‘Why? Do you want to buy it?’ ‘Is it your house?’ ‘It’s my father’s.’ ‘And what does your father do?’ ‘He’s only a colonel.’ ‘Only a colonel?’ ‘Well, he should have been a brigadier by now.’ The man burst out laughing. ‘It’s not funny,’ she said. ‘Even Mummy says he should have been a brigadier.’ It was on the tip of his tongue to make a witty remark (‘Perhaps that’s why he’s still a Colonel’), but he did not want to give offence. They stood on either side of the wall, appraising each other.

‘Well,’ she said finally. ‘If you don’t want to buy the house, what are you looking at?’ ‘I used to live here once.’ ‘Oh!’

‘Twenty-five years ago. As a boy. As a young man.... And then my grandmother died, and we sold the house and went away.’ She was silent for a while, taking in this information. Then she said, ‘And you’d like to buy it back now, but you don’t have the money?’ He did not look very prosperous. ‘No, I wasn’t thinking of buying it back, wanted to see it again, that’s all. How long have you lived in it?’ ‘Only three years,’ she smiled. She’d been eating a melon, and there was still juice in the corners of her mouth. ‘Would you like to come in and look more closely?’ ‘Wouldn’t your parents mind?’ ‘They’ve gone to the club.’ They won’t mind. I’m allowed to bring my friends home.’ ‘Even elderly friends like me?’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Oh, just middle aged, but feeling young today.’ And to prove it he decided he’d climb over the wall instead of going round to the gate. He got up on the wall all right, but had to rest there, breathing heavily. ‘Middle-aged man on the flying trapeze,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I’ll help you,’ she said, and gave him her hand. He slithered down into a flower-bed, shattering the stem of a hollyhock. As they walked across the grass he spotted a stone bench under a mango tree. It was