We're thieves, he thought of saying, scavengers, you can't trust us, that's what both my wives discovered, so they left me. My first, Hildegarde, was German: what did daddy do in the war? He'd written an answer to that question. 

He felt a surge of empathy with Kyle, though he had taken a scunner at him, and felt tenderness for this bruised girl who sipped her Campari-soda and looked fragile. 

He would have like to take her in his arms and kiss her, but Kyle, he knew, was a sort of brother. Strange discomfort afforded by the profession.Two middle-aged ladies in tight-fitting dresses were eating cakes at the next table. Fragments of their conversation drifted in Forbes's direction. A long complaining story: "Dunque," said one, forking cake into her mouth, "e poi," she added as if to deter interruption. What, Forbes gathered, was she to do with her son-in-law who refused to work, all positions offered an offence to his dignity? Or had he got it wrong, with his deafness and patchy Italian? 

"I shouldn't have burdened you with this," Kim said. "I'm sorry, but I did want you to know that she kept your book with her right to the end, and it mattered to her. That's why it matters to me now, in a different way."

"And your husband's? Kyle's? That matters too."

"Yes," she said. "It's abuse, you see. You do understand that it really is abuse, don't you?"

It's what we do, he thought again of saying, and might indeed have said so this time, but he looked up and saw her husband, Kyle, turning into the piazza. 

She saw him too and put Forbes's novel back in her bag.

"I haven't spoken to you about this," she said. "About any of it."

He tipped his grappa into his coffee and drank it.

"This is Adam Forbes," she said to her husband.

"That was fucking pathetic," the young novelist said. "If they're going to drag you half-way across the world, you'd think they'd make sure there was an audience. Fucking waste of time."

Forbes put a match to his cigar.

"Have a beer," he said. "Or something else. It's a beautiful day and we're in a beautiful town and your wife tells me I should read your novel. She says it would interest me. Not many do these days, but I'll take her advice. You've had quite a success with it, haven't you?"