My eyes slip away again, I’m spoilt for choice, and I settle a few metres further along.

They are forty. Maybe fifty.

She’s reading, really reading. Concentrating. The last few pages of a giant doorstop. Beside her, he’s getting bored. He’s not bad – tall, greying, something powerful in his expression. But he’s looking elsewhere. On a beach there’s no shortage of pretty things to look at.

Or I take another couple. The same age, but the other way around. He’s lying on his side, back to the sun, in the shade of a parasol, his slightly paunchy belly sliding under him like a deflated balloon. Beside him, still gorgeous, she’s getting bored. Slender, elegant; wearing make-up, nicely turned out. She looks elsewhere. Her eyes come to rest on some children playing in the distance. Hers must be too old; or not old enough to have given her grandchildren. She’s bored, resigned to waiting like this for the rest of her life.

It’s a long downhill slope, my darling …

Time passes. My eyes wander. I search for a long time before I find the rare specimens I’m looking for.

They’re about seventy, maybe eighty. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but they’re talking to each other, that much is certain. He must be asking if she’s not too hot, she must be asking if he wants his book, his glasses, his cap. And then all of a sudden they get up.

I don’t like their naked bodies. If my skin was as wrinkled as that, with the bones looking as though they’re piercing it, their heavy flesh sagging at the chin, the neck, the belly, the buttocks, I’d go into hiding.

My hands twist in my T-shirt.

I’m fascinated by those two old people, holding hands as they wade into the water, not even pausing before they go in, not even shivering at the waves’ cold bite, pressing their lips against each other for a moment, and then setting off towards the sailing-boats doing an impeccable and coordinated crawl.

‘You’re watching old people now?’

I look up.

It’s Cervone. Cervone Spinello. Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt, trainers. I’ve never seen him in a swimming costume before. I’ve got the whole beach to myself all year round, I heard him saying once. In summer I leave it for the tourists.

How long has he been there? How long has he been looking at me? Me, my mother, the other mothers, the other teens? As if caught off guard, my eyes go back up the beach as if I could rewind everything I’ve seen and get back to the start.

Three hideous towels.