Maps were marked with places they had to see, where they could eat reasonably, what they could safely avoid, where to cash a travellers’ cheque, catch a bus or the train, plus all the holiday minutiae of where to get the best espadrilles, sun lotion, swimming costumes, sandwiches and postcards.

The scarlet tent remained unstrapped and unrolled on a corner of their balcony while they set off, with towels and guide book crammed into Leni’s Army Surplus, and hearts filled high with anticipation, to discover the varied delights of the Riviera.

For some strange reason, which she was quite unable to explain, Leni had got it firmly fixed in her mind that this golden length of coastline was a paradise of hidden coves, wine-scented air, deserted beaches, and what the travel writers call ‘sleepy little fishing villages’ buried in sighing palms or blazing with bougainvillaea. She was deeply shocked to find, almost instantly, that this was not so, and that the whole agglomeration stretching from Nice to Cannes was really nothing but a gaudy hot-Watford. The traffic terrified her, the beaches were jammed with bloated red bodies and crushed paper cups, the air heavy with the rancid stink of fried chips, sun oil and petrol; and the sleepy fishing villages, if they had ever existed in the first place, were long since demolished and smothered in concrete blocks twelve storeys high with rubber plants on every balcony and television aerials on every roof. That was the first shock. There were others, inevitably, to follow, such as the price of a glass of beer, a sandwich in a cheap bar, and the fact that whenever she most needed its comfort there was absolutely no sign, to the naked eye at any rate, of a Public Lavatory anywhere to be seen. She suspected miserably that everyone just hurried into the sea to seek relief, and on closer examination of that deceptively blue expanse discovered that she was correct.

To be sure, in this hot, overcrowded property dealers’ paradise and ruin, there were some things which could be assumed to pass for glamour and sophistication: but they were few and far between and most of them prohibitive on the modest allowance which Marcus had carefully put together. There were the private beaches of the Croisette, neat with serried rows of coloured mattresses and giant parasols, the cool public gardens shaded by palms, pines and oleanders, the frilly bulks of the Majestic and Carlton hotels tinselled with Rolls-Royces, Cadillacs and Mercedes, the flying flags, the brilliant sky, the jagged mountains of the Estérel hazed across the immensity of the bay adrift with little yachts and countless pleasure boats: all these were there to be seen if one cared to look, but, apart from the gardens and the view, they were not for them, and they quickly concealed their dismay from each other, and strove hard to show no signs whatsoever of disillusion or deprivation. Bravely they explored the sights of Nice, Antibes and Cannes, from fish markets to Prisunic’s, at one of which Leni bought a swimsuit, sandals, sun oil, and postcards to send to ‘Uncle’ Desmond, Gus Bender and Nig, which they dutifully wrote on a filthy beach eating cold, sand-covered pizzas, drinking warm beer from cans.