Marnie did not appear till lunchtime, when she arrived in the bar and clambered up on to a high stool next to Luciana.

‘I’ve come to keep you company,’ she announced. ‘Can I have a Coke?’

‘You can have anything you like as far as I’m concerned.’ answered Luciana with a slight shrug.

‘Then can I have a virgin pina colada and a Coke?’

Luciana ordered them, plus Campari for herself, making it clear that the child’s drinks were to be put on her parents’ bill.

‘Didn’t you wanna go down to the beach?’ asked Marnie.

‘No,’ said Luciana. ‘I like to feel I have this place all to myself.’

‘Except for me?’

‘Except for you.’

‘But I’d have liked to go,’ said Marnie wistfully. ‘I wanted to make a huge sandcastle – a palace – and dress it with shells. I wanted to see the pelicans and I wanted to lie on my stomach and watch the hermit crabs digging and scuttling. I wish I could dig a little hole, real quick, like they can, fold myself into it and disappear so nobody could find me. I planned to try my new flippers in the sea. Flippers aren’t the same in the pool, you know, but my mom said she thought I might throw up, and oh brother, does she get mad if I throw up!’

‘And are you going to throw up?’ asked Luciana, watching Marnie take alternate swigs of Coke and pina colada through a straw.

‘Nope,’ said the child with conviction. ‘Drinks don’t make me throw up. It’s people make me sick, but my mom says I get the pain in my stomach on purpose to annoy her. She says I sure as daybreak do get up her nose when I’m sickly. Do you think people can make you sickly?’

‘Oh yes, I most certainly do,’ said Luciana. ‘I think people can make one very ill indeed.’

‘Could . . . could someone make you sick even if they weren’t there?’

‘People who aren’t there make one more ill than anything,’ said Luciana, but she wasn’t really addressing the child.

‘My daddy isn’t here and that’s what makes me sick.’ Marnie sucked first at her sticky mixture of pineapple and coconut and then made her Coke go satisfyingly bubbly by blowing into the glass down her straw. ‘I never had a pain when I was with my dad, but now he’s gotten a new wife and Mom says he won’t want me hanging out at his place and getting in the way any more.’

They sat side by side in a curiously companionable silence, until Sam suggested that they might order their lunch.