‘Get in,’ I say, leaning over and popping the door open. He hesitates and then heaves his suitcase into the boot and climbs in the front. He’s panting slightly and he sits, his hands knotted in his lap, fingers trembling. As we reach the road, I wind both windows down to get a breeze through the car. I head away from the port, although I don’t think Dad will notice, following signposts with a picture of a castle that looks like a chess piece.

From the air, when I checked on Google Earth before we came, the island is shaped like an embryo, curled around the scoop of an inlet, its backbone a reptilian hump, Maregiglio tucked on the inside of its tail. We’re driving along its spine: the land is dusky green and scrubby, with none of the features that would normally say Italy to me – no sunflowers or olive groves, Tuscan villas or vineyards – only the sea, glittering as sharp as flint, on either side of the island. When we finally see the town, it looks like an icecream cone, a swirl of houses in apricot and peach, with the castle, the colour of drying sand, at its peak. There’s a harbour and a spit of beach, packed with plastic sun-loungers and parasols, a wide sweep of promenade edged with date palms.

I’m not sure I can take the people-carrier up these narrow, corkscrew twists of road; I’d probably prang it. I pull in at a car park next to a supermarket opposite the harbour.

‘What are we doing here? This is not the ferry,’ my father says.

‘I thought we could go for a beer.’

‘I don’t drink,’ he says stiffly.

‘A coffee then. Come on.’

He sits in the car, staring straight ahead, stubbornly refusing to look at me. ‘I’d like you to take me to the ferry.’

‘Yeah, sure, but let’s have a coffee first.’

‘It’s lunchtime,’ Dad says, sounding grouchy, as he steps stiffly out.