Ivy was holding out her hand for the phone, but luckily a familiar tune reached us, faint at first but growing louder. ‘Mr Whippy!’ said Chanel, as I tucked her phone into my pocket. ‘I wouldn’t say no to an ice cream, would you, Ivy?’

The van pulled up at the far end of the car park. I hopped out, but the couple from the other car beat me to it. I had to stand there, lifting my feet so that the soles of my UV-proof sneakers didn’t stick to the tarmac, while they changed their minds over what to get. When they went away at last, I asked for three soft-serve cones. Unbelievably, the sun fought its way out as my order arrived. I heard Chanel call, ‘No!’, and I turned around to see Ivy clambering out of the car. I went over to her, and we stood there for a minute or two, me with soft-serve dripping over my knuckles, looking out at the water. It always finds me unprepared, the astonishing brightness of the sea.

Lately I’ve been thinking about a story Ivy used to tell. Not long after my parents married, a friend of theirs, an anthropologist, decided to make a film about a remote hill tribe. He invited my parents along on the trip because my father was considering writing a play about rural life. There were five of them in the expedition, Ivy and my father, their friend and two of his students, boys he’d brought along to help with the film.

They travelled by car to a forest where the trees were as tall as towers, and their roots, hanging down, were thicker than limbs. When they came to a stony stream on the edge of the forest, the vehicles were unloaded, and the drivers turned for home. The others camped there for the night. At dawn the next day local men arrived with ponies, which they loaded up with equipment and food.

The long trek to the village began. It was easy walking at first, despite heat and insects, but increasingly taxing as the path began to climb. Around a bend, blueish mountains hung against the sky. The burdened ponies stepped nimbly along, as did the men leading them. The air freshened, and by evening it was very cool.

They camped out on the second night too, in a shallow cave formed by an overhanging cliff. My father had blisters that Ivy burst with a needle. The pony men built a fire at the mouth of the cave, and they all sat around it eating, while a night-bird called. It sounded like a woman mourning lost children, said Ivy, and it made her spine prick.