“Do we really sound like that?” said Ava, laughing. “Sorry. I’ll try and stop.”

“Thank you.” He looked at Ava, nearly naked in her bikini, the towel slipping from her shoulders, and swallowed. “Can we go and find the hotel now?”

“Shouldn’t we wait for the others?”

“No,” said Paul firmly, “we shouldn’t. They’ll work it out for themselves.”

“But what’s the hurry? We’ve only just got here.”

Paul pulled Ava against him.

“Do you have any idea,” he whispered, “how sexy you look in that bikini? No, God, please don’t move, you have to stay there for a minute while I get myself back under control.”

“Won’t I make it worse if I stay here?”

“Good point. Yes, definitely worse. Oh, shit, this is embarrassing.” He really was embarrassed, but she was laughing with him, she was focused on him. “Do you have any cold water?”

“Apart from the cold water that’s all over me?”

“Talking about how naked and wet you are isn’t helping.”

“There’s the whole Atlantic ocean over there. Knock yourself out.”

“Too far. I need to think of something really unsexy. Talk clean to me.”

“Saggy grey knickers on the washing-line. Your parents having sex. Third Cubicle Jesus.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, not that again.”

“You said to talk clean.”

“I did. Okay, that’s done the trick. Third Cubicle Jesus obviously has his uses. Let’s go.”

The hotel was as run-down as he’d feared, and the bed had a flowery bedspread and thin blue sheets that felt damp against his skin. He straightened his shoulders and told himself he’d survive. He was alone with Ava, and who cared if the bed they tumbled onto was small and unpleasantly soft? When she finally married him he’d take her somewhere beautiful and luxurious, and lay her tenderly down in crisp white linen. And within a few minutes of closing the door, he didn’t care, he was lost and breathless and aching with need, and her hair was in his mouth and her legs were around the small of his back and nothing else mattered.

It was only afterwards, when Ava got up to go to the tiny bathroom and he tried to open the window and realised it was painted shut, that his irritation with the cheapskate shoddiness of this trip returned.

It’s Finn’s fault, he thought to himself. This whole thing was Finn’s idea. He tried to suppress the uneasy feeling that, if he hadn’t agreed to come on holiday as a foursome, Ava would simply have gone away with her brother without him.

“It’s a bit cold,” Caroline ventured, peering into the cave.

“We’re not far from the old mine workings,” said Finn. “There’s a massive streak of iron ore – yep, it’s still here, come and see.”

“Lovely.”

“If you lick it you can taste the iron.”

“I’m not licking a cave wall, Finn.”

“It’s all right, it’s only rainwater. Come on, live a little.” Caroline put out a doubtful pink tip of tongue. “It won’t hurt you. The arsenic workings are further up the coast.”