We drive to Pondicherry to buy supplies. Lucia sits in front with me, Blake in the back at the window, pointing things out uselessly. ‘Look, a kingfisher!’ he cries, before we get to the front gate. Salt flats, canals, women bent over digging around for things, leggy palmyras with parched hair. Look, he keeps saying. Schoolgirls in maroon with white ribbons. Bright yellow trucks piled high with green bananas wrapped in leaves that flap wildly in the wind like can-can skirts. Tiny village after tiny village manacled to the road, spilling out their people, goats, meagre vegetables.

At lunch, Blake looks tired and exhilarated. ‘It’s like being away for a very long time and realising that your mother and father, your sister, your childhood house, all of it still exists, alive, preserved. They’ve been waiting for you, wondering where you’ve been gone so long. It’s so welcoming. You feel safe in the world again.’

‘Did you notice there wasn’t a single rubbish bin on that road for an hour? Those pretty little villages are going to be drowning in their own shit soon. You should think of setting up shop here.’

‘I feel like I never appreciated it when we lived here. I was afraid for some reason. It felt insurmountable, a place like this. The problems. But I see things differently now.’

‘Give yourself a few weeks.’

We make love that night. I crawl into bed with him. His body feels like a stranger’s. He isn’t surprised to see me. Drags me to him as though he’s been waiting. I touch the muscles in his back, the soft flesh around his hips. We move slowly, enfolding, stroking. It is all wonder. He is above me, holding me tightly, our knees touching and rolling. I make noises I haven’t made in a long time. Deep, unabashed. Afterwards I stay there with him. A cool breeze from the sea blows in through the window grilles. A nightjar makes its chirr-chirr noise.

In the morning, I watch as he sleeps – the bones in his cheeks, the eyes, the two small hollows at the base of his back. Those strong prosciutto thighs.

After breakfast we change into bathing suits. Blake sets up the umbrella. The dogs scamper around for a few minutes, dipping their paws into the waves before running back to the house to stretch their bellies out on cool floors. Lucia fixes herself into battalion position, bum deep in mud. Blake sits beside her. The waves come. I watch in astonishment. The ever-readiness of them. The way they come and come, rolling forever.