“Late felicitations, Mary Lou. Husband and wife is one flesh, and since I can’t kiss Rick—”

Tucker gave a yelp of laughter.

“—you take it out on Mary Lou! Hold it right there!’

A minute camera flicked into his right hand from his sleeve with the dazzling speed of a stiletto. The pic must be about in some drawer or other, perhaps in the library at Astrakhan, Nebraska. There’ll be Mary Lou, her beauty dulled by the instant record, there’ll be my scraggy yellow-white beard, yellow-white thatch and broken-toothed grin. The camera cannot have caught her warmth and softness. It was what you might call a close encounter of the second kind, no image of a girl but the pliant, perfumed, actual—I was not used to it and put very far off my guard. A wave of feeling pulsed up my right arm from the thin covering over her waist. My ageing heart missed a beat and syncopated a few others. She was perfect as a hedge rose.

“Wilf, you and Mary Lou should have a beautiful relationship. After all she majored—”

Mary Lou broke in.

“Now, hon, we don’t have to—”

But he was gazing down earnestly into my face.

“God, Wilf, Elizabeth is a dear person and I was truly sorry.”

“Oh, Mr Barclay—”

“Wilf, please. Try saying ‘Wilf’.”

“I don’t think I can!”

“Yes, do, do. Go on, just say it!”

“No, I, I can’t—”

We were all laughing and talking at once. Rick threatened to beat her if she didn’t, and I was saying I don’t know what, and she was laughing beautifully and saying that, no, she couldn’t, and—

“Oh, Mr Barclay, that quaint old house!”

Believe it or not, I never noticed. It was only later that I realized that my sometime quaint old house was where they had just come from. When we had done our silly laughter and paused, it was as if in expectation of some second act.

“Here. Why don’t we sit down?”

There was a bench seat. I sat in the middle. Rick sat on my left, Mary Lou sat down somewhat gingerly on my right.

“Wilf,” said Rick ponderously, “I have to ask a question.”

“Not about books, for God’s sake.”

“No, no, but— Well, I suppose you’re alone?”

“No constant companion. No just good friend. No seen constantly in the company of. D’you know, Mary Lou? I’m sixty!”

I paused, rather expecting Many Lou to be surprised. After all, I was rather surprised myself. But she nodded solemnly.

“I know.”

Rick leaned towards me.

“And you’re writing, Wilf?”

A touch of the old irritation came back. I grunted. Rick nodded.

“That kind of trauma.”

“Good God, man, it’s years and years—unless you’re talking about my . . . my Italian connection.”

“All the same—”

“Complete change of life style. Fancy-free. Can make a pass at any girl in sight with no one to say me nay but the girl.”

Mary Lou moved slightly along the bench. I had, after all, breathed in her face. I expect her mother had told her you can never be sure with men. Well. You can’t.