Uncle Blick was a philosopher.  He didn't write any books or anything about his views, but he kept sifting the experiences and observations of his life until he had a fair understanding of human motive.  My parents didn't think Uncle Blick was a philosopher, at least I never heard them call him one.  He was my mother's brother and had married a girl with a good deal of money.  My father habitually had a very rude way of expressing the means by which Uncle Blick got his money.  I don't think my parents could ever really accept the ease with which he encompassed life; his scepticism was a threat to their view that life was serious and therefore important.

At the end of my second university year I received proof that Uncle Blick was a philosopher, when I visited him while waiting to hear how many units I had failed.  They'd rented a beach house, and as well as Uncle Blick and Aunt Janice, there was her close friend, Mrs. Ransumeen, a widow, and her son Rodney.  Between young Rodney Ransumeen and Uncle Blick there existed an unspoken but recognised dislike, for Rodney had no soul and Uncle Blick as a philosopher had become expert at divining such people.  Uncle Blick thought it probable that, like dogs, they could see only in black and white, although they had learnt to talk in terms of colour.  The soulless were not restricted to any class or occupation, he said; they were found everywhere.  They were the culmination of man's physical evolution; resourceful, active, ambitious, lacking only sympathy, which is imagination.

Oh the Thursday before I was to leave, my aunt and Mrs Ransumeen took the car and went in to the city for the morning.  Rodney wanted to try fishing for spotties from the jetty and being a boy or irreproachable  caution and trust, he was allowed to.  Uncle Blick and I remained behind, sitting in the sun of the rented garden amid the floribunda roses.  What happened that morning, now appears preposterous, yet at the time in the company of Uncle Blick it seemed perfectly natural, even inevitable.  The seduction of Uncle Blick's neighbour, Mrs Lemage, and her daughter Phyllis was accomplished kindly by Uncle Blick, with myself a rather fatuous extra for much of the time.  The verbal banter across the fence was charged with his rich, idiosyncratic and considerate wit; his invitation to sherry and fudge cake apparently irresistible.  As they made their way from their house to ours Uncle Blick finished his chapter in Tacitus and carefully marked the place before closing the book.  Gravely he presented me to mother and daughter, then fell in step with Mrs Lemage, marching through the clustered floribunda to the patio.

We were all in the living room when Rodney came in.  Uncle Blick the philosopher had Mrs Lemage cornered among the puce curtains at the window and was just patting her rump in healthy if somewhat detached manner.  The Lemages seemed a little embarrassed and left soon afterwards.  Rodney withdrew to the kitchen and sat on the tall bar-stool cleaning his fish, scratching round their dull, plastic eyes and hard mouths.

Uncle Blick stood at the window gazing up the coast. ' Go and ask Rodney what he's going to do,' he said at last.  For myself Rodney's decision meant little, but for my uncle the situation was more hazardous, for Aunt Janice had a suspicious mind at any time and had already ruled that the Lemages were 'not nice'.

Rodney looked up when I spoke with him, his face bright with righteousness.

'I'm telling,' he said with imperial finality.

'He's telling,' I told Uncle Blick. His reaction was not fear, anger or despair, but a sudden intellectual exhilaration; his heavy face seemed to tighten and his eyes to take on a steadfast concentration to meet the challenge thrust upon him.

'What is the time, Hugh?'

'About eleven.'

'We have an hour,' said the philosopher.

'They're bound to believe him.' Perhaps I said it a little vindictively, for like all weak people I was at times seized with resentment of my uncle's assurance.

'Exactly,' he said.

'I can't see any way of stopping him telling his mother and Aunt Janice what he saw.  You know his peculiar integrity.  He won't be bribed and we can hardly kill him.'

'To hurt or intimidate Rodney would be an admission of inferiority, as well as prone to failure.  No, Rodney must discover the bitter essence of the adult world.' Uncle Blick's conversation often had such a solemn universality, as if, Gladstone-like, he addressed more listeners than could be seen.  'Rodney is honest, straightforward, articulate and intelligent.' Uncle Blick paused in admiration of the calibre of his enemy. ' He is also malicious.  But the most significant thing is that Rodney is ten years old.' Here Uncle Blick broke off to prod me in the chest with a heavy finger.  'See? For a child, Hugh, a thing is true or false with strict logic; no such division exists in the adult mind, though it is often claimed.  For us the distinction is between the credible and the incredible; the adult replaces logic with experiences as the touchstone of reality.  Strange that it is almost the reverse of what we like to believe concerning old and young.  This world of difference between Rodney and his mother will provide escape.  We must hide the truth in an unacceptable magnitude of truth.'

We began Uncle Blick's Campaign by leap-frogging into the kitchen to gain Rodney's attention.  Uncle Blick took off his shoes and anointed his feet in the sink from a carafe of burgundy before climbing out of the window and munching several gentian blooms growing beneath it.  Rodney followed, missing nothing, saying nothing; an encyclopaedic observer.  He watched while Uncle Blick clumsily scaled the flower trellis and stood on the tiles to urinate down the chimney; he watched while I took out the small wheelbarrow and ran over Uncle Blick's legs as he lay in the fresh lawn clippings by the glass house.  Rodney saw it all, and when Uncle Blick and I returned from a wash and change, he was already in wait by the door as the womenfolk returned.

Like a dwarf ringmaster Rodney ushered in Mrs Ransumeen and my aunt and then adopting an accusing posture, he pointed at Uncle Blick. 'He had Mrs Lemage next door and that girl over here and he was touching her on the bottom because I saw him.'

My aunt said nothing, but the warmth in her face drained quickly away.  Her hands opened, the long, slender fingers for a moment fully extended then slowly crumpling.

'Rubbish!' Uncle Blick smiled tolerantly from his chair.

'Rodney never lies,' said his mother, looking defensively at her oracle.

Rodney continued, his voice tremulous and urgent. 'He poured wine over his feet and he ate some of those blue flowers, and he climbed right up on to the roof, and he - you know - well, he piddled down the chimney.'

There was a long silence.

'You silly boy.  I do hope you're not going to get one of those headaches again,' said Mrs Ransumeen in irritation.

'Too much sun,' said Uncle Blick kindly.

Rodney opened his mouth to speak, but instead he burst into tears.  His mother took him out.

Uncle Blick picked up his pipe and drew its amber stem gently between his fingers.  His face disclosed once more the lines of quiet resignation.

'An excellent exhibition, dear,' his wife was saying. 'A pity you missed it.  Particularly the landscapes, so much less informal than in previous years.'

Uncle Blick the philosopher nodded.  He gave me a brief smile an his hand sought out his Tacitus as he prepared to remove himself to a more spacious age.