Une sorte de paradis

The first time he met Marjorie Williams he arrived for dinner with a bottle of Californian Merlot; she was pleased: how dd he know she liked red wine? She took him straight to the kitchen to taste the salt fish fritters she was frying. He told her, "This is the most delicious thing I've eaten since I got here", and he meant it.
"Thank you", and to Safiya, " A sweet talker; he can definitely come again."
At the point she didn't realise that he was sleeping with her daughter, taking her back to this apartment at the end of the day; sometimes in the middle of the day, if their schedules allowed it. No, to her mother, Safiya had simply described him as a lonely old English guy she had met through work, no more than that.
He was surprised by the old-fashioned feel of the house: the olive-green Formica cupboards and the white worktop, the narrow gas stove where the big coal pot rested, and the large fridge covered with paper scraps, postcards, mementos. Safiya was born in this house, and apparently nothing much had changed: the same wooden floors, the ceiling fan in the living room, the cabinet packed with crockery and her grandmother's cocktail glasses, the silver cocktail shaker. He'd noticed a line of blue glass bottles outside the swing door, and Marjorie said these were to keep away bad spirits.