It’s late afternoon by the time everyone has finished eating and arguing about Chloe’s missing iPad. My step-niece’s lovely face was all puffy and blotched and she barely spoke to anyone. When Bethany finally emerged from her room, she was in a foul temper. We all went to the beach, even though most of us weren’t speaking to one another. What with Matt collapsing of heat exhaustion, losing it with Bethany and then Chloe’s iPad going missing, I haven’t had a chance to talk to Bethany on her own about Dad, and why there’s no record of his hospital appointment, and what the hell The Castle is. I wonder if I’m making a fuss about nothing: if he forgot to write it down, it shows how bad his memory is, and we ought to get him a follow-up appointment.

I decide to come back by myself. I can’t bear watching Joe leaping about with a Frisbee, flaunting his perfect abs, or take the tension crackling between Amy, Bethany and Matt. It’s not like I can join in with Joe’s game of Frisbee, either, as I can barely move after our run this morning. Luca doesn’t look that sporty, but he can run faster than me and catch a Frisbee as if he grew up playing Ultimate. I’ll speak to Bethany tonight, I decide.

As I’m leaving the beach, Matt jogs up the path after me. Four days in and he’s still pale, except for a savage red slash of sunburn across the back of his shoulders from this morning’s excursion into the hills.

‘Wait up,’ he says.

He winces and holds his side. He looks in as much pain as I feel, but I don’t want him to know that. His calves bulge with blue-green varicose veins. Christ, I hope I don’t get old. I also hope he’s not going to tell me something I don’t want to hear about Sara.

‘I’m worried about Chloe,’ he says when he’s got his breath back. I’m expecting him to go on about the bloody iPad or how miserable she is, but he says, ‘Have you seen the way she looks at Joe?’

‘What? Joe?’

‘Well, he is a good-looking boy, there’s no two ways about it. And she’s fifteen. You know what teenage girls are like.’

No, mate, I don’t.

‘Sixteen in a month. Thinks she knows everything.’

‘Oh. Yeah,’ I say, suddenly remembering Bethany at that age; well, before she walked out on us and went to stay with Dad’s friend in his big, posh house.

‘She’s still a child, Nick. And Joe isn’t that much older than her – he’s twenty-four. I googled him.’ He gives a gruff laugh. ‘But he must seem grown-up to her.’