She had instructed her crew to take her yacht and designer wardrobe back to Ibiza, and had bought a selection of cheap string bikinis, tie-dye sarongs, faded cotton vest tops and denim cut-offs. She hadn’t got over her aversion to denim, but had to look the part. Not wanting to cut her hair, most days she wore it in plaits, and now that the platinum dye was starting to grow out and her mousy roots were becoming streaky in the hot Thai sun, she could easily pass for just another (strikingly good looking) 30–40-something trying to find herself on foreign shores. Deeply tanned and freckled now, her only jewellery was a silver-and-turquoise anklet; she never wore shoes.

Bottle Beach was an extraordinarily picturesque cove, all powdery sand, turquoise sea and gently swaying palm trees, only accessible by boat from Haad Rin, the main village on the island. Natalia remembered Poppy and Damian telling her about it – they had met seven years previously at one of Koh Phangan’s notorious Full Moon parties, and spent several days exploring the island together afterwards. They had raved about its beauty and remoteness, and Natalia had thought it sounded absolutely perfect for her requirements. It was the sort of place where, amongst the constant stream of people passing through, some chose to spend an entire season, just chilling out for months on end.

Natalia’s story was that she’d just been through a messy divorce, though she didn’t give too much away, and nobody pried too much. It was as though life outside the beach didn’t count for much when you were there, which suited her just fine. She had attracted quite a devoted following, though. Pretty much all of the male long-termers had a crush on her, from gauche gap-year kids to 40-somethings with long hair and guitars, to a 70-year-old French artist who liked to escape from his home in Provence every winter. Even though she was perfectly friendly and joined in with card games and other communal activities, she had a wounded, vulnerable air that made them want to look after her.

Despite her ongoing heartache, Natalia had come to love the simple way of life on the beach. Every morning, she would rise with the sun and swim out towards the horizon for an hour or so. The beach was particularly lovely at this time of day, and when she swam far out into the ocean, turning back to look at the shore, she felt at one with nature, the sheer beauty and enormity of planet Earth somehow managing to dwarf her own problems. She always swam underwater now, the days of keeping the façade intact long gone.

She would return to a breakfast of mango juice and pancakes with freshly grated coconut and honey, which she ate sitting on a beanbag under a palm tree, alternately looking out to sea and reading. Yoga and meditation on the beach generally followed. These were led by Juho, a Finn around her age who liked to escape his own country as soon as summer was out and the intolerably short days began. It was only mid-September, but Juho had said, seriously, that ‘the people in my country, they go mad in wintertime; they drink too much. It is impossible not to, when you have very little daylight for months. For me, beaches and meditation are better. But it is not for me to judge others.’