I must look shocked – slightly disbelieving. Embarrassed. I mean this started out as a conversation about hutches – didn’t it? Didn’t it? About rabbits?

‘Not the cat woman,’ he commences, waving his hand about. ‘She wasn’t my wife. I was … it’s complicated. There’s a woman called … You might have heard of … she’s called Kimberly. Kimberly Couzens. She’s a photographer. We were married. She had the affair with … with him … you know. Bran. She was burned. In the explosion – the car – when he …’

‘Oh … Oh wow,’ I stutter, finally making the connection. ‘The Canadian? The photographer? She was your wife?’

‘Yes. Yes. I’m here for her.’ He nods, pathetically grateful to be understood. ‘I came for her. And I’m broke. Completely broke. I agreed to write the book as a sort of … a sort of favour. I’m not sure how it … I mean I’m not really sure … And then … then she just died. I mean she’s been disabled for years – with the burns being so severe … But this was something so sudden … so … so random, something to do with a tooth. A tooth! I’ve not eaten in four days. I’ve not … I’ve not told anyone … I’m just … The flight couldn’t be changed. I can’t go back for the funeral. Her mother has dementia. It’s been … then the shark … the flies. It’s been … I’ve been …’

Still the arm waving.

‘… really … really struggling,’ he finishes off, his voice cracking.

I don’t know what to say.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ I say.

I’m furious. In fact, I’m steaming. I can’t believe the cow Author has sprung this on me. What a cow. What a cow.

I turn and inhale the view again. I refuse, no, no, I won’t be drawn into this bloody farrago! And I’m angry that I thought I had it all down pat … this … this situation … the set-up … the plot … but now to find out that my knowledge has been … well, just selective … compromised. He was married to the photographer! Why didn’t I know that?! I mean if I knew about the parrot. Why’d I know about the sodding parrot – all about it! – but nothing about this?

I breathe in deeply and force myself to enjoy the view. The view is still here. The view is still beautiful.

Behind me I hear him sobbing.

Oh God, why? Why?

‘Well, you still need a hutch,’ I maintain. Still looking at the view. Still feeding off the view. I really love this view. I could happily die looking at this view.

‘Yes,’ he sniffs.

No more thoughts about dying. I reach into my pocket.

‘Tangerine?’

I turn and offer it to him.

‘Thanks.’

He accepts the tangerine.

‘I don’t think I actually met her,’ I say. ‘Your wife. The photographer. But I did see her around and about the place. On the beach with her camera photographing everything …’