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People.’ For effect, and to add gravitas, she drew inverted commas round the words: Cat People, and whiskers in the air using her fingers.
    ‘Amazing.’
    At last - he spoke!
    ‘Cater-waiter, journalist; and now,’ he paused for effect, a smile lighting his smoky grey eyes, ‘anthropologist.’
    Charlee glanced to see if she could detect irony in his expression. His disapproval had vanished and in its place was an appreciative look that suggested he was impressed by her knowledge. Crossing her fingers behind her back she prayed he wouldn’t realise she was making it up as she went along.
    ‘Well, I wouldn’t quite go that far …’ She dipped her head modestly and - with her earlier gaffe forgotten - bounced back with customary chutzpah, full of dangerous self-confidence which usually preceded her descent into deeper dung.
    Now in full daydreaming mode, she was no longer Charlee Montague, cupboard dwelling troglodyte. She was Dame Charlotte Montague; blue stocking, Amazon explorer and doyenne of the late-night television circuit. In her mind’s eye, she saw Ant and Dec pleading with her to go on I’m a Celebrity in order to teach the contestants how to survive in the rainforest. Naturally, she would refuse. Nothing could distract her from penning her next learned article, which she would present at the Natural History Museum on the anniversary of Darwin’s birth - to a packed audience of envious peers.
    ‘Tell me more about the …’ he dragged her out of the daydream and back to the present.
    ‘Cat People of the Amazon?’
    ‘Precisely.’
    Glancing down at the inscription, she realised there was no information there. So, like a good journalist, what she didn’t know, she made up.
    ‘They revere the cat as a god,’ she began, regarding him with an expression she hoped was both serious and profound. It wouldn’t hurt to let him know there was more to her than rock, paper, scissors, being paid minimum wage, and an unguarded tongue. But she was edging her way forward. She had the unnerving feeling that everything she said was being filed away for future reference and he was just waiting for her to drop another clanger. Then, he would have her ejected from the gallery and fired from her job.
    ‘Rather like the ancient Egyptians?’ he added helpfully, moving the conversation along.
    ‘Exactly like the ancient Egyptians. Except …’
    ‘Except?’
    ‘Except, you can’t build pyramids in the rainforest … All those trees.’ Charlee’s alter ego, Dame Charlotte Montague, slipped alarmingly for a moment. ‘Although, I do believe that the Incas built ziggurats in the rainforest?’
    ‘Oh, quite.’ He took a sip of his cocktail and was beset by a coughing fit and Charlee had an awful suspicion that he was laughing at her. But when she looked again, he was straight-faced and serious - so she guessed she had him all wrong.
    ‘Let’s move on shall we? I find your erudition fascinating. Quite illuminating, in fact.’ He took her by the elbow and then stopped in front of a large photograph of an atoll. A long crescent of sand set in a turquoise sea so blue it almost hurt to look at it. ‘And this?’ he asked.
    ‘Ah, yes.’ A quick glance at the title in the bottom left-hand corner provided her next clue. ‘This is Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. You may have heard of it?’
    ‘You know, I don’t think I have.’ Engrossed, he turned to face her, and waited politely for her to continue.
    Now this Charlee did know about.
    When she was in primary school, her brother Tom and some of his uber cool sixth form mates had protested with Greenpeace outside the French Embassy in London because the atoll had been used as a nuclear testing ground. Inspired, Tom had gone on to study Environmental Sciences at Uni, and now worked as a lobbyist for various green pressure groups.
    ‘Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t advise you to ‘Thomas-Cook-it’ for a few thousand years, until the radiation subsides.’