What would it be like if, hypothetically, Ava was to start going out with her dad? She’d watched friends at school go through the cycle of arguing parents, separating parents, divorced parents, new boyfriends and girlfriends. She’d been part of supportive conversations, agreeing that their parents were selfish bastards and if they ever had kids, they’d never put them through it. But she herself had never been the one alternately frowny and casual, switching between violent hatred and elaborate shoulder-shrugging.

Was it because her mother had died, rather than left them? Was her dad still so in love with her that he couldn’t bear to think of anyone else that way?

“Left or right?” Finn asked.

“She’s asleep, I think,” said Ava. “Right.” Alicia started tell them she wasn’t, but the van was already making a slow wide circle, so she went back to her train of thought.

How did grown ups go out, anyway? On TV they went to restaurants and drank wine on sofas before falling into bed together. Would Ava put on a demure black dress and pin her hair up? Would her father take his blue suit from its hanger and shave for the second time that day? Where would they go? And afterwards, would they – ugh, no, it was too horrible to think about.

The movement of the van was soothing. She let herself drift into a warm doze, intermittently aware of the van pausing and moving on, winding through narrow lanes and reversing back to passing places.

When she woke, they were by the sea once more, on a tall cliff over a deserted bay. The ocean was subtly different, bluer, softer, gentler, the waves breaking against black rocks and white sand.

“Where are we?” asked Alicia, stretching.

“Somewhere awful,” said Finn, turning off the engine. “The houses have got corrugated roofs. Why do people do that? But the beach is nice and they sell fish and chips. Hopefully the crime rate’s quite low as well.”

“Why does that matter?” asked Alicia.

“We’re leaving everything we own in a van that doesn’t lock properly.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

“What good would worrying do?” Finn led the way down the quiet seafront to a side-street billowing with the scent of hot fat and vinegar.

The path down to the beach was treacherous and crumbly. Alicia looked at it doubtfully.

“Should we be doing this?” she asked.

“Probably not,” said Finn, testing the path with one foot.

“It looks dangerous,” said Alicia.

“True.” Finn’s feet sent a rattle of stones ahead of him.

“And if we get stuck and have to call the coastguard, we won’t know where we are to tell them,” said Ava, edging down the path and wincing at the dry rattle of falling soil.

Finn grabbed at a clump of grass for support. “On the plus side, we don’t have a mobile phone, so we don’t have to worry about what we’d say to them.”

“I’ve got a mobile phone,” said Alicia.