I’m walking to the studio when Amy calls. For once, I’m not late. I meant to get in early, though, to Photoshop the pictures from last week’s shoot and catch up on invoices for Tamsyn. The lowlying mist over the river is rapidly being burned off by the sun. I pass Underfall Yard and head towards the marina. Tamsyn’s studio is near Spike Island, an artists’ cooperative, where my ex-girlfriend Maddison makes her hip screen-prints, and almost next door to a historic ship, the SS Great Britain. I took Ruby-May, Lotte and Theo there last year for one of my uncle-outings. Ruby-May loved it: she ran around the ship screaming, pretending to eat the fake jellies and occasionally getting lost by hiding in the cabins (I didn’t tell Amy that part), but Lotte wasn’t so keen, and she and Theo had nightmares for a week afterwards. There’s a butcher’s room with models of flayed animals strung from their heels, including a dolphin. The kitchen was swarming with stuffed rats and smelt of fish, and the neighs of a panic-stricken horse reverberated through the dark hold. Quite clever really, but I suppose living on a ship a few hundred years ago (I don’t actually know when, I didn’t read the blurb) was pretty grim. Amy had been annoyed: What were you thinking, Nick?

Amy tells me she’s found a beautiful house, on an island off the coast of Italy, that’s ‘incredibly reasonable for August’ and is big enough for all of us. It’s got a swimming pool and it’s near a quiet beach. There are direct flights to Pisa from Bristol, and then you catch a train to the coast and a ferry. She’s got it all worked out. I’m surprised that Amy’s found somewhere so fast, but I guess I shouldn’t be, as she always used to be dynamic and organized. Before. I know it was my idea that we gatecrash Amy’s holiday, but I’m not sure I can afford it. ‘Incredibly reasonable for August’ sounds like code for ‘too much for a photographer’s assistant’. I have to be there, though. I’ll ask Tamsyn for some extra work or an advance on my laughable salary. I wonder whether Matt is happy, or at least not suicidal at the prospect of a holiday with the Flowers.

‘Have you talked to Bethany yet?’ Amy asks. ‘I need to book it, if she’s coming, or find a smaller place if she isn’t.’

‘I’m on my way to see her.’ I hesitate. ‘Amy, have you thought any more about—’

My sister’s voice sounds raw, as if she’s been crying, but her tone is final: ‘We don’t want him to come with us.’