‘Mia, is there anything I can do? . . . Are you okay for money?’ It was a blunt question, but their family had become almost her own. For nine months she had lived with them, dined with them, cried with them. She knew the raw reality of their situation.

She heard Mia swallow hard. ‘I think it’s time. We’re going to have to sell the house.’

Clover squeezed her eyes shut. The house was a ramshackle wooden bungalow with peeling aqua paint and yellow shutters. It needed a small fortune spent on it, after years of putting off repairs: it leaked every time it rained and in big storms it very often felt like it might blow over. It had an open-plan kitchen and living area, three bedrooms – the boys all shared – and a wraparound deck. But it wasn’t the house a buyer would be buying; nor was it the house that made it their home; it was the plot that was so special – small but perfectly formed at the very head of Half Moon Bay, on a rocky promontory overlooking a small cove. Mavericks, the famous big surf beach, was right around the corner and Cory always said it had one of the best views in California. The entire family spent their lives either in the ocean or sitting looking at it. They could judge the offshore wind directions and swell conditions long before they set foot on the sand. A house was just a house, but if they sold up, they’d never be able to afford a location like this again. The only private property on Pillar Point, with a military reservation otherwise dominating the headland, Cory had bought the tumbledown cottage and plot from a man who’d negotiated the sale of a few acres from the army when the site had sat unused after the Second World War. Even before he and Mia were married, he and his surf buddies used to hang out there, people sleeping on sofas, on the floor, all with sandy feet, ready to race down to the surf again at sun-up.

‘There’s been a developer sniffing around ever since the accident. First time he came over, Cory threatened to knock his teeth out if he ever stepped foot on the property again . . . He gave me his card anyway . . . and I kept it.’ Shame cut through Mia’s words, as though she was confessing to an infidelity.

Clover didn’t blame her, but she knew what toll this would take on Cory. It would be the cruellest blow. After everything he had lost following the accident, it had been the only thing left, to still be able to sit on his porch and watch the ocean. They saw dolphins and humpback whales as regularly as Clover saw cockapoos in Battersea Park. What would become of him, staring out into a concrete yard? ‘But I thought some work offers had come in?’ she said quietly.