‘It’s a holiday. He’s been okay the last few days: quite a change. I don’t know why. Let me wear shorts, swim, be in the sun. Amazing. But tomorrow we start again.’

‘Start what?’

‘Training. Training. The gym in the morning, fencing … then riding in the afternoon somewhere in the hills. In riding things. Boots, jacket, breeches … everything.’

Leni opened her eyes wide. ‘In this heat!’

‘Sure. He says I have to wear heavy uniforms so I must get used to the weight. He’s tough.’

Leni laughed, started to remove the airplane slide from her hair. ‘And vain. Very conceited, I should think. He looks it.’

‘Very Italian. Very male. He has to be best at everything. He works hard on his body. He really punishes it. All the training, you know?, he does with me. Fencing… wrestling, the riding. And he is much older than I am. But he has to be best. I don’t care, I’m a quiet chap, and that makes him angry. He tries to make me lose my temper, to show “rage”, he says, so he hurts me purposely … silly things … to make me take risks. But I won’t. Look at my back.’ He leant forward suddenly. Faintly through the light tan, seven weals across the smooth skin.

‘I saw them,’ said Leni, putting the slide into a pocket, ‘when you took off your shirt coming up the hill.’

‘He did that. A whip. Riding. “You sit like a sack of shit in the saddle.” he said … and struck me.’

‘You didn’t do anything?’

He shrugged. ‘No. I’m a quiet man.’

‘You must be mad.’

‘Sometimes I think so. But if I had hit him he would have hit me back, and so on. No point.’

‘You want to be in this film so much?’

‘It’s a lot of money. Then I’ll quit.’

‘It’s your affair, but I think he must be mad really. And today, he left so quickly, right after lunch. His face was white too, like all the rest of him. He looked so strange, excited…’

‘Too many people. He hates crowds, they upset him, I think. Also he doesn’t like speaking English, he says it exhausts him. But we have to, because of the film.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘I’ve enjoyed today, speaking to you, in our own tongue … sometimes I think I have forgotten all my German.’

She patted his hand. ‘I have forgotten nearly all mine. I will be happy when I do.’

He spread her fingers across his naked thigh. ‘You make me sad when you speak like that. You cannot forget completely that you are German. You must not.’

She removed her hand, slid off the seat and stretched out on her back on the grass. ‘I don’t want to speak about it any more. Just let us sit here in peace, shall we? You are a quiet man, I am a quiet girl. After the noise today, let us listen to the sea … the wind in the pines. Oh! It’s so good.’