In the new tourist information office situated in the Droit House on the Arm (now adorned with an Emin neon), Lisa scours the brochures. At the counter she asks casually about the shell cottage. ‘You mean the Shell Grotto,’ says the woman, handing her a leaflet.

‘I’m not sure,’ says Lisa. ‘I’m looking for something from the 1980s. A house covered in shells? A kind of folly – outsider art.’

‘This is the one,’ says the woman, pointing at the Shell Grotto picture. Lisa smiles and thanks her.

Wandering out of the Droit House, she happens upon Mark Wallinger’s shed: the Sinema Amnesia. Unsure whether it’s open, she crosses over, finds the doorway, and peers in. The elderly usherette beckons her and gestures the seat. Lisa sits down in the black box. In front of her, the fourth wall appears to be a fine metal scrim, through which the sea is visible. She looks out at the view for a while, and then around the black walls of the cinema booth: there is nothing else.

‘I don’t get it,’ she says.

‘It’s yesterday’s view.’ The usherette hands her a flyer. ‘You’re watching what happened twenty-four hours ago.’

Lisa gets up and peers at the wall in front of her. It’s not a scrim: it’s a projection. She laughs. ‘It looks exactly the same as today.’

The woman shrugs and smiles. ‘Doesn’t always,’ she says.

Lisa gazes out at yesterday’s sea and sky. They’re blue, and calm, and full of sunshine.

‌The Crèche

Cursing Jessica and Mirosława, I pelt along the Commercial Road with my daughter in the sling, knees groaning at every jolt. At the crossing for the station we meet another mum, with a two-year-old in a buggy. I recognize the look of agitation more than the face, but I’ve seen her somewhere before.

‘Just in time,’ I say.

She nods. ‘These lights are always slow.’

We make it to the island and then to the other side, articulated lorries menacing us with their engines.

We get to the station at ten on the dot. Jessica and Mirosława, in cagoules, stand at the centre of a small group.

Mirosława is looking faintly embarrassed, as well she might, and is holding a large white cardboard box, which is already lightly drizzle-spattered. Jessica clutches a clipboard and guards an enormous plastic crate by the station entrance. I know some of the other families: Sushmila and her mum, and a white couple I’ve met in the park with their newborn.

‘Goo-ood morning,’ says Mirosława, with that slightly twinkly, slightly world-weary way she has, that says I have seen worse hardship than this.

I take Jessica’s clipboard, hold it at arm’s length past my sling, run my finger down to find our names, tick the box to say I’ve paid, and sign the disclaimer.

‘Does that cover land-based drowning?’ I quip.