The waiter brings it without a saucer, just the cup, and outside the Tagus is doing that pale gold thing only October light knows how to do. I’ve been writing all afternoon — a chapter I’m not happy with, but the kind you have to write before you can write the one you actually wanted.

In Lisbon they understand that a flat white is not really about the coffee. It’s about the colour. A particular shade of light cream over warm brown, the way the foam sits flat instead of arranged. The way the city itself looks at this hour, if you squint a little.

“The whole afternoon had the texture of an over-stirred latte —”

— smooth at first, separating slowly toward the bottom. By the time I close my laptop the sun has dropped behind the bridge and a man at the next table is reading something in Spanish, smoking inside, which you can still do here in the right kind of café.

I’ll come back to the chapter tomorrow. Tonight I have notes, and a cup that’s gone cold the right kind of way, and the kind of fog that means it’ll rain by morning.