I reach the bungalow, dragging my feet in the gravel, making noise on purpose – slamming the door of the fridge after I’ve poured myself some water, my skull belt clanging against the cupboard door, my rings spinning like tops on the bedside table. I say ‘Fine’ when Palma asks me how it went, and I kick the door of my doll-sized bedroom, keep my T-shirt on, and open the window because it is crazily hot. I go to bed but I can’t get to sleep. I try, I swear, I go for hours like that, I think, but sleep is locked up in the marital bedroom next door, so I get up again and this time I don’t make as much noise as I did before. Being forty kilos, thin as a boobless, bumless Barbie, is handy when it comes to sliding out of the window of a doll’s bedroom.

It’s four in the morning. I know, I know, I promised Nicolas not to do the little mouse thing, not to spy on him, at least not until Saint Rose’s day. I said yes, definitely yes, I had better things to do, persuading Papé about the dolphins and so on.

Except I’ve already done that! He said yes this morning, Papé did. Natale’s going to be so impressed.

So, you understand me, I’m not about to sit around here getting bored!

The beach is deserted, almost all the teenagers have gone, the fire is nearly out. There’s just Nicolas, sitting by the embers, strumming away on his own in the darkness, the sound like a shy cicada practising before the sun rises.

Where are the others? Have they all gone to bed?

Where’s that other one?

A voice answers me, she’s rising from the water, like a nymph or a mermaid or a naiad (I’ve never really known the difference between all those creatures with women’s bodies that end up in sailors’ nets).

‘Are you coming?’

Maria-Chjara emerges, and with what remains of the light from the embers and the moon in the sky I see a shape first of all, then her silhouette, and then the shadows on her silhouette. She’s still in the water, up to her waist.

‘Are you coming, Nico?’

‘You’re crazy, it must be icy cold in there.’

I observe them, hidden in the darkness, subjugated. I’m learning. I’m learning things that your mother doesn’t teach you.

‘Come and catch it!’

Before I even have time to notice her arms moving, the top of Maria-Chjara’s bikini is dangling from a finger.

‘Come on, then, catch it.’