‘I’m bored and hungry now,’ said Alex, wiping his face on his arm. He went inside. ‘Don’t help me!’ he shouted, waving his arm above his head.

Dan’s phone rang.

‘See?’ he said. ‘Phone.’

He sat up to look and stopped smiling. ‘It’s Leanne.’

Lying on her back Bea watched him.

‘Hey, Leanne, what’s happening? What?’ He got to his feet. ‘That’s no good … Really? When?’

Listening, Bea could piece together what had happened. Their PhD student tenant had not taken occupancy. Leanne was trying to get hold of her, but couldn’t. They had her deposit, but the flat was empty. Once Bea realised they had two of the three months’ rent, she almost laughed with relief, but Dan was pacing up and down, shaking his head. He ended the call and faced her.

‘That’s just so fucking typical,’ he said.

‘Well, it’s OK,’ said Bea. ‘We can still cover the mortgage.’

‘We’ve lost money,’ he said.

‘But that’s all we’ve lost.’

‘What do you mean, that’s all?’

‘It’s only fourteen hundred pounds,’ she said.

‘That’s the mortgage,’ said Dan.

‘I know.’

‘The mortgage and forty quid a week we were going to use.’

‘Forty-three. It’s not great.’

‘Not great?’ He was sarcastic.

‘We can still pay the third month,’ said Bea. ‘We can use the Cushion.’

‘The Fucking Cushion is paying for us to do this,’ said Dan.

She resented having to talk about it when the sun was shining, and they had been having the first nice time since they’d arrived. She hated hearing the words they always said: the Cushion, the mortgage; she didn’t want to hear them, or the tone they used to say them. She knew it would be normal to feel anxious like Dan, but she couldn’t. To him money was freedom, to her it was a cage. Having less made her feel lighter.

‘So we’ll have a bit less to spend,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

He looked insulted. He shook his head at her.

‘Right. It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

‘I mean, I know it matters,’ said Bea, ‘but we can be careful.’

‘We’ve got less than three grand now.’ He was upset and scared. ‘Altogether. In the world. That’s all we’ve got, Bea. When we get back to London I need to find work, we can’t fall behind. We could lose the flat. Things were tight already, as it was.’

‘You were going to anyway. My job will cover us for a while. Don’t let it ruin our day,’ she said.

‘Day? Try everything.’

‘So we’ll have to miss out some of the things we planned. Maybe it’s better, we’ll have less choice.’

‘Less choice? How is that good? I chose to go to Rome, but now I’m not going to? I chose to see the Alhambra – this is our chance. After this – I don’t know, but we had this.’

‘We’ll go to Rome. We’ll do the sums. And Leanne will probably find us another tenant,’ said Bea. ‘Hey, we can Airbnb the flat. Why didn’t we even think of that?’