Despite Abi’s wishes, it proved difficult to prise the families apart. Valentina was an attentive host, insisting on cooking for them every evening, elaborate meals served on the terrace, Guy generous with the wine. Beth watched her parents going through the motions of polite cheerfulness, exclaiming over everything, but she knew that beneath the surface they were pissed off. Mark was unhappy with their accommodation, and Abi resented the forced togetherness. And during the day, wherever they went, Corinne was always there.

‘Do you think your parents still have sex?’ Beth asked.

They were at the viewing spot by the ruined fortress high above Angles, just the two of them. Down below, Abi and Mark were on the terrace of the English tea shop, the brims of their sunhats casting their faces in shade. Eva had disappeared, scorning the company of the younger girls, and now Corinne was moody and distracted. Beth hated it when she got like this – resented her friend’s persistent hankering after Eva’s company. She longed for the days when it had just been the two of them, before her family had arrived and spoiled things.

‘I don’t know. Probably,’ Corinne said. She shrugged as if it were no big deal. ‘C’est normal, non?’

It baffled Beth, the way Corinne could be blasé about something so huge.

‘Your parents still do it,’ Corinne remarked.

Beth didn’t like to think about it, but she answered: ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

‘I heard them.’

‘You did? When?’

The walls in La Grange were thin. She’d heard her father complain to her mother about waking in the night whenever Guy took a piss. ‘I wish he’d lay off the sodding wine for once, give us all a night’s sleep,’ Mark had grumbled.

But no, Corinne corrected her, it was back in Dublin when the incident had taken place. Beth had a sudden picture of Corinne pressing her ear against the door of her parents’ bedroom, eavesdropping on their intimacy. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the idea.

‘When do you suppose people stop having sex?’ she asked.

Corinne shrugged and rooted about in her bag for her mobile phone which was ringing.