I imagined myself telling Fitz about it and I knew she’d say: ‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a gesture of friendship, that’s all. It’s what middle-aged people do, Edie, they remember their youth. Valentina probably kept the picture because it reminds her of how she used to look. It’s probably nothing to do with Joe.’

Why did it bother me anyway? I had no right to care. I didn’t care! Joe could do whatever he wanted, see whomever he wished to see, carry whatever photographs of whatever teenage girls he wanted to carry in his wallet. It was nothing to do with me, of no interest to me what-so-bloody-ever. No. It was just that my headache was making me feel tetchy. It was the weather. It was the graveyard. It was everything.

By now, the temperature had risen to the mid-thirties. I couldn’t stay in the villa any longer. What was the point being a stone’s throw from the beach and the sea if you couldn’t enjoy it?

I collected my towel, swimsuit and book and went outside. Joe was hacking away at the overgrowth furiously, as if trying to make a point. He had stripped down to his shorts and boots and his skin glistened with sweat. He turned round when he saw me, and wiped his forehead with his arm. I was cross with him about the picture in the wallet. I knew my anger was unreasonable, but I couldn’t help it and that put me in a worse temper.

‘I’m going to the beach,’ I said.

‘Right.’

There was a moment’s silence, in which I could have asked him to join me but didn’t.

Do you still like Valentina? I wanted to ask. Do you wish you were with her? Did you keep a photo of the two of you together somewhere? When you were with me, married to me, did you wish you’d chosen Valentina instead? Do you wish that now? Do you?

Joe said: ‘Liuni and his brother are going to stop by.’

‘Oh, good!’ I said. ‘It’s great you’re still so close to your old friends. I guess those bonds you forge when you’re young run deep.’

Joe looked confused.

‘Roots, I mean,’ I said. ‘Roots run deep. Bonds hold strong.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Edie.’ He frowned and rubbed the blade of the shears against his boot.

I left the villa, trying to push away the black cloud of bad temper that followed me. I walked up the concrete track to the place where a little sandy path made a shortcut between the rocks down to the beach.

‘Roots!’ I muttered. ‘Bonds! Bastards!’