What girl?‘

Pretty, earnest, Northern. Got drunk and shouted at your father about the Sandinistas.‘

That was Emma Morley.‘

Emma Morley. I liked her. Your father liked her too, even if she did call him a bourgeois 

fascist.‘ Dexter winced at the  memory. "I don‘t mind, at least she had a bit of fire, a bit of 

passion. Not like those silly sex-pots we usually find at the breakfast table. Yes Mrs Mayhew, 

no Mrs Mayhew. I can hear you, you know, tip-toeing to the guest room in the night . . .‘

You really are drunk, aren‘t you?‘

So what about this Emma?‘

Emma‘s just a friend.‘

Is she now? Well I‘m not so sure. In fact I think she likes you.‘

Everyone likes me. It‘s my curse.‘

In his head it had sounded fine: raffish and self-mocking, but now they sat in silence and 

he felt foolish once again, like at those parties where his mother would allow him to sit with 

the grown-ups and he would show-off and let her down. She smiled at him indulgently, and 

squeezed his hand as it rested on the table.

Be nice, won‘t you?‘

I am nice, I‘m always nice.‘ 

But not too nice. I mean don‘t make a religion out of it, niceness.‘

I won‘t.‘ Uncomfortable now, he began to glance around the Piazza.