He nods as if he gets it, the things love makes you do when you’re young, when you think life will let you make mistakes and there’ll be time to come back from them. He reaches behind her for another beer and his skin brushes hers briefly, very lightly. She flinches.

‘Sorry.’

‘No, it’s okay.’

It isn’t okay. Her mouth has dried and sweat prickles in her armpits. The memory has returned in a heartbeat, the mouth at her neck, the desperate struggle to breathe. She gets to her feet. ‘I should probably check on the kids.’ She turns away to hide her trembling lips.

‘See you at supper,’ he calls after her; she senses he is watching her out of sight, a little puzzled. The silvery green of the olive leaves blurs as she walks through them, as though the landscape itself were drenched in fear. She’d hoped the terror would diminish here, but if anything it’s worse. Counselling is supposed to help, but everything she googled involves money; she’ll just have to wait it out.

At supper, the children sit together at the end of the table; their sunburnt faces float in the dark above the flickering candles. Ash is asleep in bed upstairs. Sorrel is sucking her thumb. Izzy has her arm around Poppy’s neck; she passes the fingers of her other hand through a candle flame, back and forth, again and again. The children watch, mesmerized, until Eric moves the candle away. He chats quietly to Blake who sits next to him, glancing up at him often, nodding agreement. Charley is unusually subdued. The incident in the pool seems to have taken its toll. Paul is yawning over his wine, Melissa crumbles bread on her plate, neither has noticed their daughter playing with fire. Eve glows next to Melissa’s pallor, a smiling earth mother, serving out spoonfuls of flaky fish and curled tentacles in a tomato sauce. Her breasts swing freely in a yellow halter-neck top; the nipples stand out like little tubes. Martin is watching her from beneath lowered lids; Izzy’s eyes flicker between the two of them. Grace puts down her fork. Her appetite has vanished. Melissa hasn’t touched her food, but then she hardly eats, her cheeks are hollowed as if with hunger. Eric pours glasses of water for the children. He looks preoccupied; worried about the house maybe, the fight to maintain it all. Grace closes her eyes; behind the lids she sees stones falling, walls crumbling, a house becoming dust.