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‘Oh, anything will do,’ said Antonia. She looked up at her neighbour. ‘This is very kind of you.’

‘Not at all,’ said Domenica. ‘I sense that . . . Well, I might as well be frank. Things are fraught next door, I take it?’

Antonia looked down at her shoes. ‘A bit.’ There was a short silence, and then she added: ‘Very fraught, actually.’

‘Markus?’

Antonia sighed. ‘Yes. I must confess that I have been having a little fling with him.’

‘I could tell that,’ said Domenica, adding, hastily, ‘not that it’s any business of mine. But one notices.’

‘I don’t care if anybody knows,’ said Antonia. ‘But it’s over now, and it’s not very easy having one’s ex working in the house. You’ll understand that, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ said Domenica. ‘I had a boyfriend once in the field, years ago. He was a young man from Princeton, a heart-breaker – unintentionally, of course. When it didn’t work out, we found that we still had three months of one another’s company in the field. We were in New Guinea and we could hardly get away from one another. Sharing a tiny hut which the local tribe had thoughtfully built for visiting anthropologists. It was very trying for both of us, I think.’

Antonia nodded. ‘It must have been. It’s not quite that bad for me, but I still feel a bit raw over the whole thing.’

Domenica poured the boiling water into the teapot. ‘I take it that it was a comprehension problem. After all, he seems to have only one word of English. I suppose one can put a lot of expression into one word, but the whole thing can’t have been easy.’

‘Oh, we communicated quite well,’ said Antonia. ‘It’s amazing how much one can say without actually saying anything.’

‘Cistercian monks . . .’ began Domenica, but the look on Antonia’s face made her trail off.

‘He’s married,’ said Antonia abruptly. ‘He showed me a picture of his wife and children.’

Domenica said nothing for a moment. Of the problems that she had foreseen with this relationship, this was not one of them, and beside this, issues of communication seemed to fade into insignificance. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said. It sounded trite, she knew, but it was what she felt – she was sorry.

‘It’s my own fault,’ said Antonia. ‘What else can one expect if one takes up with somebody who’s virtually a complete stranger?’

Domenica tried to console her. ‘We all make mistakes when it comes to matters of the heart,’ she said. ‘It’s part of the human condition. I’ve certainly made mistakes.’

Antonia shook her head. ‘One makes such mistakes in one’s twenties, perhaps,’ she said. ‘But not later. No, there’s no excuse for me. None at all.’

It seemed to Domenica that Antonia was berating herself unnecessarily. It had been foolish of her, perhaps, to get involved so quickly, but she had no reason to apologise for that. Antonia was the victim here, and so had no need to look for excuses. She thought this as she went to the kitchen cupboard to get the bottle of green ginger wine. As Domenica poured herself a small glass, Antonia continued to speak. ‘I’ve been such a fool. I really have.’

‘You haven’t,’ said Domenica. ‘You’ve been human – that’s all.’

‘And he’s been human too?’

Domenica looked up at the ceiling. ‘Men take comfort where they can find it,’ she said. ‘And all the evidence is, is it not, that they are genetically designed to take up with as many women as they can. It’s something to do with genetic survival.’ She paused. ‘But lest you believe that I’m condoning this sort of thing, I must say that we’re designed to do exactly the opposite. We have to raise children, who take a lot of time. So we’re designed to keep men under control and in the home, providing for everybody. That’s the way it’s meant to work.’

Antonia took a sip of her Earl Grey tea. It was all very well talking about genetic destiny, she thought, but she felt let down, both by herself and by Markus. ‘I’ve let myself down,’ she said. ‘Badly.’

Domenica did not agree. ‘How can one let oneself down?’ she said. ‘Unless one is going to be intensely dualistic?’

Antonia ignored the