‘Who’s this?’ she asks, looking at the picture of a naked man. It’s a perfect sketch, Helga having captured the old guy’s resigned expression in a few strokes.

‘Keith. Our life-drawing model. He’s the one I was telling you about. And believe me, that’s a flattering version. I haven’t drawn in his hairy back.’

Claire shows the picture to Dominica. ‘It’s amazing, right?’

‘Why don’t you model for us, Claire?’ Helga asks. ‘You’d be perfect.’

‘Me? I thought you were joking? I couldn’t, I … I’m far too shy,’ Claire says, shaking her head, but she’s flattered, nevertheless. She tries to imagine baring all in front of strangers and lets out a little laugh at the absurdity of the suggestion.

‘You should give it a go,’ Dominica says. ‘Do something out of your comfort zone. You’d be a great model. You’re all curves, but in a good way.’

Their attention is caught now by a dog barking and the birds all take flight. A second later, she sees Maddy arriving with Luna. At the top of the shelf of stones, Maddy lets go of the lead and the little dog bounds over the pebbles to Dominica, who picks her up.

‘Hello, you.’

Maddy arrives and greets the others. ‘I told Matteo I’d bring Luna out,’ she explains, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair. Her eyes are shining. ‘She’ll be OK on the beach whilst we swim, I think?’

‘Yes, you’ll be as good as gold,’ Dominica says, petting the dog. ‘Aren’t you as good as gold. Oh, look at her face. She’s so cute.’

‘So?’ Claire asks, referring to Maddy’s date with Matteo. ‘Tell us everything. How did it go?’

‘I don’t know, I kind of … well, I ran away,’ Maddy says, with her face screwed up. ‘And then Trent sent me a message … and … oh, I don’t know. I’m so confused.’

‘But you had a good time?’ Claire checks. She’s surprised. She’d assumed that everything was easy for someone like Maddy, with her confidence and amazing figure and lovely clothes.

‘Yes, really nice.’ Maddy puts her bag down and strips off her coat. ‘But, I don’t know … he’s younger than me and … I got scared of making a fool of myself. And anyway, he’s leaving to go back to Spain. So there’s no point in getting into anything, when it’s only going to end.’

‘I’d say that’s a perfect arrangement if you ask me,’ Helga says.

Tor arrives next. ‘What did I miss?’ she asks. ‘What happened?’

‘Maddy was just telling us about her date with Matteo.’

‘And?’

Maddy pulls a face. ‘I kind of blew it.’ She tells Tor what happened.

‘But that’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with playing hard to get,’ Tor says. ‘Don’t lose heart.’

‘I guess.’

Tor changes and Dominica is just settling Luna on her coat, when one of the lifeguards on a quad bike comes over. He’s young, barely even a shaver, but he has that confident swagger of youth as he stands up on the bike.