‘I would.’ Becky retrieved her bottle of coconut oil from her bag and lathered her fair legs, then presented them to the sun.

‘You’ll just get freckles,’ said Cathy.

Becky sighed. ‘I know. But maybe between the freckles I’ll go darker.’

Cathy skipped the CD forward to ‘Sanctuary’, her favourite song on Bedtime Stories, and she and Becky lay back on their towels with T-shirts over their faces and their straps off their shoulders to avoid tan lines. As the sun soaked into her, Cathy folded one leg up and stretched the other out and imagined she was on the deck of some high-class yacht somewhere, cruising into a little cove in the Mediterranean.

‘I don’t know why you guys bother coming here if you’re not even going to swim.’

Danny was standing above them, dripping water on them. Leonie stood behind him, politely dripping onto the clay.

‘Bugger off, Danny.’

Danny shook himself like a dog, sprinkling water everywhere, turning the clay to mud.

‘Fuck off, Danny.’ Cathy sat up as he shook water from his hair onto her baking belly.

‘You don’t want to hang with me, Kitty Cat?’ He sat and slung a cold wet arm around her shoulder.

‘Ah, Jesus! No.’

‘Come on, Cathy,’ said Becky. ‘Let them.’

Cathy sighed elaborately. ‘Okay. But only because you’re here with Leonie, and Leonie’s cool. Hey, Leonie.’

‘Hey.’

Danny reached over to the CD player. ‘So can we please change it over from the ubiquitous Madonna? Where’s the Cranberries I got you?’

‘I like Madonna.’

‘Oh god, I know.’

‘What do you like, Leonie?’ said Becky.

‘Lots of things –’

‘She likes what I like –’

‘Some of it, Danny. But I like other stuff too. PJ Harvey. TLC. Tiddas. I have eclectic tastes.’

‘Oh,’ said Becky, looking around uselessly. ‘Well, we don’t have any of those.’

‘That’s alright,’ said Leonie. ‘I like Madonna too.’

‘What?’ Danny slapped his hand to his forehead. ‘No!’

‘Yes, I do. She is unapologetic. And direct. I like that. And anyway, I’m going to swim out again, so don’t take me into account. See ya.’ Leonie ran and waded into the water until it was thigh height and then began a strong stroke out to the pontoon. Danny watched her go. Cathy smiled and leaned over slightly and nudged him with her elbow. He looked up, startled, and then ducked his head and laughed.

‘I wish I’d never said anything to you,’ he said.

‘Wouldn’t have made any difference,’ she said. ‘You can’t hide anything from your big sister.’

‘Except good taste,’ he said, then ran into the water after Leonie and began a thrashing Australian Crawl so typical of the guys around there.

‘Why do they all swim like that?’ Cathy said.

But Becky was still watching after Danny. ‘Cathy,’ she said, ‘that graze on Danny’s shoulder looks bad. Really bad.’

‘I know,’ said Cathy, turning onto her front to give her back a go at the sunshine. ‘Some birthday present, huh.’ She lay down with her head on her hands. Becky went still beside her, and Cathy heard her take a big breath in.