Dear Mary... | 19 August 2006

Q. I was recently invited to stay with some well-heeled friends who were renting a house in Tuscany. Having cleared up any possible confusion about payment (I wouldn’t have to contribute to the rent), I accepted their invitation. Early one evening I was strolling on to the balcony of my bedroom, reading Juliet Nicolson’s A Perfect Summer, when I walked straight through a large metal mosquito net fitted across the doorframe. Sunglasses, iPod, panama and book were flung across the balcony as the entire structure collapsed around me. After several failed attempts to reassemble it and hearing my hosts calling me down for poolside drinks, I panicked and shoved the whole thing under the bed planning to tell the housekeeper (a charmless, surly Serb) later. I left the following day without doing so, but now back in London I am consumed with guilt. What a shabby way to repay my friends’ hospitality. Is it too late to own up? What should I do, Mary?
Name and address withheld

A. Clearly your uncharacteristically shabby behaviour was caused by the syndrome of Referred Aggression. Referred aggression is similar to referred pain. Had you been contributing to the rental costs, you would have undoubtedly given full vent to your reaction to this booby trap. (Had you been American you would have sued.) But because your friends were shelling out, you felt you could not complain. Your resentment was channelled, therefore, into the passive-aggressive response of not mentioning the damage. Ring to offer profuse apologies, saying you have only just remembered about the mosquito net and can’t think why you didn’t say anything at the time. You can only assume you were mildly concussed.