‘This is better, isn’t it? I mean all this …’ He waved his free hand across the brilliant grass, the darting fish, the shadowy arches, mossed stones.

‘Much,’she said.

‘It’s rather funny along there. The coast … we’re not used to it really. A bit of a surprise, I think. But we’ll find our feet; after all, it’s only two days. Perhaps tomorrow we should try going beyond La Napoule … to the rocky places.’

‘Yes. Yes, we could. We could try that.’

‘Or unless …’ He kicked a pebble; skittering across the shorn grass, it plopped into the pool. ‘Unless you’d just like to stay here. Be quiet. Stay put?’

‘Put? What is put?’

‘Well, here, by the pool. Stay here.’

She shrugged. ‘If you like. I don’t mind. Perhaps it would be lovely at the rocky place … perhaps we should go and see?’

‘Whatever you say.’

‘Well, it’s just that I like to lie in the sun, quite alone, except for you … and not think or hear anything. Everywhere seems so crowdy, you know?’ They were crossing the gallery towards the terrace. ‘We could never put up the tent at places like those today, could we? There isn’t any room. Where could we put up a tent, Marcus?’

‘I don’t know. I thought there would be somewhere … a camping site, something.’

‘Nothing. Well, perhaps tomorrow at the rocky bit. Shall we see?’

‘Or stay here? Which? I don’t mind. I mean there’s the pool here, sun …’

‘All right.’

‘I mean, it does seem a bit silly, doesn’t it? Perhaps just one day here, shall we? Or would you rather try along the other end of the coast, where we haven’t been yet? Monte Carlo. Menton … go along that way for a change? Or where?’

The terrace was deserted, shaded, the fountain bubbling softly, a bowl of full blown roses, deep cane chairs, in a bucket a bottle of Laurent Perrier, a neat white cloth about its shoulders, two glasses; moisture beading.

Leni dropped the Army Surplus into a chair, shook off her sandals with a quick flip of her feet.

‘Here,’ she said and ‘dwindled’ in acceptance.

This decision was greeted by Cuckoo with undisguised delight. Her shrewd idea that her ‘pretties’, as she now privately called them, might possibly find the pleasures of the coast questionable on their limited means had proved correct. They were not, as she had hoped, easily satisfied with third best, nor did they appear to crave the company of people of their own age, had no desperate desire for the sound of Rock and Roll, or Disco music or moving about in a herd. They were obviously very much in love, wanted to be alone together, which was reasonable, and seemed perfectly content with what they found around them at the villa. Which, she thought wryly, they jolly well ought to be: a five-star hotel entirely at their disposal with a willing staff to attend to their every need. For as soon as they had made their decision, quietly and without fuss, she had instructed Bruna to get her sister Maria back into harness immediately and to bring her elder daughter, Fanny, to help with the washing-up. For her own part she had picked up the scattered loose change of her life and reopened her account: spending it lavishly in time, effort and thought to give her young guests pleasure and herself the sense of security and optimism which she so desperately needed. Life was ‘life’, now, and no longer an apprehensive drift through the days, but one of force, determination and occupation which set the flurry of furies snapping at her heels to flight, giving her no time to consider anything beyond the immediate present.