Accommodation for guests was in wooden bungalows scattered about the luscious gardens, and painted in primary colours to resemble the shacks of the local villages. The resemblance ended with the colour. In the villages whole families lived in one room, but at the hotel each bungalow contained a luxury bathroom and double bedroom where the decor smacked more of Sloane Square than the Lesser Antilles. It was all very tasteful, and every day fresh flowers were put on the glass and wicker dressing tables: a sprig from one of the brilliant bougainvillaeas that rioted everywhere, a spray of plumbago, perhaps, or a single, floating hibiscus flower. Mattie and Hazel who cleaned the rooms made beautiful confections with a joyful disregard for colour scheme.

‘I expect you’d like to see your rooms,’ said Stella. ‘We’ve put you near Colin and Patsy. They’ve gone down to the beach in our courtesy minibus but they’ll be back soon . . . Mike, have you asked Sam to collect John and Delia’s luggage?’ Stella was a great one for instant Christian names. The delightful relaxed atmosphere of a private house-party read another quote from the brochure, which Stella had written herself. Mike was on to his second frozen daiquiri, and his eyes had settled on Delia’s thrusting bosom.

‘Mike? The luggage . . . dearest,’ Stella jogged him.

Luciana let the heat sink into her bones as she lay on a sun-bed by the pool. When Stella and the new arrivals had gone, she flopped into the blue water and swam slowly up and down, watched only by the child, whose gaze was as inscrutable and unblinking as a lizard’s. What am I doing here, thought Luciana, among these people who mean nothing to me. Oh, Carlos! Where are you? Come back to me!

Chocky, chocky, chocky, sang a pearly-eyed thrasher from the frangipani tree. Chocky, chocky. Later there would be a different species of thrasher clustered round the bar, whose eyes would not be pearly, but glazed by rum punch.

Soon guests who had been away for the day started to drift back. There was much loud laughter and kissing as the Fowlers returned and greeted their friends.

‘Darling! Heaven to get here! What a blissful place!’

‘Honey, it’s just so good to see you both! Thank goodness you’ve arrived! We’ve been just pining to see you. Most of the other folk here are real boring and geriatric. There’s a crazy old Italian contessa – who’s rumoured to be fabulously rich but is just so disagreeable it’s not true – and some naff types from England – no kindred spirits at all.’ Their loud confident voices showed a complete disregard for anyone else’s presence.

‘Where is Marnie-Jane?’ asked Delia. ‘We heard you’d had to bring her?’