belched politely into his hand, not used to proletarian drink.

'History repeats itself,' he said and even Antonio laughed-the communist who can smell the pork meat of a capitalist when they're roasting him as far away as the Alentejo.

'You're right,' said Antonio. 'History's only a weight to those that lived it. For the next generation it's no heavier than a few school books and forgotten with a glass of beer and the latest CD.'

'Eh, Antonio,' I said, 'have a beer yourself. It's Friday night, tomorrow's your saint's day, the poor people of Paco de Arcos are nearly six million better off and I'm back on the drink. The new history.'

Antonio smiled and said: To the future.'

We all went out to eat that night, even Senhor Rodrigues who might not have been used to the metal tables and chairs but appreciated the food. It was the meal my stomach had growled over for six months. Ameijoas a Bulhao Pato, clams in white wine, garlic and fresh coriander, robalo grelhado, grilled sea bass caught off the cliffs at Cabo da Roca that morning, borrego assado, Alentejo lamb cooked until it's falling apart. Red wine from Borba. Coffee as strong as a mulatto's kiss. And to finish aguardente amarela, the yellow fiery one.