Drago gives a crooked smile.

'Part of a growing boy's education. Better than sending him off to that pretentious college in Canberra. Give him a glimpse of the wilder shores of love. Let him see how one navigates the passions, how one steers by the stars – the Great and Little Bear, the Archer, and so forth. The Southern Cross. He must have passions of his own by now, he is old enough for passions. You do have passions, don't you, Drago?'

Drago is silent, but the smile does not leave his lips. Something is on the go between the woman and the boy. But what?

'Let me ask you, Drago: What would you do if you were in Mr Rayment's shoes, if you were Mr Rayment?'

'What would I do?'

'Yes. Imagine: you are sixty years old and suddenly one morning you wake up head over heels in love with a woman who is not only younger than you by a quarter of a century but also married, happily married, more or less. What would you do?'

Slowly Drago shakes his head. 'That's not a fair question. If I'm sixteen, how do I know what it is like to be sixty? It's different if you're sixty – then you can remember. But… It's Mr Rayment we are talking about, right? How can I be Mr Rayment if I can't get inside him?'

They are silent, waiting for more. But that seems to be as far as the boy, who despite his hangover still has the looks of an angel of God, will venture into the hypothetical.

'Then let us rephrase the question,' says Mrs Costello. 'Some people say that love makes us youthful again. Makes the heart beat faster. Makes the juices run. Puts a lilt in our voice and a spring in our walk. Let us agree that it is so, for argument's sake, and let us look back over Mr Rayment's case. Mr Rayment has an accident as a result of which he loses a leg. He engages a nurse to look after him, and in no time has fallen in love with her. He has intimations that a miraculous, love-born reflorescence of his youth might be around the corner; he even dreams of engendering a son (yes, it is true, a little half-brother to you). But can he trust these intimations? Are they not perhaps a dotard's fantasies? So the question to ponder, given the situation as I have described it, is: What does Mr Rayment, or someone like Mr Rayment, do next? Does he blindly follow the promptings of his desire as his desire strives to bring itself to fruition; or, having weighed up the pros and cons, does he conclude that throwing himself heart and soul into a love affair with a married woman would be imprudent, and creep back into his shell?'

'I don't know. I don't know what he does. What do you think?'

'I too don't know what he does, Drago, not yet. But let us tackle the question methodically. Let us hypothesise. First, let us presume that Mr Rayment does not act. For whatever reason, he decides to rein in his passion. What consequences do you think will follow?'

'If he doesn't do anything?'

'Yes, if he sits here in his flat and does nothing.'

'Then everything will be like it was before. Boring. He will go on being like he was before.'

'Except-?'

'Except what?'

'Except that soon enough regret will start creeping in. His days will be cast over with a grey monotone. By night he will wake with a start, gnashing his teeth and muttering to himself If only, if only! Memory will eat away at him like an acid, the memory of his pusillanimity. Ah, Marijana! he will grieve. If only I had not let my Marijana get away! A man of sorrow, a shadow of himself, that is what he will become. To his dying day.'

'OK, he will regret it.'

'So what should he do in order not to die full of regret?'

He has had enough. Before Drago can make up an answer he intervenes. 'Stop dragging the boy into your games, Elizabeth. And stop talking about me as if I were not in the room. How I conduct my life is my own business, it is not for strangers to say.'

'Strangers?' says Elizabeth Costello, raising an eyebrow.

'Yes, strangers. You in particular. You are a stranger to me, one on whom I wish I had never laid eyes.'

'Likewise, Paul, likewise. How you and I became coupled God alone knows, for we were certainly not meant for each other. But here we are. You want to be with Marijana but are saddled with me instead. I would prefer a more interesting subject but am saddled with you, the one-legged man who cannot make up his mind. A right mess, wouldn't you agree, Drago? Come on, help us, advise us. What should we do?'

'I reckon you should split up. If you don't like each other. Say goodbye.'

'And Paul and your mother? Should they split up too?'

'I don't know about Mr Rayment. But how come no one asks my mother what she wants? Maybe she wishes she had never taken a job with Mr Rayment. I don't know. Maybe she just wants everything to be like it was before, when we were… a family.'

'So you are an enemy of passion, extra-marital passion.'

'No, I didn't say that. I am not like you say, an enemy of passion. But-'

'But your mother is a good-looking woman. When she goes out, glances get cast at her, feelings get felt towards her, desire buds in the stranger's heart, and before you can say Jiminy Cricket unforeseen passions have sprung up that you have to contend with. Consider the situation from your mother's viewpoint. Easy enough to resist these passion-filled strangers once they have declared themselves, but less easy to ignore them. For that you need ice in your veins. Given the fact of strange men and their desires, how would you like your mother to behave? Shut herself away at home? Wear a veil?'

Drago gives a strange, barking laugh of delight. 'No, but maybe she doesn't feel like having an affair' – he snorts as he utters the phrase, as though it belonged to some curious, probably barbarian, foreign tongue – 'with every man that gives her – you know – the eye. That is why I say, why does no one ask her?'

'I would ask her right now if I could,' says Elizabeth Costello. 'But she is not available. She is not on stage, so to speak. We can only guess. But giving in and having an affair with a sixty-year-old man whom she is contracted to see six times a week, come rain or hail or snow, is, I would expect, pretty far from her thoughts. What would you say, Paul?'

'Far from her thoughts indeed. As far as far could be.'

'So there we are. We are all unhappy, it seems. You are unhappy, Drago, because the ructions at home have forced you to pitch your tent on Victoria Square among the winos. Your mother is unhappy because she must take shelter among relatives who disapprove of her. Your father is unhappy because he thinks people are laughing at him. Paul here is unhappy because unhappiness is second nature to him but more particularly because he has not the faintest idea of how to bring about his heart's desire. And I am unhappy because nothing is happening. Four people in four corners, moping, like tramps in Beckett, and myself in the middle, wasting time, being wasted by time.'

They are silent, all of them. Being wasted by time: it is a plea of a kind that the woman is uttering. Why then is he so signally unmoved?

'Mrs Costello,' he says, 'please open your ears to what I am saying. What is going on between myself and Drago's family is none of your business. You do not belong here. This is not your place, not your sphere. I feel for Marijana. I feel for Drago, in a different way, and for his sisters too. I can even feel for Drago's father. But I cannot feel for you. None of us is able to feel for you. You are the one outsider among us. Your involvement, however well-meaning it may be, does not help us, merely confuses us. Can you understand that? Can I not persuade you to leave us alone to work out our own salvation in our own way?'

There is a long, uncomfortable silence. 'I've got to go,' says Drago.

'No,' he says. 'You may not go back to the park, if that is what you have in mind. I don't approve. It is dangerous; your parents would be horrified if they knew. Let me give you a key. There is food in the fridge, there is a bed in my study. You can come and go as you wish. Within reason.'