‘Dear God,’ she muttered, ‘are you never on my side at all?’ She rinsed her mouth hastily, splashing water on her face, inadvertently removing all the lipstick she had applied so carefully. ‘I’m coming,’ she called out as she flew across the sitting room and into the tiny hallway. Then she stopped, took a deep breath, and made the sign of the cross before flinging open the door.

‘Sarah! It’s so good to see you, my little Sarah! Man, you look great!’ He hugged her and then stepped back to examine her in detail as she stood, mute with joy, looking up at him. She reached up to place her arms around his neck, but his gaze had shifted over her shoulder to search the area beyond her. She heard the disappointment in his voice, watched his smile fade.

‘Where is she? I thought she’d be here. I even thought of asking her to meet me at the station, but then the train might have been late. Sarah, you know what I’m telling you, heh?’

‘She had to go to a photo shoot. She’s in all the smartest magazines. It’s amazing.’

‘Yes. She sent me a couple of pictures and I’ve seen her in the papers. I can’t believe it – how she looks in the magazines and so. When will she be back?’

‘Around six, I think.’ Her voice was thick with frustration and jealousy, but she knew he would not even notice. ‘Meanwhile, would you like tea or a cold beer? Or we could go out for a coffee somewhere.’

‘No, let’s stay here. There’s so much to tell you. And I want to hear all your news, little sis.’

‘I’ve told you most things in my letters,’ she said, stung by the idea that Camilla had sent him photos. She had never forwarded any to Dublin, or mentioned that she had sent pictures to Piet.

‘No, you haven’t. I don’t know a thing about your real life. Only your studies.’ He grinned and squeezed her hand, and her heart thudded in her ears. ‘How are your parents? And Tim?’

She made fresh coffee and sat down beside him on the sofa. ‘You’re so pale,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen you without a tan. You look quite strange, as though you need to be put out on the grass with the laundry, to seep up the sunlight.’

‘There’s not much of that where I’ve been,’ he said. ‘Come on now, don’t try to change the subject, girl. Tell me all your secrets. Have you got a boyfriend?’

She found herself telling him about Dublin, about the foggy air and the crowds, and the suffocating smell of wet clothes in smoky pubs. She tried to describe the emerald colour of the fields, the skies that were purple, and the flocks of crows rising off newly ploughed soil, and she spoke of voices singing Celtic love songs around turf fires, and men that played the fiddles and the spoons. But she did not speak about her loneliness and the ache in her bones for hot, yellow sunlight and the taste of salt in a cobalt sea.