But he found that refuge was now denied him. Nikki saw to that. She loved nothing better than to talk to him and would pounce, bombarding him with questions.

She was endlessly fascinated by his foreignness, especially his use of Italian words and expressions. The day she first heard ‘Assolutamente niente’ she was in seventh heaven.

‘It means “absolutely nothing”,’ she explained to Laura, for perhaps the tenth time.

‘Yes, darling, I know what it means.’

‘Doesn’t it sound lovely? Assolutamente niente. Assolutamente niente.’

‘If I hear that expression once more,’ she seethed to Gino, ‘I shall commit murder.’

‘Poor Nikki,’ he grinned.

‘Not her. You! This is all your fault.’

At school Nikki boasted of her Italian friend, to such good effect that the geography teacher enquired, via Mrs Baxter, whether Gino would give a talk one afternoon.

‘Me?’ he demanded hilariously. ‘A teacher?’

‘You don’t have to teach anything,’ Nikki hastened to reassure him. ‘Just talk about Italy, and how everything’s got music and colour, and there are lots of bandits-’

‘Bandits?’

‘Aren’t there bandits?’ she asked, crestfallen.

‘Assolutamente niente!’ he said firmly, and she giggled.

‘Not just one little bandit?’ she pleaded.

‘Not even half a bandit, you little devil.’

‘Oh, please.’

It ended, as it was bound to, with him giving his good-natured shrug and agreeing to do what she wanted. He got the afternoon off, and he turned up at the school soon after lunch. He had no idea what he was going to talk about, except that he drew the line at bandits.

Inspiration came when he discovered the pupils were studying Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. After that he talked about Verona, and the house that purported to be where the Capulets had lived, complete with a real balcony.