And then Jennifer was standing in the bedroom doorway, in cut-off jeans and a pink strapless tube top, sunglasses pushed up into her long blonde hair, phone in hand. She wore no make-up – she rarely needed it – and little jewellery apart from a small silver crucifix around her neck. Even in bare feet she was at least half a head taller than me, and only a couple of inches shorter than Sean’s six feet. She was Amazonian tall, as he had once put it, and straightforwardly pretty in the way that athletic people usually were.

‘Knock, knock,’ she said, holding her arms out.

I got up and we hugged, exchanging observations about the weather, the car journey and her husband’s inability to follow Google Maps.

‘So, what do you think?’ Jennifer said. ‘Amazing villa, isn’t it – have you had the guided tour yet?’

‘Rowan showed me round. The view from the balcony is incredible.’

‘I know, right?’ She spoke quietly, as if the owner might be listening. ‘It’s like one of the judges’ houses on X Factor.’

Jennifer had grown up in California and whenever she got excited or stressed her accent pushed out stronger, stretching the vowels and reminding us that, although she’d lived in the UK more than half her life, the Valley Girl was still in there somewhere. Her family had come to the UK when she was fourteen, relocating from Los Angeles to follow her father’s job as CEO of a multinational, and she had never left, retaining a transatlantic twang to her accent that Americans confused for British and vice versa.

I studied her a moment. She seemed a bit flustered.

‘Are the boys settling in all right?’ I said.

‘They’re exploring, I think.’ She checked down the corridor and leaned nearer, lowering her voice. ‘They’ve still not quite forgiven me.’

‘Forgiven you for what?’

‘We had a bit of a falling-out last night when they were packing. They wanted to bring the Xbox – Ethan had already packed it in his suitcase. I made him take it out, told them they weren’t to waste this week sitting in a darkened room playing stupid Call of Duty or Fortnite or whatever – not when we have the Mediterranean on our doorstep.’

‘I take it that didn’t go down very well?’

She waved a hand. ‘Not especially. But hopefully they’ll be fine once they’ve seen how much there is to do here.’