Between glances at the menu, Shôn takes in his surroundings. Over Geraint’s shoulder he has a view of the harbour. The fishing boats, brightly painted in red and blue, are pitched by the swell, their short masts tracing the fingerprint whorls on the harbour cliffs where some ancient sea god’s hands once moulded the strata. Wherever the rocks give way to vegetation, agaves cling like stranded starfish. Higher up, between prickly pears and heather, an errant bougainvillea bleeds its loveliness from a deep gash. And he thinks of Geraint, and whether he should commit himself.

With a lyrical ciao, the fingers of his left hand indolently sinuous at his crotch, molto delizioso interrupts Shôn’s reverie.

Shôn studies the boy’s felinity as he approaches their table. There’s a grace in his movements that pleases the eye and suggests he might be a dancer. His arms, the muscles defined beneath a smooth chestnut shell skin, are strong; the sort that take your breath when they embrace you. The features of his face are more Abyssinian than Siamese, and framed by thick black hair, sleek and worn unfashionably long. His smile, in so proud a face, seems slightly mocking but there’s a seductive stealthiness in the charcoal of his eyes that quickens Shôn’s pulse. In a fleeting thought, Shôn concludes that Geraint, alongside one so dangerously desirable, is too safe… too dependable, and altogether too tame.

Between them they have enough Italian to recognise that there’s a choice of local fish on the menu, but they enjoy the boy’s attention and pretend to be stupid Brits abroad, coaxing him to translate pulpo, totani and acciughe. They ask for octopus and squid with potatoes alla genovese and freshly-caught anchovies with lemon. As he writes the order on his pad, Geraint notices the silver ring on the waiter’s index finger.

‘I’ve never seen anyone wearing a ring there before,’ Geraint says after molto delizioso goes back into the restaurant, rubbing the index finger of his right hand between the two end joints.

‘It’s called the middle phalanx,’ Shôn says, a bit like a lecturer in an anatomy class.

‘Well… whatever… it’s still a strange place for a ring.’

‘What’s even more strange is the pattern and the figure engraved on it,’ Shôn scoffs.

‘I didn’t notice,’ Geraint submits.

The boy returns, places a rustic loaf of bread and a jug of wine on the table, and disappears again through the curtain of corded beads that keeps the flies out.

‘It’s a merman,’ Geraint offers, surprised.

As he clears their table, and just after he’s asked if they want an espresso, Shôn asks him about the carving on the rock above the village.

‘You mean the… fishboys?’ he hesitates. ‘You call them fishboys in Inglese?’

‘It’s a good enough name,’ Geraint quips.

‘You been to the grotta del Diavolo?’

‘The devil’s cavern? No.’

‘Sometimes, when the sea is tempestoso, the fishboys come into the village through the grotto, and take away… how you say?’ The charcoal embers in his eyes glow. ‘They take away the bad boys.’