But he didn’t want to spoil the game for Madhusree.

His legs almost folded as he hit the beach, but he caught himself and took a dozen more steps; just walking on dry land made him feel stronger. Then he crouched down and stood Madhusree on her feet before turning to sit facing the sea, his head lowered to help him catch his breath.

He was dizzy from the sudden end to his exertion, and his vision was marred with dark after-images. But Prabir was almost certain that he could make out a damp patch glistening on the sun-baked sand, one step beyond the water’s edge, evaporating before his eyes.

Madhusree declared calmly, ‘Want Ma.’

Prabir wasn’t allowed inside the butterfly hut. Because the malaria vaccine didn’t work for him, he’d had a pellet inserted beneath the skin of one arm that made him sweat mosquito repellent. The mere smell of the stuff probably wouldn’t harm the butterflies, but it could affect their behaviour, and any risk of serious contamination would be enough to invalidate all of his parents’ observations.

He put Madhusree down a few metres from the doorway, and she waddled towards the sound of her mother’s voice. Prabir listened as the voice rose in pitch. ‘Where have you been, my darling? Where have you been?’ Madhusree began to deliver an incoherent monologue about the water man. Prabir strained his ears long enough to check that he wasn’t being libelled, then went and sat on the bench outside his own hut. It was mid-morning, and the beach had grown uncomfortably hot, but most of the kampung would remain in shade until noon. Prabir could still remember the day they’d arrived, almost three years before, with half a dozen labourers from Kai Besar to help them clear away vegetation and assemble the pre-fabricated huts. He still wasn’t sure whether the men had been joking when they’d referred to the ring of six buildings with a word that meant ‘village’, but the term had stuck.