He had suffered chest pains when he tried to jog across Hyde Park after a large celebratory lunch and a few too many drinks with his sales team. It hadn’t been particularly bad but was enough to frighten him into calling the doctor, and it made him face long suppressed worries about lifestyle and fitness.

Paul, an old school friend with a practise in Harley Street, examined him thoroughly then laughed at him. Told him to lose thirty pounds, stop smoking, take a holiday, and spend some of the money he worked so hard to accumulate. He should act forty five, not fifteen, and he should remember to keep breathing in and out.

On the premise that any advice he chose to pay for was probably worth heeding, he had immediately gone to Thomas Cooke’s Travel Agency in Piccadilly.

‘I want two weeks, somewhere hot. Quiet and luxurious. Leaving tomorrow.’

The girl had smiled in anticipation of a good commission.

‘Somewhere I can swim with tropical fish’, he added, ’and I really don’t care how much it costs.’ A good indication, he thought, how much the chest pains had frightened him. Despite Paul’s jokes.

So here he was three days later in Sri Lanka, lying flat on his back on a perfect white sandy beach after a light breakfast of grilled fish and fresh mango. And a morning swim. Well, maybe not a swim, more like a few short bursts of inefficient freestyle followed by floating on his back to regain his breath. But it was a start and he’d enjoyed it.

How long was it since he’d taken a holiday? He thought hard, staring straight up at the sky through whispering palm fronds, unconsciously scooping handfuls of fine sand and trickling it through his fingers. Six years? No seven. Unless you counted the odd weekend away with that bloody woman. Thank Christ she’d left him. In fact, it was rather good to be alone. No phone calls, no emails, no meetings, nothing he had to do, and nobody he didn’t want to talk to. Just sun and turquoise sea and warm sand against his back and palm trees bending in the breeze against a blue, blue sky. And quiet. So quiet.

Paul was probably right. All he ever did was work. No family. Most of those he called friends were colleagues from work. No hobbies. Just things he talked about a lot but never had time to do. He did play golf, but that was more business than pleasure if he was honest. What did he actually like doing, he wondered? Yes! What did he actually like doing?

He liked sunbathing, he thought, as the breeze dropped and the sun’s heat increased on his skin. He noticed the pungent smell of seaweed on exposed rocks.

And he liked sex, but even that had become organised and almost businesslike lately, more of a bodily function than pleasure. It took him a moment to even remember who he’d last slept with.

A woman’s voice murmured through the heat and he idly wondered what caused that distinctive quality of sound that only occurred on a quiet beach on a hot day. He would always know he was on a beach just by the way a soft voice carried unintelligibly. He would know even with his eyes closed. The voice drifted toward him again. There was something familiar about it. Was it the beautiful receptionist?

Enough, he thought, stretching luxuriously. Don’t evade the question. What do you like doing? He concentrated, digging his hands down into the sand to find the cool dampness. Then he froze as a sudden realisation shocked him.

He rarely did anything he liked doing! He only did things he had to do, or thought he should do, or people told him he ought to do. Jesus! Was it really as bad as that? How the hell had that happened? OK. Full of resolve now. Make a list Miss Evans. Smiling as he pictured his secretary’s fine legs. Things I like to do. Things I will do! He sat up, excited by his insight, and looked out to sea.

But the sea had gone. The waters edge was suddenly hundreds of meters away. And then he saw the monstrous, impossible wave that was approaching him from beyond the exposed coral reef and he realised he had left it all much too late.