The river mouth would keep, Damien consoled himself. Max’s cove could be a good vantage point to see surf spots further on. Driving northwest to reach it, they found a beach with steeply raked dark sand. It was windy and exposed, even desolate in the chill of late afternoon. The only colour came from Damien’s boardshorts, which were the same eye-watering orange as the high-vis vests he wore at work. He had felt self-conscious in the shorts when they stopped at Guernica to take a look at the Peace Park earlier that day. Could you stand around reflecting on wartime devastation while wearing a pair of fluoro boardshorts on your way to the surf? he’d wondered aloud.

‘Why not?’ Max asked. He shook his fist in the air. ‘This is how we show the fascists!’

By this point in the day, Max had lost some of that defiance. Goose-pimpling in the wind, he dumped his wallet, keys and phone.

‘This is an ocean,’ Damien said with appreciation, trying to console himself for the lack of surf. It was true, though: this was his idea of what a coast should be – wild and rocky, with strong currents. Forces beyond human control, with enough power to pummel you into insignificance. The Atlantic coast of Spain was nothing like the Med, which he thought of with disdain as a cut-rate paddling pool.

‘Like the beaches at home. Awesome natural beauty.’

‘Natural beauty, huh?’ Max grinned. ‘You’re digging it up out of the ground. A mine with a beach, isn’t that what people call Australia?’

Damien returned the grin. ‘We don’t mine everywhere,’ he said.

He felt defensive at the dig, but he wasn’t about to let Max see this. This early in the trip, they were still testing each other, re-establishing their dynamic. Max was affectionate, but also deeply competitive, going in for one-upmanship.

Later, Damien realised that they should have paid more heed to the movement of the water, but other things vied for their attention. For Max, it was the bridge out to the island with the old hermitage. He said the path was marked with the stations of the cross, probably for the use of villagers when they held processions. ‘But their faith has weakened!’ he declared, shaking his fist again, this time in mock-disapproval at the failings of Christendom in general.

For Damien, who knew something about geology, it was the dramatic striations in the causeway and the cliffs. These were shale bed deposits that ran seam-like through the rock, signs of the long-ago rift that had caused the continents to separate, allowing water to rush in and fill the breach. Waves had been pounding on the cliffs for millions of years since.