Alessandro appeared behind him then, sausages piled high on a plate, just in time to hear a stunned Scott say to Amber, ‘But I always have to initiate every encounter. You’re just not that into it. Sex, I mean.’

‘Only with you, apparently,’ a tipsy Emerald took aim once more.

Amber turned on her. ‘Shut up, Emerald, you’re pissed! And, anyway, you can’t talk. Exactly how many toy boys did you shag on the cruise? I lost count.’

I put my head in my hands. Catastrophes were piling up on each other like an acrobatic group.

Now it was Alessandro’s turn to utilise the word du jour. ‘What?’

‘Well, I’m not getting anything at home with Mr Limp-dick h . . . h . . . here,’ Emerald slurred. She had clearly drunk enough to achieve that level of volubility where no secret goes unshared. ‘What did you think was gonna happen, Sandro, if you put me on a sex diet? I have appetites, you know,’ she added, taking a ravenous bite of a steaming sausage.

The humiliating visual metaphor was not lost on Alessandro, but once more, ‘What?’ was the only word that sprang from his lips as he tried to fathom the Grand Guignol scene playing out before him.

‘Al can’t get it up?’ Harry asked, amazed, without thinking. ‘I thought he was the Italian stallion?’

Everybody was staring at Alessandro now. He dumped the plate of sausages down on the table, grabbed a beer from the esky, twisted the top off the bottle and took a husky slug. ‘Yeah, well, why bother?’ he shot back, in a snarky and facetious tone. ‘I’m second in importance in my house to the bloody dogs. I get the newspaper after the puppies. The only thing my wife truly loves are those goddamned animals, whereas I reckon animals are at their best on a barbecue. I especially hate dogs. Dogs have far too many teeth for a supposedly friendly creature. If I had to have a pet it would be a crocodile, so it could just eat all the fucking others.’

‘You hate animals?!’ Emerald flared. ‘How can you say that when you know it’s my passion?’

‘Maybe if you stopped absent-mindedly scratching me behind the ear and saying “Good boy”, I might feel a bit differently. As it is, you might as well start throwing me a tennis ball to chew on.’

‘You know I love you, Sandro. But you push me away constantly.’

I’d always presumed my tough oldest sister would only ever cry if, say, the local artisan cake shop got wiped out in a tsunami. But our time away together on the cruise had clearly changed her. Tears sprang to her eyes. She mopped at her face with a napkin.

‘Bullshit, Emerald. You only keep me around because your clinic’s losing money – all those rescue animal ops you do for free. You’d bloody well sink without my financial input.’