We were arrayed around the edges of a smaller rock pool, complete with tiny sandy beach, our towels laid out on broad, flat rocks, slabs of granite speckled with tiny flecks of quartz that sparkled in the sunlight. I watched as Sean played with Daniel and Odette in the shallow water of the rock pool, the two children squealing and splashing with delight as Sean dared them to wade deeper into the cold mountain water. Lucy, in a black bikini and Jackie O sunglasses, lay back on a rock tilted towards the sun.

Jennifer had gone further up the gorge in search of her boys, while Rowan had climbed higher off the path, looking for an elusive single bar of mobile phone reception.

Izzy walked over and set out her towel on the rock next to mine. She lay down, propping herself on her elbows, face to the sun. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, gentle.

‘So, Kate. Are you going to tell me?’

‘Tell you what?’

‘I’ve hardly seen you crack a smile once since I got here. What’s up?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a bit preoccupied, that’s all.’

‘You can’t fool me, woman. Half the time it’s like you’re not even there, you’re away with the fairies somewhere.’ She paused. ‘Is it Lucy?’

‘Why would it be?’

Izzy shrugged. ‘She’s at a difficult age. Boys and hormones and exams and bitchy friends – can’t be easy.’

‘What were you like at sixteen?’

‘Me?’ She smiled. ‘I was awful. A nightmare. Me and my da used to fall out on a daily basis. He’d threaten to take my bedroom door off if I didn’t do as I was told, but I still wouldn’t. One day I came home from school and it was gone, hinges and all. Weeks and weeks I went, with my brother peering in every time he walked past my bedroom, helping himself to my stuff if I wasn’t there.’

‘You’d calmed down a bit by the time you went to uni, then?’

‘Mark used to say I had the temper of an Italian housewife. In a good way.’ Her smile faded and I could see echoes of the pain that was normally hidden, but which had never really left. Not completely. ‘It’s fifteen years ago this year, you know?’

Despite the heat of the morning I felt a cold wave wash over me, a chill of memory and grief and guilt. Sudden memories of a life cut short. Mention of the name was a sudden gear-change I was not prepared for, a lurch into the past that I had built a wall around in the years since.

‘Since the accident?’ I said.

The accident. Not since it happened, or since he died. Definitely not since your fiancé was killed.

The accident.