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us!” said Tod. “You were clearly in love. We always thought of you as more than friends.”
    â€œIt was obvious,” concurred Kakko. “You were clearly meant to be together.”
    â€œWe hadn’t even shared a kiss when we were last here,” giggled Jalli.
    â€œYour lips might not have, but your hearts had,” said Kakko. “I bet you kissed for the first time very soon after you left here.”
    â€œSame day… er… twice, I’m told,” grinned Jack.
    â€œThere you go,” enthused Kakko, “and not long after that you were married…”
    â€œTwo years,” said Jack. “It looks as if you can read hearts like I’m supposed to read minds.”
    â€œWell, I guess we could… in your case.”
    Just at that moment Mr Pero appeared. “Well if it isn’t my friends Kakko and Tod,” he said coming over to them.
    â€œHey, Papa, you remember our friends Jack and Jalli?”
    â€œIt was a long time ago,” smiled Jalli, taking Mr Pero by the hand.
    â€œYes, I remember. You were here on the wonderful weekend. The weekend that started everything.”
    â€œWe were here when the place got wrecked!”
    â€œYes. That wonderful weekend when I met so many wonderful people. I remember you both. You are very, very welcome.”
    The young people sat taking it all in; listening to what their parents had done twenty-plus years ago was both fascinating and amazing. They felt rather proud of their parents, something that doesn’t always come naturally to teenagers.
    The conversation went on over several cups of coffee – which Mr Pero refused to allow them to pay for. He explained how things had developed in the last quarter of a century. At first his restaurant had grown so much in popularity that people were booking even midday meals up to a month in advance. When the shop next door became vacant, he had been tempted to expand but felt that that would alter the atmosphere too much. But then Comfort Hotels had approached him. They had a middle-of-the-market chain of hotels around the planet but none in this resort, which was now becoming more popular with the better-off clients. They did not want to buy him out. That was not the way they worked because they believed on building on the local ‘flavour’, as they put it. What they wanted was to go into partnership with Pero. They had wanted to buy the land out the back, which was at that time unoccupied, and the shop next door and build the hotel onto the restaurant. Mr Pero had driven a hard bargain.
    â€œI told them I did not need them,” he explained, “which was true. If they wanted to build a hotel they could go somewhere else. I was doing OK as I was. But, if they were willing to let me buy the shop next door and the land out the back, I would go into partnership with them for thirty percent plus ground rent, so long as I had a controlling say on what happened on the ground floor. They were all too pleased to agree to that because they wanted to preserve the restaurant as it was,” declared Mr Pero. “Oh, and I insisted on the name too. ‘Pero’s Family Hotel’!” he said jocundly.
    He went on to explain that that had happened twenty years ago. Now, however, the time had come to retire. Jack guessed he must be a rich man. Thirty-percent of the income plus ground rent of that vast hotel over twenty years must have added up to quite a lot.
    â€œWhere are you going to retire to?” asked Jalli.
    â€œOh. Nowhere. I still have my flat over there,” he indicated in the general direction behind the sea front. “It’s all I ever wanted. My wife died very soon after we were married, you see…”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that,” said Jack.
    â€œNo. Don’t be. I have the best family I could ever want!” he declared. “There is Kakko and Tod here, and all the others. Some of them have