He turns away from me. “It was a terrible day. Just terrible. Dark as night in the fog. And a sound to freeze your blood. The sound of your ship running onto the rocks. The stern splitting asunder, and a terrible groaning like souls in hell. I can’t sleep for hearing it in my head. She started taking on water almost immediately. I called for the lifeboats, but there were rocks everywhere, so they were next to useless. We swam and clambered to safety. Our uniforms were in tatters, our legs and feet running with blood.”

Eugene comes to stand next to me. “What are you looking at?”

“Captain Ellis. He was in charge of this vessel when it foundered.”

He thinks I am joking. “Never shake thy gory locks at me?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s cool. Help me choose a filter for this pic. The Crema is nice and moody, but the Slumber gives it more of a sepia look. Which do you prefer?”

I pick the Crema, but he decides to go with the Slumber. When everyone has finished taking photos, we agree to walk on. I don’t bother with pictures because I was there. I saw it. I heard the screams and saw the terrible listing of the ship as it came to rest on the rocks.

We find the boiler of the Thomas T. Tucker further up the beach. And beyond that, we come across the wreck of the Dutch coaster, the Nolloth. There is no one around. It ran aground in 1965, so perhaps everyone is still alive.

Moira and Raz have been restored to full vivacity now that they are away from the dampening chill cast by Captain Ellis. The banter flows like wine between them until they are drunk on it.

“This is the best day of my life,” declares Raz.

“Because it’s the day you met me?” asks Moira.

“Because the sky is blue, and the oystercatchers are strutting around, and the gulls are wheeling above. It has nothing to do with you.”

“You took one look at me and realised what had been missing from your life all these years.”

“I took one look at you and realised the importance of shaving every day.”

“Are you implying I have a moustache? I don’t have a moustache, do I?” Moira appeals to the rest of us, but her eyes are firmly on Raz.

“Well . . . it’s not a very big one.”

“It must be my Mediterranean blood. I’m half-Greek, you see.”

“Which half?”

“The top half, apparently.”

They are hilarious, these two. The Hepburn and Tracy of Cape Point. And still silence hangs between Eugene and me. The repartee fails to sparkle. The wit does not flow. Our lack of rapport is highlighted by the ease that exists between our companions.

I don’t like to be beaten, especially by Moira, so I initiate a conversation.