‘I’m so pleased for you,’ she whispered into his neck.

‘I know you are. But I’m going to miss you, Hell.’

‘Not as much as I’ll miss you. You’ll have Marc.’

‘You’ll always have me,’ he said, clasping her head between his hands and kissing her right between the eyes.

‘Oh god, I’m so drunk,’ she laughed, as happy tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

‘And about to get drunker!’ he cried, just as the fiddles started up again. ‘But first –’ His eyes widened with devilish glee as they heard and recognized the first few chords.

‘Oh no!’ she cried, as they all circled around her and hustled her into the centre of the dancing ring. ‘No, no no!’

‘Yes! First, we’re gonna dance like frogs!’

It was midnight but still the sky burned, a red smoulder that looked like the heavens were on fire. Trees and houses were silhouetted into inky shapes, but by the water’s edge, all the way round the island, small fires flickered on the beaches, and the marina glowed with cabin lights as people held parties on their boats. The bass of distant music was stippled with groups bursting into rousing choruses, shouts of laughter rising into the night like vixens’ barks.

Bell staggered out of the Yacht Hotel, where the dancing was only just really getting going, and tried to get her breath back. She was hot and sticky, her heart pounding, the flowers on her crown wilting but somehow still on her head.

She turned her face to the sky and breathed in deeply. The longest day of the year. The shortest night. She could never decide which was the more optimistic description. Either way, these were the times – day or night – when she missed him most, when it felt most unbelievable that Jack was no longer a part of this. Her loneliness had been a shadow chasing her all day, especially with Kris and Marc’s happy news, and so far she had outrun it, but there were moments when she turned the wrong way and walked straight into it. Like now. As she looked back through the many windows of the grand hotel, watching the people inside dancing and laughing and bloody living, it shrouded her like a veil.

She turned away, needing more than air now, but space too. She wouldn’t be missed. Tove was getting hot and heavy on the dance floor with a guy who had introduced himself by pouring a drink over his head to cool down; Marc and Kris had gone home, no doubt to make their own noise. She didn’t want to go back in there, but she couldn’t go to bed either; she felt caught between worlds, as she so often did, present but somehow not fully involved. An observer, perhaps, doomed to watch from the other side of the glass.

The boardwalk was sandy, grains kicking up and rubbing painfully against her sweaty feet as she walked, and she took off her Vans, holding them in one hand as she rubbed her neck with the other. The wooden planks rattled softly underfoot as she padded along in silence, listening to everyone else’s fun and glancing across at the people dancing on deck, demurring with a smile as various drunken invitations were issued for her to join them. It wasn’t the Cannes super-yacht league, by any stretch, but the boat party scene tonight could have rivalled any of the European hotspots. No one would be getting much sleep, whether they wanted to party or not.