He kept his eyes open while swimming, knowing the redness would stay with him but he needed an awareness of jellyfish which sometimes bred in the Sea of Cortez, and this was the time for the Portuguese man-of-war, from whose sting it would be a relief to be released into death. He watched for the purple strands that drift in the water without any apparent purpose other than to cause intense pain. He heeded Pedro’s advice to the letter. The pelicans in their radar-like flight, feet off the ocean surface; the ospreys with their talons ready to scoop the catch. The falcons and hawks circling for movement on the ground, ready for their dive.

The beach was always deserted and the blue took over his world, the blue and the sand. The pink and grey of the shells interrupted his walk across every step of the spread of beige, the only time the colour has a true majesty.

Beige – on a beach.

He walked tentatively around the old rusted shipwreck, half buried in the sand, fearing the snag of metal on his feet, and climbed the twenty-four steps to return him to the house.

An art deco house, that from the beach belied its depth and size. The curved terrace with seven circular columns supporting the roof overhang, protecting the glass of the doors, that opened into the house, from the sun. The floor inside was of marble and the curved multi-layered ceiling rose to a central dome that outside continued its journey skywards in the shape of a lighthouse, atop of which was perched an osprey; Ever’s constant companion with its high-pitched whistle that would greet him on his return. Inside the house dropped a large art-deco chandelier-type light from the interior of the fifteen feet of rising column.

He never liked to wash the salt off his body after he’d been bathed by the ocean and put on his recently acquired grey T-shirt and navy shorts and his flip-flops, ready for his journey into town. He left his bedroom and stared, as he had grown accustomed to doing in the last few days, at the paintings that surrounded him. Some were in his bedroom and some in the guest house and the screening room.

Pedro, the caretaker, had spent the last days putting the paintings in position. A position decided by the curator of his father’s final exhibition. Ever. The Wave graced the wall opposite the ocean-facing glass and WELL, DID YOU EVER? asked its perpetual question, hanging by the counter that curved as a separation between the living area and the kitchen. From the four expanses of glass, all the beauty of the ocean was revealed, as if on a series of cinema screens; two of the glass expanses could be slid back to introduce the breeze into the house and carry the ozone and soft smell of the sea.