Sometimes Marco opens the garage to bring a car down into town, to go shopping or run other errands that can only be done where people collect, down in the wells of valleys. I am sitting near the driveway on one of the little teak benches that are clustered there, so I see him open the huge panel door of the garage with deliberate care, disappearing into the murk and dust. Somewhere in there an engine wakes, squalling and eager to be gone. He gentles the car out into the sun.

He has selected the red one.

He sees me there and waves me to him. I would be stupid to refuse; the red one does not come out much. I hop in over the door, sliding into the cool seat. Marco fishes in the glove box for a pair of sunglasses for me: it is a requirement, somehow. With a smirk, we are off. We bounce down the hills and flow around the corners, testing physics with the tires and the wheel. We flow and slip across two lane roads, one lane roads, roads that would be pressed to be called so. Half lane roads. There is dust and sun and the only thing to do is relax and see what will happen.

We arrive at the village (Marco always does). Marco hops out even before the growl has fully died, and busies himself with pushing coin after coin into the meter. His tongue is showing a little as he concentrates on this, and it makes him look like a little boy. He looks at me.

"I knew a man who tried to cheat on these," he says, tapping the side of the meter with a coin. "Or merely be very efficient." He shrugs. "It came down to the same thing. He knew the patterns of the meter maids, and made guesses as to how long he would have to get back to the car after the coins all fell in his meter, racing their slow patrol."

"You have enough in there to keep us until Tuesday," I tell him.

"Maybe," he says. "We might get the shopping done and go right back, or stop for a coffee, or meet someone in the coffee shop, or get invited to go dancing, or spend the night in some small house up the lane with candles and an old man playing the lute and better food than we can make." Marco is a very good cook. "That man I knew worried a great deal, and it made him unhappy." He claps me on the shoulder and smiles at me. "You are too young to worry."