Giggling and squealing with juvenile joy, we formed a circle and touched toes, making starfish shapes then improvising other aquatic choreography. The water was so silky and warm, and our comedic camaraderie so cosy, it had been pure, purring perfection – until the pain.

The doctor, inspecting my oozing blisters, interrupted my reverie. ‘Could be worse, though. These islands are said to still be home to some cannibal tribes. With your penchant for getting yourself into hot water, I’m surprised you’re not simmering in a pot somewhere.’

‘Cannibals don’t eat witty women, because we taste funny,’ I shot back. ‘Clearly you’d be safe, too, because you’re far too bitter for anybody’s palate.’

The doctor was obviously relishing my chagrin at being back here in his clinic. ‘I thought you might have realised by now that you are not entirely suited to the great outdoors, Ms Ryan. But off you go, day after day, despite the damage to your physical wellbeing. I think it’s a case of persistence beyond the call of talent. Unless’—he raised a sardonically amused brow—‘you’re just making excuses to see me again.’

I reminded myself that it would take forty-two muscles to frown, and only four to stretch out my arm to slap the taciturn and irritating bastard. Instead I fired a furious look his way. If my eyes could shoot out fatal rays like the ones in sci-fi movies, he’d have been incinerated instantly.

‘You know, GPs will soon be replaced by computers, so you won’t have to subject yourself to the indignity of tending to actual patients.’

‘Well, a computer did once beat me at chess. But it was no match for me at karate,’ he said.

I was truly tempted to make a complaint about him now. But I also wanted to get back to my sisters. Emerald had booked us into the spa for a facial and pedicure. Yes; normally scruffy Emerald, who’d always acted as though her body were only there to carry her intellectual head around, had suddenly taken to beautifying. She’d started exercising, too, which was equally out of character. Each spring when Amber warned us that it was time to get ‘beach body ready’, Emerald would reply, ‘If I’m by a beach, and I have a body, then I’m ready.’ But not anymore. Push-ups, sit-ups, lunges – the woman was constantly on the move.

Much to my amazement, Amber had declined Emerald’s invitation for some spa pampering. Although normally polished and perfect, she’d recently preferred slouching around in tracksuit pants – elasticated tracksuit pants – making it all the easier to graze on more and more food. Protein and veg only, of course – she’d still die rather than eat a carb – but nevertheless, her new motto seemed to be, ‘My home is girth by sea.’