Max had started surfing later, at eighteen, on a year-long working holiday in Australia after high school. For the first couple of months he stayed with Damien’s family, and Damien took him out on a second-hand foam board, giving him lessons on how to paddle, how to stand up. He was at university then, doing an engineering degree, and could afford the time. Then, on moving to the UK for his undergraduate studies, Max had kept it up, surfing in Cornwall, different parts of France, and elsewhere. Perhaps he’d talked his exploits up, Damien thought now, given them a bit of spit and polish.

‘That was hairy,’ said Damien, when they eventually made it back to shore.

‘I’m fine,’ Max told him. ‘Fine.’

But he wasn’t fine. He wore a long scrape on his arm, violent and red, from scrabbling up the rocks to get out of the water. And he was defensive; there was none of his usual easy bonhomie. He clearly wasn’t happy that Damien had swum away and left him.

Damien wanted to say, but couldn’t: I saw you were afraid, that’s why I did what I did. But not knowing how to talk about it, he tried to make light of things. He did a Ferris Bueller jump into the car without opening the door, vaulting himself in with one hand on the sill. He actually made the jump (and was proud of himself for this), but in doing so wrenched off a piece of the window seal, a length of several inches.

‘Sorry,’ he said, holding out the piece of rubber with exaggerated contrition, before stowing it in the glove box. After the first stab of guilt, Damien felt strangely better. Now something was actually broken, a small thing, easy to fix and get over.

But Max’s face had darkened. He stared blankly at Damien – whether in anger or exhaustion or indifference, he couldn’t tell. Setting off, they drove in silence for half an hour, passing through villages and towns. The newspapers spoke of a new normalcy in the Basque regions, yet the towns through which they passed had a guarded air about them.

At dusk they reached Bilbao, spread out by an even bigger tidal river than the one at the fishing village. They were meant to be meeting somebody here, a friend of Max’s, a girl. He knew her from INSEAD, the graduate business school he’d attended in France. Damien had been wary of this stop on the itinerary, and frankly a bit annoyed. In his world, a surf trip should be like a Corona beer commercial: an empty beach somewhere at sunset, no hordes or restaurants or bars, just a campfire to tell stories around. Now, though, he hoped the catch-up would reboot Max’s mood. Maybe the presence of another person would be good for both of them.