Talking To Her Pillow

Francis is in hospital in Spain . He thinks back over his life, clearly recalling events which made an impression on him. These included rowing at Oxford; extreme penury whilst starting his first job in London in 1959; wide-ranging discussions with a French revolutionary before non-consummation in the sister-in-law?s Paris bed; several amatory exploits with lusty women in Italy as he tries to maneuver between side-stepping the mafia, avoiding earthquakes and dodging untimely death while seeding hail-clouds in small aircraft over the Lombardy plain; changing his identity to become a member of an elite carabinieri anti-terrorist group and fluffing an assassination of his own. He moves from Monaco to Spain to marry, and start a new life working for Her Majesty. But his past Sicilian existence catches up with him, and he is shot at on a motorway near Madrid .