Our narrator stays on a Mediterranean island much longer than he intended to for a number of reasons. One reason is to prove his mother and his girlfriend wrong, who both say that to decamp to an island for a whole winter to write a novel is melodramatic and rather a cliché. Most nights, to abate loneliness and pass the time, he talks to the locals. One night, as the newly-elected Mayor passes by, they are reminded of how different things used to be with their previous, English Mayor, Mayor Campbell, who they describe to the writer as a Hero.