Perhaps Molly would stay with Anthony. But perhaps she wouldn’t. And perhaps Pauline would become the mother-in-law of Molly McKenzie’s toyboy. And if Molly stayed with Anthony she could become the mother-in-law of her toyboy too. Pauline began laughing helplessly in a kind of disbelief as she lay in the warm sand: how ridiculous life was, how ludicrous and improbable, how could she and Molly, best friends in their youth discussing life so earnestly, have imagined it would all come to this?

And as she laughed she understood: the ice around her heart was moving, breaking up and moving and beginning to thaw. The way it did when winter was over.

Pauline O’Brien, daughter of a trapeze artist, stretched like a cat, pushed her long body into the warm sand. Along the beach under the palm trees they were now singing ‘Away in a Manger’ in Hawaiian to the strumming of the guitar. Unexpectedly, almost subconsciously, a thought flashed into her mind, but I’ll always miss Molly. And then it was gone.

In her bag beside her was the red lipstick and a mirror. She rolled over lazily, put the lipstick on, rolled back again into the sand, drifted into a half sleep.

A hand smoothed her back, very gently.

‘Benny?’ she asked, sleepily.

There was no answer. The hand smoothed the skin on her long back that had once shone so youthfully from theatre posters all over London, stroked the back that was no longer young, in the warm sunshine. Just for a moment, Pauline lay there still. Nobody had smoothed her back so gently, so caressingly since her one lover had gone to America twenty years ago.

And then she very slowly turned her head, and then her stomach gave a leap.

Joseph Wain was sitting on the sand beside her, two very long American daquiris on a tray.

‘Hello Pauly, Merry Christmas,’ he said, and grinned. ‘Thought I’d pop over from England. How’re you feeling? Any regrets?’

Pauline very carefully leant on one elbow; stretched out and very carefully took one of the drinks. She took a long sip before she answered him, tasted rum and then peaches; her red lipstick stained the glass. Then very carefully she smiled at Joseph Wain. So she would be a person who had affairs, after all. This was her new life. Everywhere around her, bright hibiscus flowers shone and the sea sighed gently. How wonderful everything was. Then to her immense surprise, and deep embarrassment, one tear slipped down her face, past the red lipstick, and fell into the daquiri she was holding.

It was so long since anybody had touched her like that.

She looked quickly out under her eyelashes at Joseph but he seemed to be busying himself with his drink. She breathed carefully in and out for a moment to stop herself weeping. Then she took another long sip of the daquiri.