"After a moment Gomes said: 'I'm afraid I've been letting myself go. Do forgive me for talking so endlessly. It's a great fault of mine, I know.' The Bowens' protestations failed to stem a prolonged flood of eloquent and documented self-deprecation. He defended himself tentatively by suggesting that it was good for English people to hear what he had to say. Far outdoing him in the vigour, the Bowens aided this defence. He got up in the middle of it, put some money on the table and said abruptly; 'I hope you'll enjoy your stay in Portugal. For the tourist there are many attractions; for the residents, not quite so many.' He softened this rather cinematic apophthegm with a cordial handshake and a warmer version of his smile. His final wave, delivered from the driving seat of the most unnecessarily large of all the unnecessarily large cars on view, was also cordial.
As Gomes drove violently away he seemed to be leaving behind him the impression that his audience had failed him in some way. Not having a couple of armoured divisions (with sea and air support) to place at Gomes' disposal, Bowen could not see how this could have been avoided in large part. Still, a penumbra of trivial insularity had been pretty effectively cast over British domestic squabbles about housing policy or the next round of wage claims. This endemic drabness would no doubt be dissipated, Bowen reckoned, if Tories could actually be witnessed in the course of jubilation over something or other to do with capital gains, if Labour could arrange to televise a bona fide very fat man occupied in watering the workers' beer. But as things were, Gomes seemed to have provided yet another excuse for people like Bowen to be politically apathetic at home."
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