“I’m not helping you wreck it.” Alicia followed him inside. It looked bare and desolate. “If you’re going then fine, but don’t wreck it, please, just leave it up.”

“No, you don’t understand,” said Finn, laughing. “We’re not going. We’re not leaving until midwinter night. We’re hiding.”

“What?”

“We’re hiding.” Finn lowered his voice. “From your dad. I think he’s set the council onto us. Don’t tell Ava I told you.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“She thinks it’ll upset you to be put between us and your dad.” Alicia snorted. “I know, but she’s older than me, she worries about these things.”

“Aren’t you both just grown up by now – no, forget it. How are you hiding?”

“Help me take the bunks down and you’ll see. We have to be quick. I reckon they’ll be here by lunchtime.”

Once she got the hang of it, it was surprisingly exciting. There was a select thrill to hastily stacking the deconstructed beach hut onto George’s trolley, neatly and in order at George’s insistence. (‘But we can sort it out later,’ from Alicia, and George, hectoring and firm: ‘Now, that’s a common mistake. But if you get everything out of order, then identifying each piece can be almost impossible… ’) A tense fifty-minute pause while George and Finn dragged the trolley laboriously across the sand, which was not quite damp enough to stop the wheels from sinking in every fifty yards. When they finally disappeared, Alicia and Ava sat serenely on the pile of possessions and watched the dog-walkers making a path down to the caves and back.

“What if the council man comes before we’ve packed up the van?” Alicia asked.

“We’ll club him over the head with a rock and drag him down to the sea.”

“Really?”

Ava laughed. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think I might be a murderer?”

“No, I didn’t mean that.”

“Hey, don’t feel bad, it beats being boring. Do you mind if I go for a swim?”

“Can I come too?” Alicia asked, without much hope.

“I promised your father.”

“So? He’s an idiot.”

“Don’t say that. He’s doing his best.”

“He’s trying to have you evicted.”

“But at least he warned us first,” said Ava, smiling to herself.

“He’d never know,” said Alicia.

“Ah, but you and I both would.”

Ava peeled off her boots and her socks. Her coat and her jumper. Her t-shirt and her jeans. Finally she stood on the beach in a black cotton bra and knickers. Alicia looked away in embarrassment, but then turned back to watch.

After all, what was the difference between that and a bikini? Why shouldn’t Ava go swimming in her underwear? Cold and slightly jealous, Alicia found the biscuit tin and consoled herself with the Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers.

She meant to stop at two, but they were the good ones with three layers of chocolate on them, and they fitted so neatly into her mouth – just under half a finger for the first bite, then the second half crammed in sideways – that she couldn’t make herself stop. Before she knew it, she’d wolfed down the entire packet. Ava was coming back. Alicia crammed the empty box into her pocket. A woman with a dog, wrapped up like a Matryoshka doll, looked Ava up and down, then stopped to deliver what looked like a few words of approval.