Outside the hair salon, crowds of cheerful holidaymakers were making their way through the bunting-laced streets, while seagulls cruised above, tracing wide arcs against the blue. Dogs sniffed out dropped pasty crumbs in the gutters, babies dozed in prams, small children in colourful T-shirts and sunglasses rode high up on their dads’ necks. Maggie breathed in the seaside scents of vinegary chips, coconut sun cream and frying onions, then joined the melee, enjoying the sensation of her hair bouncing lightly with each step.

What next for the bold new Maggie? It was a warm day, the sun already high in the sky, and she decided to head down to the beach, past all of the pretty little shops and galleries – one of which had a sign up in the door saying: NO TEENAGERS. Then she stopped, remembering that this was the place Em had pointed out to her a few days earlier – something to do with their kids, but the full story had never come out. She must get to the bottom of that, she thought to herself with a frown. Moving on again, she kept catching sight of her own reflection in shop windows and being startled by how nice she looked, how much happier and younger she seemed without all that heavy hair weighing her down.

Once on the beach, she kicked off her sandals, the sand warm and gritty underfoot as she walked along. It was busy already there, with families laying out towels and beach mats, toddlers squatting in the shallows making mud pies in colourful buckets. A strong breeze whisked the newly bared back of her neck, and she smiled as she spotted a little girl gleefully licking an enormous chocolate ice-cream that was going all over her chin – ‘Oh, Romy, you’re wearing that ice-cream, my darling,’ her mother said, half-exasperated, half-affectionate.

An elderly couple were sitting in a pair of deckchairs nearby and Maggie noticed they were holding hands across the sandy divide, their silvery heads turned to one another as they talked. Nearby there was a small wicker picnic basket and a Thermos flask, plus two paperbacks piled on a folded towel: a tableau that signalled companionship, a nice easy afternoon with the person you loved. It gave Maggie a similar feeling to the one she’d had in the church at Zennor, a pang of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on: envy? Regret? Wistfulness?

‘It’s lonely sometimes being on your own, isn’t it?’ her mum had sighed in the years following her dad’s death, but Maggie always refused to entertain the idea.