“He could do it anyway,” George suggested. “Just get on with it and see if anyone complains. I could do it for him. I was looking at it the other day and I’ve done some plans. I know he thinks he wants a new storeroom but he doesn’t. What he wants is a sundeck. Then they can read newspapers and things, and their pop bottles won’t blow over or get sandy, and the women won’t get sand in that oil stuff they put on themselves.”

Donald wondered when George had last been to the beach.

“And what would he say when someone asked to see the paperwork?” he asked.

“People worry too much about paperwork,” said George, wrestling with a heavy wooden slab. He slotted it onto the groove of two poles forming the corners of the hut, and tapped it down with a rubber mallet.

“George, don’t take this the wrong way. It looks brilliant. But they’ll make you knock it down. I’m not trying to be mean but that’s what’s going to happen.”

“Well, it’s not mine, is it?” said George, picking up the next slab.

Cold curls of water kissed Alicia’s ankles. With the season over, the beach’s scale was so vast that it simply swallowed its few visitors, giving you the impression of being completely alone. She took two strides more, then shut her eyes and savoured the peace. The waves pawed at her knees and snatched at her jeans. She kept wading anyway.

One day soon, she’d have to leave the beach behind and go and find her real life, out in the rest of the world. The beach would shrink and fade and become part of her discarded childhood. Sometimes she almost wished her father had never brought them here to live. Why show her what it was like to live in Paradise when her only choice was to leave again?

A tall wave wet her to mid-thigh, and she swore, then looked over her shoulder, just in case her father had crept within earshot. To her surprise, he wasn’t watching her. She shaded her eyes with her hands. She thought she could see him climbing into the dunes.

“Why would I want a beach hut?” asked George, laughing. “I can’t stand it on the beach.”

“Who’s it for, then?”

George rummaged in his pocket, then held out a folded piece of paper. “I had a letter. There was a drawing in it.” As if this explained everything, he returned to his building.

Donald unfolded the letter. The writing was spidery and excitable, with an excess of punctuation. Occasional words leaped out like ambushing soldiers. Dunes, he read. One room. Bare. Sea. What was this rubbish? On the back was a sketch of what was presumably the finished object. It had a little veranda and a large pot with a climbing plant growing out of it.

“You’ll still be in trouble,” said Donald, handing back the letter. “You’re local. You ought to know better.”