“So if I can’t go to Newquay, can I swim here instead?”

He felt his heart contract.

“No.”

“Just until half-term.”

“No.”

“Just when it’s calm.”

“It’s never calm.”

“Just when the waves aren’t too big, then.”

“No.”

“But Dad!”

“You’re not going in the water when the lifeguards aren’t here,” he told her.

“But… ”

“But nothing.”

“Then let me go to Newquay! I don’t want to drink! I just want to swim before next Easter!”

“No.”

“Please! I’m not a… ”

“Little kid, I know. You’re still not going.”

“So let me swim here!”

“Will you please stop asking for things you know I’ll say no to?”

They strode on together in angry silence.

“Emma didn’t even ask her parents,” Alicia said casually. “She just told them she was going away for the last weekend of the holidays.”

Donald swallowed. His hold on her was so fragile. She did what he told her because she loved him. How much longer could that last?

“If you went off without telling me,” he declared, “I’d come after you.”

“What if you couldn’t find me?”

“I’d bloody well look until I did.”

She looked at him reproachfully. “Don’t swear.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” That made her smile a bit. “I’d go to the front desk of every hotel in Newquay, and I’d ask every single receptionist, ‘Have you got a young woman called Alicia Emory staying here?’ And I’d come up to your room dressed in my very worst dad clothes and I’d say, ‘Sorry to disturb you children, but Alicia didn’t tidy her room before she left so I’m afraid she’s going to have to come home.’ And you’d be so embarrassed you’d die of shame and never want to see any of them again.”

She was trying not to give in, but he could see the corners of her mouth twitching. “We might be at the beach.”

“Oh, even better. I’d come down to the beach wearing tiny little Speedos with my big fat gut hanging out over them.”

She took his arm and cradled it protectively.

“You haven’t got a big fat gut.”

“Yes, I have.” He stuck it out proudly. “Look at that. Great big wobbly publican’s gut. Disgusting. You don’t want your mates seeing that, do you?”

“Anyway,” she told him, “you haven’t got any Speedos.”

“I’d buy some specially.” He could feel her softening, relenting, and it evoked an answering tenderness in him. “Look, I’ll think about it, okay? Maybe next spring.”

She was on it like a cat on a mouse. “Or maybe this October.”

“I only said… ”

“Thanks, Dad. You’re brilliant.” She kissed his cheek, then dropped his arm and ran away before he could get in the crucial last words, ‘I only said I’d think about it.’

Her footprints were already disappearing as she ran down to the waterline. This close to the ocean, nothing left an impression for long. He was about to follow her when he was distracted by two thin, wavering tracks meandering towards the dunes, like badly-laid tramlines, or sled-tracks in snow. Following them, he found a trolley stacked with planks and his friend George building – what was he building? – something, in a small sheltered spot between two tall sandbanks.