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hotel.’
    I feel slapped. He must have noticed this in my expression because he adds ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ll keep the facade on the street. We’ll certainly keep the facade.’
    â€˜But the place is as solid as a rock. It doesn’t need demolition. That’s a complete waste of money.’
    â€˜You should write and tell our bank manager.’
    â€˜So what about the high ceilings and fans and the flowery, tiled floors?’
    â€˜Bulldozer.’
    â€˜It’s mad.’
    â€˜That’s what my father says.’
    â€˜And Big Bertha?’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜Can I have a whisky?’
    Certainly there is case for doing the place up. It’s not making the best use of itself. But really the nineteenth-century front half and the nineteen-twenties back half need only a clever, caring hand to turn this into a smart operation. That’s probably what’s missing. The cleverness.
    â€˜So after the summer,’ he says, ‘the bulldozers arrive. September 1st.’
    I clutch at a straw. ‘Why not demolish the nineteen-twenties bit at the back and keep the rest?’ ‘No. Demolish all.’
    That’s right. All. And they won’t retain the street facade. Of course they won’t. Too much trouble. They’ll get rid of the lot and stick up a box. I reach my room in despair, wade through a packet of dates, and pop a vitamin pill, while the rain pours down the window. This is the only hotel on Gozo with any history or personality. Therefore it has to be demolished. Haven’t they heard, in this wretched ditch of blinkered bank managers, that these days you restore? Sense of place is in, mate! The fading royal photographs, the imperial plaudits from the Palace at Valletta, the spacious period charm, everything will be swept away. Already I am mourning the hotel’s death, seeing clearly that the room wherein I lie will be two rooms, maybe four, a new floor slicing horizontally through my ribcage, an air-conditioned blast stinging the nostrils, polyester sheets bringing on prickly heat.
    I pour a big glass of Bacchus, not a good idea on top of whisky. Suddenly the ghosts of the place are very strong, aroused by imminent obliteration – scraps of chat about garden parties and illicit sex, threaded by echoes of foxtrot music – yes, the English this way came, bearing cocktails and epaulettes – you can hear them laughing and sighing, drinking, ruling, playing gramophone records and tennis, being languidly noble and controlling continents with a sardonic remark or a casual gesture born of romance and rectitude and boredom and fun, their blue eyes looking across a blue sea to beyond the horizon – nostalgia hisses into the room like a gas, as asphyxiating as a faceful of Pre-Raphaelite arum lilies. Nostalgia, loss, melancholy, are these not forms of love?
    Actually I feel awful. More Bacchus wine please. Yes, such a charming label. I must take a few bottles away with me. Because I shall leave Gozo now. Can’t live here for ever, after all. The clock which stopped is moving once more. Time starts eating again, with a crunchy noise like that of the deathwatch beetle.
    Easter Sunday. I drive to Ramla to say good-bye to Gregory – he is, as always, there. And so, to my great surprise and fascination, is – the frowning one. In a small place such as Gozo I must have seen a number of strangers several times over, but because they have not attracted my attention these recurrences pass unnoticed, fail to be granted the accolade of ‘synchronicity’. Not the frowning one however. Him I notice every time. And to-day he is not frowning but playing on the sand with two toddlers, obviously his own, while a young woman, obviously his wife, looks placidly on. The weather is better than yesterday’s and quite warm and the sun is out. Even so, he’s the only man on the beach who’s taken his top off. Once in a while he