She decides to ignore it all. To be in the moment.

Half an hour later, they meet poolside in the spa complex. The water is untouched. Gemstone blue. Adam and Becky lie on loungers, wrapped in chalk-white waffle robes, gazing up at black-veined marble and gold-stuccoed ceilings.

‘That is a lot of money to spend on a ceiling,’ says Adam, but Becky’s not ready to joke about the money. The money is the problem.

Maisie leaps into the water and emerges, hair shining like the wet skin of a seal. ‘Are you coming in? It’s amazing! I mean, obviously it’s amazing.’

‘In a minute,’ replies Adam, standing up and letting his robe fall off his shoulders. ‘I’m going to have a relax. Beckles, are you all set to relax? Can I get you anything to increase your relaxation?’

‘No, thank you,’ says Becky, lifting her hands off the side of the lounger as if they are covered in something sticky. ‘There used to be a place that sold chocolate pancakes in the car park at Camber Sands. Shall we walk there later and get some? If it still exists?’

Adam pushes his lounger closer to hers. ‘Sorry, I couldn’t hear what you were saying over all the Bach and birdsong.’ He is wearing navy trunks and a T-shirt that falls nicely across his shoulders, over his chest and down his stomach. ‘Something about pancakes in a car park?’

‘I’d just like to get out of here. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Poolside luxury or car park?’ He weighs them up with open palms. ‘It’s a tough one, but the pool wins. Anyway, it doesn’t look like Maisie’s going anywhere.’

Becky looks up and sees Maisie leaning against the poolside at the far end, arms folded over each other, talking to a boy on a lounger whose age Becky cannot determine. When did the boy even arrive? Did Maisie wish for him? Is that how her sixteenth is going to work?

‘That boy has got very defined abs,’ she says.

‘You like a defined ab, do you? How do you rate a good circulatory system and correctly working organs?’

‘Very attractive.’

‘Thanks. I feel less terrible about my abs now.’

‘What abs?’

‘Such cruelty. This is why you’ll die bitter and alone.’

Silence.

‘That,’ says Adam, ‘sounded a lot more fun and teasing in my head.’

‘It’s fine. It’s true.’

‘It’s not true.’

‘Speaking of dying alone, what did you decide to do about Kate?’ She keeps it light. Nonchalant. Like she barely cares.

‘I’m sorry about the other night. I was quite drunk when I was saying all that.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You can tell me anything.’ She doesn’t add that she reserves the right to agonize about some of those things for hours. For days. She wants him to be honest with her. She can’t make him afraid to tell her the truth.

‘We went to the pub the night before last. I didn’t even have to bring it up. She’d obviously been thinking the same. She put it on the table.’