The ferry from Krk to Rab was meant to be the straightforward bit of the journey. I'd done the research, checked the timetable twice, even arrived forty minutes early like the smug sort of person who thinks preparedness counts as a personality trait. What I had not accounted for was my own spectacular ability to misplace a car key in a hire vehicle whose alarm system apparently only responds to Croatian swear words. There I was, kneeling on the tarmac of Valbiska port, armpit-deep in a Fiat Panda, while a queue of increasingly unimpressed holidaymakers formed behind me. A man in a vest and leather sandals eventually tapped my shoulder, produced a wire coat hanger from seemingly nowhere, and had my door open in roughly the time it took me to say "hvala" with the wrong emphasis.

His name was Stipe, and he refused payment, instead extracting a promise that I would eat at his cousin's konoba in Banjol within forty-eight hours. This is how things work in Kvarner Bay, I was learning. Transactions are conducted in favours, fish recipes, and knowing looks.

The Rab Banjol property sits tucked among pines about a ten-minute stroll from the water, the sort of place where you half expect to find a hammock and a half-finished novel left by a previous guest. I did not find a hammock. I did find Marija, the local caretaker, waiting on the terrace with a bottle of loza and the patient expression of someone who has watched many British people attempt Croatian pronunciation. She showed me the outdoor grill with the solemnity of a priest presenting a relic, explained that the hot water requires "negotiation," and informed me that the neighbour's cat, Šime, has territorial claims over the garden that predate my booking by several years.

"Šime is not pet," she said, pouring me a glass that made my eyes water. "Šime is situation."

Within an hour I had met three further characters without leaving the property's immediate vicinity. First came Dragan, who maintains the neighbouring olive grove and appeared over the fence with a branch in one hand and political opinions about EU fishing quotas in the other. He spoke in a mixture of German, Italian, and expressive hand gestures, having apparently decided that my limited Croatian was an insult he would work around rather than indulge. He gave me three green figs and a lengthy explanation of why the 1987 harvest was "different," which I understood mainly through his sudden, reverent silence.

Then there was Katarina, who runs the small provisions shop at the bottom of the lane and who interrogated me about British tea habits with the intensity of someone compiling evidence for an international tribunal. She was deeply suspicious of milk in tea, deeply approving of my inadequate Croatian, and deeply committed to the position that no foreigner should leave without trying her mother's pašticada recipe. She wrote it on the back of a lottery ticket while I watched, occasionally looking up to confirm that I understood the importance of prunes.

The evening brought Tonči, who delivers bread to the local properties each morning and who I encountered trying to locate the correct gate in the gathering dark. He had opinions about my ferry experience, having heard about it from Stipe, who had heard about it from someone at the port café. The information economy of Rab, I realised, functions with greater efficiency than any broadband connection I have known.

By the time I finally sat on that terrace with my third glass of loza, watching Šime patrol the garden with obvious disdain for my presence, I understood something I had not grasped during my frantic key-searching hours earlier. The mishap was not an interruption to the holiday. It was the introduction. The people I had met in its aftermath were not characters in my story. I was a minor figure in theirs, the bumbling foreigner who needed rescuing, feeding, and gently correcting.

Marija had left a note on the kitchen table. "Tomorrow," it read, "Stipe's cousin expects you. Do not be late. He is worse than Šime about this."

I have never been more determined to arrive on time for anything in my life.