‘Yes. She’s the manager of that big hotel on the front. I forget the name.’

She hadn’t forgotten the name, Pip thought. Her mother really didn’t like Jez’s fiancée.

There was a pause in which Pip knew her mother was girding her loins to ask a difficult question. She braced herself.

‘And did you manage to talk to Jez?’

She pressed the word ‘talk’ so that her meaning would be crystal clear without her having to spell it out. She had Pip’s best interests at heart and just wanted her to recover, Pip knew, so she curbed her irritation.

‘A bit,’ she replied, and could almost feel her mother’s relief pass between them like a current.

‘That’s good,’ said her mother, and Pip was relieved that she seemed content to leave it at that.

After dinner, Pip excused herself as usual and retreated to her room and the diary for her nightly foray into Evelyn’s life. She settled herself on her bed and opened up where she had left off the night before.

Tuesday 16th August

Such a perfect day today. I took Scarlet crabbing off the end of the pier. We dug Peter’s old line out of the garage and I stole a couple of rashers of bacon from the fridge as bait. High tide was madly early – no problem for us, of course – so it wasn’t too busy, and we got a great spot. S wasn’t very patient about the waiting part, and I kept telling her it might take a while, but then, lo and behold, we struck gold within ten minutes! He was a whopper, too, and we managed to get him all the way up and into our bucket without dropping him. Scarlet was so excited (and a little bit scared), but I showed her how to hold him so he didn’t pinch her, and she gave him a bit of a stroke on his shell. Then we put him back and went to get hot chocolate and a bun in the café. S didn’t finish hers – I think she might be coming down with something – but I polished it off for her. Then we built her favourite sandcastle – the one with a moat and bridge – and wandered back home for her nap just as the beach was filling up. It was perfect.