A sound like the drone of a thousand bees awakened me, though I barely knew I had been asleep.

Then Aidan’s footsteps crossed the courtyard and hurried up the stone stairs. He found me sitting on our narrow balcony, as I did every afternoon when it was too warm to go out walking, and crouched in front of my chair. Through a still-sleepy haze I looked at his sun-touched face and unruly hair. He looked younger than usual, less like an actor and more like an excited boy. I had to stifle the desire to take his face between my hands. “What was that funny noise?” I asked.

“Noise? Oh, never mind about that, that’s just my motorcycle. The point is, David’s arrived!”

“Oh! Why have you got a motorcycle?”

“Because I’m fed up with waiting for that scoundrel Angelo to drive me around. He’s always late, and he’s a worse drunkard than I am. But don’t you want to hear my news? Giovanni told me today that David and some companions have arrived for a stay at his villa. Stefano, Giovanni’s son, is coming from Rome, too, so there is bound to be a party, to which I will be invited. I’ve mentioned ‘my cousin Sarah’ to Giovanni on several occasions, and he’s always looking out for a nice girl for Stefano, though Stefano wouldn’t know a nice girl from a hole in the ground, so I don’t think it will be difficult to get you an invitation too.”

As he talked, I watched his eyes. “The eyes have it” was the popular phrase to describe good acting, a pun on the pronouncement of a triumphant bill in the House of Commons: “the ayes have it”.

Aidan’s eyes had more “it” than I had ever seen, except when he was acting. There was a light in them, an alertness, a desire to move ahead and get something done.

“So we have to do it at this party, or never?”

He nodded. “No rehearsals and no script, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll be so nervous!”

He stood up. In the small balcony space, his body obscured the sun. I could not see his features, but his voice was determined. “Tell me something, Clara. Do you think you could learn to ride a motorcycle?” He was leaning against the balustrade, arms folded, with the smallest of breezes lifting the forelock of his hair. There was a question in his eyes, but excitement too.

“As a matter of fact,” I told him, “I can already.”