‘Are you sure you’ll be alright?’ Demetra asks. Claire wants to tell her; then she doesn’t. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she says. ‘I’ve been there before.’ They hug awkwardly across the gear stick. ‘See you soon.’ ‘See you soon.’

From the rail she watches the port recede. She watches the white wake that the boat lays behind itself, seething and violent, then a different blue. It lasts too long. She takes the silver bracelet from her bag and puts it on.

The boat calls at twelve different islands. Hers is the sixth. It comes round quicker than she thought it would, after only four hours, gathering form at the edge of the sea. She feels like they’re sailing up a waterfall. This is the lip, the rock on the lip that breaks the waters just before they drop. The rock is white and intricate as coral. Its ridges turn to rows of painted houses. Soon they are backing into the harbour: the turbines get louder the slower they go. Ropes fly down. Gates unlatch. Dots of people watch from the promenade as Claire and a handful of others disembark. The gangplank rolls beneath her feet, but the air is fresh and her breath doesn’t catch.

She is sitting in a square, at a small metal table that tilts on the cobbles. The kyria who serves her is elderly, her hair dyed red in faded curls. She brings Claire strong coffee and asks where she is staying. ‘Hotel Oceanis.’ The kyria frowns. She tells her that Oceanis is closed down, finished. She chops with her hand. Claire should stay at Hotel Maria. It’s her sister’s place. It’s very nice. ‘But when did it close? Has it been knocked down?’ The kyria says, no, Oceanis is still there, making a face. It closed three years ago. ‘How do I get there?’ She starts to wipe around the empty glass, around the ashtray. She says Oceanis is nothing, it’s old, nobody looks after it, nobody cares about it. She shakes the cloth. She sighs. ‘Two kilometres south on the main road.’

It’s a steep climb out of the village on the narrow road that follows the island’s spine, rising and rising. The island is long and thin. At one point she can see blue water on both sides of her, far below, rubbing against the rocks.

The earth is unremittingly baked and bare. Ancient terraces lurch down the slopes. She passes a house of whitewashed stones where a cultivated fig tree thrusts its dark dusty leaves through the fence. Around its base fallen figs rot in the black shade.