‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Try and get to your feet, see if you can move anything.’

‘I wish I was dead.’

‘You bloody would have been. Give me your good arm, come on, you can’t stay here all evening.’

‘I can if I want to. It’s my land.’

He reached down and took her hand firmly, eased her upwards, until he could take her in both arms and pull her lightly to her feet. For a moment they stood together locked in a close embrace.

‘Now. Try and stand by yourself, can you? Nothing broken?’ He let her go slowly.

She stood swaying, stretched both her arms outward, flexed her fingers, straightened her back. ‘Nothing broken. My arm hurts, my elbow. I fell on it.’ He’s not naked. A little blue slip with a silver buckle. He’s very beautiful, and very cross. ‘A scrumptious’. She smiled a wavering smile. ‘But I’m all right. I’m all right really. If you could help me … to the side there; in the sun. Sit down for a moment.’

He helped her over the rock, on to a tussock of springy grass and thyme. She sat gingerly, taking her weight with her good arm. He squatted beside her.

‘You ought to get out of those things, soaking wet.’

‘I will, in a minute. I’m not quite pulled together yet.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Up there. The house is up there, at the top of the path.’

‘Can’t see anything.’ He was squinting up through thick lashes lightly rimmed with dried salt.

‘No. No. You can’t from here. This is a secret place. Was.’

‘It’s very steep.’

‘I’ll manage, in a minute. Would you help me?’

‘Of course.’

‘There will be people. My husband, the servants, you won’t say anything?’

‘No. But you’d better get rid of the stones in your top pockets.’

Nervously she fumbled with her hand at the buttons, he watched her in silence making no further effort to help. She undid one pocket, tugged at the large round stone, dropped it into the grass and started on the second flap.

‘You could say you were collecting them. For a rockery,’ he said.

She threw the second, larger, stone down towards the rock below. It skittered across the smooth surface, plopped heavily into the sea.

‘I am a keen gardener, and I detest rockeries.’ She scraped the hair from her face. ‘I just fell … you’ll say that? I just fell, caught my ankle and you pulled me out. You’ll say that?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘Yes. Say that.’ She rebuttoned the two pockets deliberately. ‘They won’t be very surprised, you’ll see. I am always in some kind of … trouble. My name is Cuckoo, so that explains things, doesn’t it? Do admit?’

‘If you say it does, fine.’

‘Well, it does. To me. What’s your name?’

‘Pollock, Marcus.’