Flick, who had been wanting to unveil his tattoo since his first cognac hit the residue of the Valium, yelled his assent, and Fleur, who had just the tonga in mind to compliment her new figure, led the way. Miranda didn’t have as much inhibition and, having unpeeled her little black dress, was the first in. Flick followed suit in his navy jockeys, which looked colour-coordinated with his considerable inking. Nick remarked, “The fellow’s turning himself into a Ming vase.”

It was almost true. The upper half of Flick’s torso was a tapestry which encompassed his chest shoulder to shoulder. Areas that were not completely finished were indicated in spidery turquoise guidelines. In the past twelve months, Flick must have attended the tattoo parlour as frequently as the renowned tattooist’s cleaning lady.

“Did Bone ink you?” asked Captain Toby when he saw Flick stripped.

“He didn’t do this first bit.” Flick indicated his left bicep. “Heard about him after I’d started. Here, then—how’d you guess?” he added as an afterthought.

The Captain just grinned. He wasn’t up for a swim, being more interested in constructing a stovy from the remains of his after-dinner cigar and a lethal looking cube of hash compound he had produced. Nick was also viewing the proceedings from the sidelines. He had watched Fleur emerge from the little changing area in her yellow tonga—a butterfly, as her maid called it—and thought it a tactical error on her part. When the Rose slumped down in the canvas chair alongside him, Nick voiced his opinion.

“If she wants to snare that guy, she should have let him see what he’ll be getting.”

“I don’t know—‘what’s half revealed is twice as tempting’, isn’t it? What do you make of him, anyway?”

“Cumbrous. What about you?”

“He’s a bit off, don’t you think?” asked the Rose, with a nod towards the Captain, who had completed his patchwork of cigarette papers and was looking around for a light.

“I did push him on the captain bit. Seems it’s a Boys’ Brigade rank.”

“My God—do you think he’s one of those diary people?”

“Professional gossip mongers? Why? We’re of no interest.”

“Wasn’t that Zeno chap a pop star?”

“For about twenty minutes. Dead as a dodo nowadays.”

“I’m surprised you and your wife haven’t become an item.”

“Most of the time you have to want to be featured. I know folks who actually cultivate them, invite them to functions, that sort of thing.”

“Never thought about it like that.”

“What intrigues me is the columnists themselves. What a way to spend your life, eh? Trying to look up other people’s arses. I mean, I’m not averse to looking up a great arse myself, but not for clinkers.”

“I suppose they regard what they’re doing as transitory—hoping to become editors, own their own paper.”