'We could think about that,' he says. 'If you wanted to be very legal, very legally watertight. We could speak to a solicitor.'

'Or the bank,' says Jokic. 'We can make an account for Drago, trust account. You can put money in a trust account. Then it is safe. In case… you know.'

In case of what? In case he, Paul Rayment, should change his mind, leaving Drago in the lurch? In case he should die? In case he should fall out of love with Miroslav Jokic's wife?

'Yes, we can do that,' he says, though with growing misgiving. Is the fiction of a trust fund all that will be needed to salve Jokic's pride?

'And Marijana.'

'Yes, Marijana. What do you want to say about Marijana?'

'Marijana is tired all the time, from the nursing. Two jobs she's got, two assignments, you and this other old lady, Mrs Aiello. Not proper nursing, professional like, more housework. You add it up, fifty hours a week, sixty hours, and the driving, every day driving. A cultured person. It's not good, this housework, for a cultured person. She come home tired all the time. So we think, maybe she give up nursing, find another kind of work.'

'I am sorry. I didn't realise Marijana had two jobs. She didn't mention a second job to me.'

Jokic is gazing at him pointedly. Is there something he is failing to grasp?

'I will miss her if she moves on,' he says. 'She is a very capable woman.'

'Yes,' says Jokic. 'Me, I'm just mechanic, you know. Mechanic is nothing, not in Croatia, not in Australia. But Marijana is cultured person. Diploma in restoration – she tell you that? No restoration work in Australia, but still. In Munno Para, who she can talk to? OK, Drago is interested in lot of things, she can talk to him. Then she meet Mr Rayment.'

'My own conversations with Marijana have been limited,' he replies cautiously. 'Like the rest of my relationship with her. Very limited. I found out about her background in art only recently, from Mrs Costello, the woman I mentioned.'

Slowly it is beginning to dawn on him why Jokic, having thrashed his wife and driven her from their home, is prepared to take a day off from work and spend it sitting in a car on Coniston Terrace. Jokic must believe that his wife, whether or not she has fallen in the absolute sense, is in the process of being lured from hearth and home by a client with plenty of money and an easy familiarity with the world of art and artists; also that the elegant environment of Coniston Terrace is teaching her to look down on working-class Munno. Jokic is making an appeal, an appeal to his better nature. And if that appeal fails – what? Is Jokic planning to thrash him too?

Look at me, your hated rival! he would like to protest. You still have the limbs that God gave you, while I have this obscene monstrosity to drag around with me! Half the time I pee, I pee on the floor! I could not seduce your wife away from you if I tried, not in any sense of the word!

Yet at the same moment memory throws up again the image of Marijana stretching to dust the top shelves, Marijana with her strong, shapely legs. If his love for Marijana is indeed pure, why did it wait to take up residence in his heart until the instant she flashed him her legs? Why does love, even such love as he claims to practise, need the spectacle of beauty to bring it to life? What, in the abstract, do shapely legs have to do with love, or for that matter with desire? Or is that just the nature of nature, about which one does not ask questions? How does love work among the animals? Among foxes? Among spiders? Are there such things as shapely legs among lady spiders, and does their attractive force puzzle the male spider even as it draws him in? He wonders whether Jokic has an opinion on the subject. But he is certainly not going to ask. He has had enough of Jokic for one day, and Jokic, he suspects, has had enough of him.

'Will you have another beer?' he asks, pro forma.

'No, I must go.'

Jokic must go. He must go. Where must they go, the two of them? The one, to an empty bed in Munno Para; the other, to an empty bed on Coniston Terrace, where he can lie awake all night, if he likes, listening to the ticking of the clock from the living-room. They might as well set up house together. Mutt and Jeff.

IT TAKES HIM the best part of an hour, stumping hither and thither across parkland, to track down Elizabeth Costello. In the end he finds her by the riverside, sitting on a bench, clustered around by ducks that she seems to be feeding. As he approaches, the ducks scatter in alarm and slide clamorously back into the water.

He props himself on the grass before her. Past six, but he can still feel the weight of the summer sun. 'I am looking for Drago,' he says. 'Do you know where he can be found?'

'Drago? No idea. I thought he was staying with you. Aren't you going to ask about me? Are you not curious to hear how I spent the night after you so rudely turned me out?'

He ignores the question. 'I have just had a meeting with Marijana's husband.'

'Miroslav. Yes, poor fellow, he feels so humiliated. First by his own jealousy, and now to discover what sort of man his rival is. What did you say to him?'

'I asked him to think again. I asked him to put Drago's interests first. I repeated that there were no strings attached to my offer.'

'No visible strings, you mean.'

'No strings at all.'

'What about heartstrings, Paul, strings of affection?'

'Strings of affection are beside the point. The money is for Drago's education. It is absurd to suggest that I am trying to buy his mother.'

'Absurd? We should ask Marijana about that. She might have a different view. Tit for tat, she might say. For every tat there is a tit. You have offered the tat. Now the onus is on her to come up with the right tit, the appropriate tit.'

'Don't be obscene.'

'Well, I confess I have yet to appreciate what you see in your Balkan lady. To my eye she is somewhat tubby and rather the worse for wear. I would not have thought you liked your women that way. Tall man and stout woman: a bit of a comedy team. A fellow like you could do better. But chacun ses gouts, I suppose.

'My own opinion, for what it is worth, is that if it is requital you are after, requited love, you should give up on Mrs Jokic. She is not for you. Your best option remains Marianna, Marianna of the two ns. An arrangement with Marianna, or someone like her, would work very well. For a single gentleman of your age, not keen because of his disability to appear in public, it would be quite appropriate to entertain in his home, one afternoon a week, a discreet woman friend like Marianna, someone who in return for favours granted would now and again consent to accept a nice little present.

'Yes, Paul, presents, gifts. You must become accustomed to paying. No more free love.'

'I may not love whom I choose?'

'Of course you may love whom you choose. But maybe from now on you should keep your love to yourself, as one keeps a head cold to oneself, or an attack of herpes, out of consideration for one's neighbours.

'However, if your verdict is that Marianna does not fit the bill, who am I to demur? In that case, why not telephone Mrs Putts? Tell her you are in the market for a new nurse. Say you want someone not too young though not too old, with nice breasts and a well-turned calf, unattached, children no obstacle, preferably a non-smoker. What else? Of an eager temperament, eager and easily pleased.

'Or why bother with Mrs Putts? Why submit to the rigmarole of hiring nurses and falling in love with them? Put an ad in the Advertiser. " Gent, sixtyish, childless, vigorous though of limited mobility, seeks lady, 35-45, with view to love, mystical parenthood. Nice breasts, et cetera. No chancers."