‘For sure. The boys like it, too.’ She indicated a small inlet where Jake and Ethan were busy digging in the sand. ‘It’s so lovely to see them playing for once, properly playing, like they used to. Like children should play. Rather than sitting in a dark room staring at a screen.’

Her two boys were building a dam across a little stream running down to the sea. Jake was on his knees, piling up sand, while his younger brother circled him, pointing and directing operations. They were both thoroughly absorbed in their game. It was odd – sweet, but still a little odd – to see these two lanky teenagers engaged in the same beach games they would have played when they were toddlers.

I finished rubbing lotion into Lucy’s back. She smiled a thank you and lay face-down on her towel, her skin glistening in the sun. Neither of us had mentioned our conversation last night, but she seemed a bit better today, a bit calmer. She was getting on well with Jake and Ethan, which I was pleased about. Something to take her mind off things, keep her from brooding so much.

‘Sometimes I forget that your boys are only just in their teens,’ I said. ‘Since they got so tall.’

‘Jake’s already bigger than Alistair, you know,’ Jennifer said. ‘Won’t be long until Ethan gets there too. It feels so strange to suddenly become the smallest one in the family.’

Sean had taken Daniel to the beach café for an ice cream. Russ lay flat on his back in the shade of a big beach umbrella, straw hat over his face, pure brandy sweating out of his pores. I’d never thought you could actually smell the alcohol coming off someone’s sweat, but today I could. It was coming off him in waves, a sickly-sweet odour that hung around him and snatched at your nostrils when you got too close.

Jennifer sat up, resting her chin on her knees. ‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ she said to me. ‘Sometimes I just . . . I don’t know, open my mouth without thinking, I guess.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I know what you were trying to say.’

She smiled, staring across the sand towards her boys. ‘Can you imagine life without them?’ she said quietly.

‘Who?’

‘Your children.’

‘Not really.’

‘Seems impossible, doesn’t it, that once upon a time we were just us? Alone, I mean. Flying solo, no kids, no husbands.’

Izzy spoke up without opening her eyes. ‘Some of us still are.’

Jennifer gave a little start of surprise. ‘Oh! I thought you were asleep. Sorry, Izzy, I didn’t mean anything by it.’

Izzy smiled and turned over onto her front. ‘It’s fine. Flying solo has its advantages.’

Jennifer smiled, embarrassed, and waited for her to settle.

‘When we first met,’ she said, ‘it seems like another life, a different lifetime. Do you think it’s changed us?’