‘I think,’ said Marcus, folding the map and putting it away with the empty cans in the Army Surplus, ‘that perhaps we ought to move further down the coast. It’s rocky there, it says so on the map. Perhaps there won’t be such a scrum at that end.’

‘Today?’ said Leni faintly.

‘No. Not today. It’s miles, but perhaps we could take the train beyond La Napoule.’

‘It’s very slow, the train, it stops at every station.’

‘Or into the hills up at the back. Only there isn’t a railway line marked.’

‘Then how could we get there?’

‘A bus maybe? Must be a bus. We can look one up. Or hitch a lift.’

Leni ducked suddenly to avoid a large plastic ball which thudded between them, desperately pursued by a hairy man in a cod-piece, and a frantic Alsatian. She brushed the scatter of sand and bottle tops from her legs and readjusted her straw hat.

‘It’s terribly hot, Marcus … to walk all that way, you know this?’

‘Well, that’s what we had planned to do, remember. And with a tent. We haven’t got the tent at least.’

‘No. No, we haven’t got that.’

‘I mean, that was the whole idea, hitching … to be independent.’

‘And a dear little hotel, very quiet, by the sea, in the sun …’

‘Not much chance of that. Coming in then?’

‘In?’

‘For a swim. Come on.’

‘But our things. Someone might steal everything, you know.’

‘They won’t … Come on, nothing to steal anyway.’

‘But your money, our clothes, the Army Surplus, and things. You go in and I’ll stay, here and keep guard, and when you come out I’ll go in.’

‘But that’s not the idea. It’s not the idea at all! I want to go with you.’

‘Well, we can’t, you see. If everything is stolen we would have to walk all the way back to the villa naked and that’s miles and miles from here. You go.’

‘But what’s the point in being here if we can’t go for a bloody swim together?’

‘I don’t know. And don’t shout, you go red in the face.’

‘Well. There’s no bloody point, that’s all.’

‘There is a point. I want to make a pee-pee, you see it’s the beer, so I’ll go in first, and you wait here and when I come out you can go in.’

He lay back and covered his face with his hands.

Leni adjusted a shoulder strap, took off her straw hat. ‘You may not believe it,’ she said, ‘but I love you with all my heart.’

He made no reply, so she walked through the crowds, tripped over the Alsatian, and moved cautiously into the water.

Later, in the cool of the late afternoon, walking down the long curving drive to the shaded courtyard with its green lawn, the pool, the Triton blowing water, a soft breeze frilling the heavy banana leaves, the heat and irritations of the day slid from them both gracefully. He reached out and took her hand and they smiled at each other with tight new shining red faces.