‘When I think,’ Jenny continued, working herself into a rage, ‘of how that brute winkled the school group out of the Treherns and when I think how he had the damned impertinence to put a ring round me –

‘“Red-headed Jennifer Williams says warts were frightful”,’ Patrick quoted.

‘How he dared!’

‘It’s not red, actually. In the sun it’s copper. No, gold almost.’

‘Never you mind what it is. O Patrick –’

‘Don’t say “Ow Pettruck”.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Well, you asked me to stop you. And it is my name.’

‘All right. Ae-oh, Pe-ah-trick, then.’

‘What?’

‘Do you suppose it might lead to a ghastly invasion? People smothered in warts and whistling with asthma bearing down from all points of the compass?’

‘Charabancs.’

‘A Giffte Shoppe.’

‘Wire-netting round the spring.’

‘And a bob to get in.’

‘It’s a daunting picture,’ Patrick said. He picked up a stone and hurled it into the English Channel. ‘I suppose,’ he muttered, ‘it would be profitable.’

‘No doubt.’ Jenny turned to look at him and sat up. ‘Oh, no doubt,’ she repeated. ‘If that’s a consideration.’

‘My dear, virtuous Jenny, of course it’s a consideration. I don’t know whether, in your idyllic antipodes, you’ve come across the problem of constant hardupness. If you haven’t I can assure you it’s not much cop.’

‘Well, but I have. And, Patrick, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘I’ll forgive you. I’ll go further and tell you that unless things look up a bit at The Boy-and-Lobster or, alternatively, unless my step-father can be moved to close his account with his bookmaker and keep his hands off the whisky bottle you’ll be outstaying us on the Island.’

‘Patrick!’

‘I’m afraid so. And the gentlemen of the Inns of Court will be able to offer their dinners to some more worthy candidate. I shan’t eat them. I shall come down from Oxford and sell plastic combs from door to door. Will you buy one for your red-gold hair?’ Patrick began to throw stones as fast as he could pick them up. ‘It’s not only that,’ he said presently. ‘It’s my Mama. She’s in a pretty dim situation, anyway, but here, at least, she’s – ‘ He stood up. ‘Well, Jenny,’ he said. ‘There’s a sample of the English reticence that strikes you as being so comical.’ He walked down to the boat and hauled it an unnecessary inch or two up the beach.

Jenny felt helpless. She watched him and thought that he made a pleasing figure against the sea as he tugged back in the classic posture of controlled energy.

‘What am I to say to him?’ she wondered. ‘And does it matter what I say?’

He took their luncheon basket out of the boat and returned to her.

‘Sorry about all that,’ he said. ‘Shall we bathe before the tide changes and then eat? Come on.’