‘And anyway, who wants to live longer when all your carb-eating, alcoholic, carnivore friends and beloved sisters are dead?’ Amber added, shovelling a chocolate fondant down her throat. ‘I’ve had no desire to check up on my family, either,’ she marvelled. ‘Three weeks ago, if my kids had asked me to pogo to the South Pole on a knitting needle, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. But if they asked me now . . .’ She shrugged.

‘You’d look for a loophole in their birth certificates? Well done,’ I said, rewarding her with a big, happy kiss on her forehead.

I occasionally glimpsed Emerald around the ship, swinging an inflatable penis over her head at a pool party as she danced with some muscled stud whose budgie-smuggler bulge was severely testing the limits of lycra, happily chasing a terrified member of the Sonic Groove Duo around his turntable, or licking whipped cream off a cub’s nipple piercing at the R-rated comedy game show.

‘The worst thing about being the oldest sister is having to be a good example. It’s much more fun being a terrible warning,’ Emerald laughed as we sipped sunset cocktails. ‘And I don’t see it as “sleeping around”, either.’

‘Of course not!’ I agreed. ‘You’re just having a brief dabble in amorous philanthropy.’

‘Exactly. I’m not only in it for the kinky thrills. Although they’re not bad either! But I really wanted to get my confidence back. My sex life with Sandro has been like trying to thread a needle with overcooked spaghetti,’ she confided. ‘On the Love Boat, though, I’ve bedded the type of studs who wouldn’t have looked twice at a nerd like me back in high school.’

This time it was Emerald I rewarded with a big, happy kiss mid-forehead before the old twat-nav steered me back to Brody’s cabin.

On our last day at sea, as I dressed, I noticed Brody’s face was fogged with gloom. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’m ill, because once we make port, my favourite patient is going to stop coming to see me with fake illnesses.’

‘They were not fake!’ I pinched his arm. ‘I really hated you at first.’

‘Ditto, darl. I wouldn’t have fucked you if you were the last woman on earth,’ he said, unbuttoning the blouse I’d just buttoned up.

‘I hope you at least have the intelligence and self-awareness to know that the feeling was extremely mutual,’ I said, as we ripped each other’s clothes off once more. It seemed that the only reason Brody liked me to get dressed was for the pleasure of disrobing me all over again.