He introduced himself and his wife and launched into what he knew about the weather and the town and the hotel. He and his wife had been coming to the same hotel for almost thirty years. They come the same week every year. He liked to talk, and we let him. We heard about the changes in the hotel, which weren’t that many, over the years, and the changes in guests, which were mostly regrettable. “They try to sort them out,” the man said, “but I guess some of the odd sorts always slip through.” Frank gave the man a long look, but we didn’t take his meaning the same way. He smiled and the wife smiled and he went on and told us about their favorite places, that sort of thing.

“There’s a tennis court not far from here. Do you play?” I told him I was on the team in high school. Frank gave me a look. It was a lie and a mistake; I knew that. But we were on vacation. I wanted to give the man something. And now he had it and wouldn’t let go. “Did you bring your kit?” he wanted to know. I hadn’t, I told him. I hadn’t played in years. “Too bad,” he said. “I’d love to get in a game with you.” It was a detail he kept for every time he saw me the rest of the trip. “I’ve asked about a racquet,” he told me at breakfast.

“I don’t have the right shoes,” I told him. “Besides, I wouldn’t give you a good game.”

“Any game is a good one,” he said and again lamented my lack of kit.

Frank wanted to avoid them, but they were nice enough. Our schedules seemed to align with theirs – we saw them at breakfast and at dinner in the hotel – and I didn’t want to change our schedule, so we continued to see them. He talked about tennis and previous trips, and she was mostly quiet, and all we had to do was listen for a few minutes. They had a charm about them, and seemed to know every shop, restaurant, and doorway in the area. They were fixtures of a sort, a reminder of what the world used to be like, when people used to make their way on the Grand Tour, I imagined. “Colonialism,” Frank said.