She asks the question lightly, but there’s a hint of irritation in her voice. I deliberately haven’t told anyone what happened with Isaac during my massage yesterday. Al was too upset after her experience, Leanne hasn’t stopped going on about how inspiring and amazing Isaac is, and if I tell Daisy, she’ll have a go at him and that’ll be it, holiday over. For now, I’m going to pretend it never happened and avoid being alone with him.

“I’ll go if everyone goes.” I look at Al. “Or stay behind with you, if that’s what you want …”

“Al.” Leanne gives me a dirty look then lays a hand on Al’s wrist. “Please come. I’ve hardly seen you since we got here.” She nestles her head against Al’s shoulder and looks up at her with dark, pleading eyes. “I miss you. I’ll have a word with Isis if she comes over to talk to you. We get on really well, she’ll listen to me.”

Al looks at Leanne for the longest time then exhales noisily through her nose. “Okay. But if she so much as looks at me, I’m out of there.”

The meditation room is largely empty. It’s just me, Al, Leanne, Daisy, the two Swedish girls who arrived yesterday, and a man I vaguely recognise from breakfast. He’s older than the rest of us by at least twenty years. I think he’s called Frank. He entered the room ten minutes ago and headed straight for the bookshelf at the back of the room. He’s been sitting in the corner, flicking through a book about Maoist culture for the last ten minutes. Every now and then, he glances up and smiles or nods at me. The first time he did it, I smiled back. Now it’s just got weird and I’m studiously avoiding eye contact.

Al hasn’t spoken since she entered the room. She’s sitting with her back against the turquoise, roughly plastered wall, her knees pulled up to her chest, her eyes on the door. Leanne is sitting beside her, on the other side of Daisy, listening to the full no-holds-barred details of her sex marathon with Johan yesterday. Daisy is attempting to whisper but she’s so excitable everyone in the room can hear every word. The Swedish girls keep nudging each other and laughing.