We’d left the hotel forecourt and were out by the road. An airport bus was embarking a load of homebound holidaymakers, and their suitcases were trippingly everywhere. We stopped and turned to face each other. We both grinned.

‘Hasta la proxima,’ I said, not very hopefully. The moment did not seem to be pointing towards a next time.

He stuck his hand out towards me in a manly, no-nonsense way. I took it for a second only. Equally firmly. Equally manly. There would be no final kisses out here in front of the buses, the tourists and the window-eyed hotels. ‘Amigo,’ he said. And I said, ‘Ciao.’ We turned away from each other and I walked back into the hotel. I didn’t stay to watch him go.

Amigo. It had a final sound to it. It rhymed almost with Finito. And its English translation rhymed even more strongly with The End.

It wasn’t yet nine o’clock. In a way I had come to Tenerife looking for sex. Well, I’d found it. But now what?

 Tenerife (and other Fortunate Islands.) As Britain splinters off from Europe, Scotsman Jonty finds himself navigating a flotilla of close relationships, including a life-changing liaison with Canary Islander Theo, across a thousand miles of silver sea.

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