“Have you? Damn. Still, maybe you could lose it on the way down. Or not get any signal.”

“Are we going down, then?” asked Alicia, from the clifftop.

Finn slithered down a few feet further. “Well, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” said Alicia recklessly, and scrabbled after them.

The cove’s high black cliffs were like cathedral walls. They had nothing to sit on, but there was a thick band of smooth grey pebbles that were all right as long as you didn’t want to lie down, so they sat on that, and watched the sea wash against the crisp fringe of seaweed.

“Bet there’s a cave,” said Finn. “I’m going to have a look. Behave yourselves while I’m gone.”

“Don’t lick the walls,” said Ava, yawning.

“How else am I supposed to decide whether to open an arsenic mine?” Finn shambled away.

“Should we go with him?” asked Alicia.

“If you like.”

“Aren’t you going to?”

“I’m going to swim,” said Ava.

“Again?”

“Is there a rule about swimming too often?”

“No, but you haven’t got any… ”

Ava was already undressing. “Life’s short. You’ve got to make the most of every opportunity.”

Another minute and Ava was naked on the beach. Alicia thought her face might burst with embarrassment. Ava walked into the water and the waves closed around her. Alicia heard her gasp and swear. Her body vanished beneath the water and only her head was visible.

“Can I come too?” Alicia begged. “Please.”

“You’re not supposed to.”

“There’s no undertow here.”

“Not that we know of.”

“My dad won’t ever know unless you tell him.” Ava had turned back onto her front and was swimming towards the horizon with strong, clean strokes of her arms. “Please let me come in with you.”

Ava turned back to shore for a minute. She was too far away for Alicia to read her expression.

“Why do you need my permission?”

Alicia took a deep breath, then began to undress. Running down the beach, one arm holding her breasts and the other cupped over her groin, she prayed Finn was absorbed in his cave and wouldn’t see her making this wild dash for freedom, wearing nothing but her own skin. The cold took her breath, then gave it back again as she became a water-creature, reborn clean and free. The horizon was calling her. She wanted to swim out and out and out and never come back.

“Alicia.” Ava swam after her. “Don’t go too far.”

“Don’t be boring.”

“Boring!” Ava laughed.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I don’t mind, it’s just… ” she laughed again. “Look at me, being all grown up and responsible. That’d show my husband.”

“Have you got a husband?” Alicia was startled.

“I had one, but I think I’ve probably lost him now.”

“Really?”

“Does it seem so unlikely?”

“Is that why you’re living in the beach hut? Did he get the house?”

“Are you getting tired yet? I don’t want to drown you.”

“I’m not a kid, you don’t need to change the subject. What happened? Did he leave you?”