We walked up the hill and went into Glen’s house, one of a set of mine managers’ cottages on Burwood Road. The houses are big and simple and perfect just the way they are, but some of the other owners are going mad with trellises and decks. One has even built a swimming pool, which strikes me as an obscenity so close to the ocean. There ought to be a law. The sandstone house was cool and quiet.

We showered and shared the preparation of the meal, which is to say that I cut the bread and opened the wine. It was good food.

Sneakily, I admired Glen while we ate. She is medium tall with no-nonsense features, all excellently proportioned, and a fine head of thick brown hair. Her hair had got fairer in the ten days we’d been up here. She tans but is careful about it and critical of my carelessness. I had an Irish gipsy grandmother whose skin had the colour and texture of a well-kicked football. I’m a bit the same and go very dark in the summer if I get any beach time. The recession was still with us-beach time wasn’t a problem. Bill-paying was, but a man with a woman who has a house on the coast shouldn’t ask for much more.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Glen asked.

‘Like what?’

‘As if you’re still hungry and thirsty.’

I laughed. Through the open French windows, an acceptable modification of Glen’s, I could hear the neighbours playing in their pool. There were loud splashes and laughter. Perhaps a pool wasn’t such a bad idea. I put the heretical notion aside- I was getting up early and walking briskly to Whitebridge for the paper and then to the beach and back every morning. A very sound constitutional. Wandering out to swim a few laps of the pool wouldn’t keep the flab down. I made coffee and, after dabbing on the insect repellent, we sat out in the backyard to drink it. The waves slapped on the beach and the night wind whispered in the tall casuarinas.