Paul took some considered swings at the puff of a dandelion. A potent repose, he imagined, was building in him. As the distant Scotsman took his iron shot, Paul planted a white tee in the patch of clay. When he straightened up, a tall kid with bony brown arms was standing close by. Though he had not noticed the boy before, Paul promptly said, ‘I guess you’re ahead of me.’

‘I believe so.’ The niceness of the boy’s diction combined oddly with his basketball sneakers.

‘O.K. Go ahead.’

‘Shall we go around together?’

Paul was flattered to think that the boy had mistaken him for near his own age. Paul was greedy about looking young; at twenty-six, he looked twenty-three and wanted to look eighteen.