"Such a long holiday now you're at College," said his mother, "What are you going to do with yourself?"
"Off with my mates in August. Now? Thought I might drop down and see Aunt Jane for a few days."
"Aunt Jane? Well, that would be very nice of you. What put it into your head?"
"She was obviously pretty broken up with Uncle Bob dying, when she stayed with us. Thought she might like a bit of family company. She hasn't taken up with anyone else has she?"
"Not that I know of. They were very close. Such a lottery isn't it -- him getting so ill at only his age. Do you want me to ring her for you?"
"I was going to myself."
"Might be easier for me to find out if she really wants to have you staying. She wouldn't want to hurt your feelings."
"OK. Not really on to go so far unless I do stay." In fact he had quite another reason for wanting to stay, the idea of a gamble he might or might not take according to how things worked out.
He drove up in the late afternoon after a long day's drive. She lived in quite a large suburban house, up a short drive. He had not seen it since he was a child, but decided he did not like it -- Uncle Bill, his mother's brother, had been a beefy obvious sort of man who had bought an obvious house. Neither were much to his own taste.
His wife was another matter. When he rang she answered, looking far better than when he had last seen her soon after Uncle Bob's death. She was a fully built woman in her early forties, wearing a summer dress, her off-blond hair its natural colour.
She welcomed him, showed him to a pleasant room at the top of the house, gave him time to shower and change, and had made a real effort with the meal she had laid out for the two of them on the plain wood table of her large kitchen. They gossiped of family matters and of his first year at college, and got through the best part of a couple of bottles of wine. At last, over coffee, he broached the topic he had come to broach.
"So," he asked, "How's your social life? Have you taken up with anyone else at all?"
She looked rather surprised by this, but went with it. "Since you ask, not really. I have my friends of course. But if you mean men, no."
"Too soon? Not interested?"
"Quite an interrogation. Actually not too soon and not not interested. More opportunity has not knocked. Or, to be frank, it has knocked a few times but not to do with anyone I would want to spend much time with."
"You're a very attractive woman. There must be lots of worth while men out there who'd grab at the chance of you." He looked at her intently.
She seemed taken aback again.
"You think so do you? That's new on me. Since when?"
"Since when we were on holiday, do you remember, you and Uncle and mum and dad and me, in that hotel south of Venice."
"That's very precise. How come?"
This was the point at which he had to dare all.
"It was one morning. After breakfast. Before we went out into the hills for lunch. Do you remember?"
"I dimly remember the lunch. Breakfast and after breakfast have left no trace."
"I was coming back to my room after breakfast. It was just along the corridor after yours, on the other side. You'd left the door ajar."
"Had we indeed."
"I couldn't help hearing."
"Come on, spit it out. Hearing what?"
"Well, you calling out to him."