The idyll was broken.

‘Excuse… please.’ A clear, uncluttered voice, an accent. He jolted upright. ‘I’m sorry. I…’

Eddie Deacon never considered that responding might change his life, push it on to a road unrecognised and unexplored… His eyes snapped open.

He saw the girl – dark hair, light skin, dark eyes. Hadn’t been aware of her coming to the bench… might even have been there when he’d taken his seat…

Mutual apologies. Sorry that he had been asleep. Sorry that she had woken him.

She wore a cotton skirt, short, not much of it, a white blouse, brief sleeves, and a textbook lay open on her lap, with an ItalianEnglish pocket dictionary.

Strangers pausing, wondering whether to go forward – and blurting together.

‘What can I do?’

‘Please, I am confused.’

‘How can I help?’

‘I do not understand.’

They both laughed, chimed with each other. Eddie Deacon pushed hair off his forehead. He saw that when she laughed the gold crucifix, dangling from a chain bounced on her cleavage. That was what he saw – and she would have seen? Him writing the script: not a bad-looking guy, pretty well turned-out, good head of hair, a decent complexion and a smile to die for. And she would have heard? A laugh that was infectious, not forced, and a voice with a tone of interest that was honest and not patronising. Well, he was hardly going to short-change himself.

‘What’s the problem?’

‘I don’t understand this – “turn over”. What is “turn over”?’

Eddie Deacon grinned. ‘Is this “turn over” in bed? Or “turnover” in business?’

‘Business. It is a book on auditing accounts in English – and it says “turn over”.’

He asked, ‘You’re Italian?’