‘It’s ok, Herbie,’ I say as I pat the dog on the head.

‘Oh, that poor creature belongs to you? I thought it was a stray.’

The woman’s voice sounds like a swarm of something biting and black, with wings. Static builds up inside my head, so I have to shake it.

‘Are you alright, dear?’ falls out of the woman’s mouth, and it stings.

‘Jesus, I’m fine, perfectly fucking fine. Now just give me back my boy and we’ll be out of your way.’

The woman’s grip on Tommy tightens. ‘Perhaps you should dry yourself off first?’

Shaking with something else now and it’s rocking me deep inside. My voice is huge and swallowed and I’m scared of what might happen if I release it. Breathe: in, out, in, out.

The woman sucks in her cheeks, biting down on them, making her appear cadaverous, as if she might spirit Tommy away to another dimension. ‘Is there someone I can call?’ Her voice a hag’s voice. I knock the phone out of her hand and grab my son from her arms, which are stick-thin with loose swathes of skin. Feel repulsed by this old woman: her proximity, her bossy intrusion into our happy, happy world.

The woman calmly bends to pick up her phone, which makes my reaction seem all the more extreme. Even when I can see myself like this from the outside, I still can’t stop the tornado whipping up through me: a ‘child thief’, a ‘kiddy twiddler’, a ‘dirty old bag’, ‘witch/bitch/crone/cunt’ rip out of me as I run, a bawling Tommy clasped tight to my sopping bra, Herbie in step. Sprint to the car without stopping to pick my clothes up off the sand; people are staring – let them stare, they have nothing better to do. I throw Tommy in the back with Herbie – whose hair on his back is standing up, his Sid Vicious act – before I turn the key, which I left on the front right-hand tyre (a trick Howard taught me, as I was forever losing my keys – good for something, the prick). Rev the engine and move away from the packed car park on to the congested road, my bare feet slipping on the pedals.

I put the heater on full, willing my old banger on, humming one of Tommy’s favourite tunes: Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb… Usually when I hum he sings, his cartoon-angel-like voice high and pure, but this time he just sticks his thumb in his mouth and sucks on it hard, as if worrying it might make the other thoughts go away. ‘Ok, little man?’ I say in the rear-view mirror and smile, giving him the thumbs up. Nothing. Try again: ‘Ok, big man?’ I stick my tongue out, roll it so the two sides touch off each other, which would normally make him chuckle, then roar with laughter, but he just squeezes his eyes shut and sucks more intently. ‘Ok, Mister Man, we’ll be home soon, and we can have some fishy fingers and jumping beans, ok?’ I turn on the radio and Ravel’s Bolero blasts from the speakers.