‘Couldn’t he have just inked I’m an idiot on his forehead in a magic marker?’ Amber suggested.

‘Exactly. Anyway, he keeps coming back for more. I’ve rejected him three times now, quite vociferously. I’m “ghosting” him, I believe is the parlance, and he’s hoping I’ll “zombie” him, which means continuing where you left off with someone you’ve ghosted, apparently.’

Emerald pulled her sunhat down and buried her face in her zoology book, which, in terms of camouflage, proved as effective as a bikie hiding out in a nunnery. A toned hunk peeled away from his pals, strode up with the gait of a horse wrangler and placed one thonged foot on the end of Emerald’s sun lounger. This vantage point offered Amber and me a direct line of sight up the leg of his board shorts, which is how we discovered that he was going commando.

‘You’re ghostin’ me, aren’t ya, ya stuck-up cow?’

‘Well, as a vet, I have saved many a calf with this very hand.’ Emerald fluttered her freshly lacquered fingers in his direction. ‘So, that’s not really an insult to me, darl, more of a job description.’

‘Bitch!’ the big flummoxed bloke replied, demonstrating that the sun protection factor of his sunscreen was higher than his IQ. ‘You just used me an’ that.’

‘It’s a cougar cruise, kiddo. That is kinda the point. Just doing what it says on the box.’

‘Literally,’ I said, sotto voce, prompting a stifled giggle from Amber, who was supine on her sun lounger. That was another thing that had changed: Amber, who usually avoided the sun like a vampire, had taken to tanning.

‘And I won’t be haunting you, either . . . “Haunting”,’ Emerald clarified for her perplexed sisters, ‘means getting back in touch after a long period of silence in a noncommittal way, by following the guy on Twitter or watching their Snapchat stories.’

This exchange made me feel so much better about Brody’s ‘whaling games’, ‘reheats’ and ‘freshies’ revelations. After the young stud had harrumphed away, I said, ‘Why don’t you give these guys marks out of ten and score them. You know, ratings on looks, performance, et cetera. I’m sure they’re keeping score on us . . .’

Emerald chuckled. ‘You seem to have forgotten that I’m a vet, Rubes. Someone will call the RSPCA and report me for cruelty to dumb animals.’

While I laughed with relief, Amber looked up over the spine of her latest unreadable, Booker Prize–winning hardback – one of those interchangeably turgid tomes with Death, Famine or Road in the title, and said, ‘Emmy . . .’