“Will they. That’ll teach them.”

“And I’m working on a good new project. I’ve got the plans here. A boat, which makes a nice change. Well, I say a boat. It’s actually more of a raft.”

“A raft. That’s interesting.” Where was Alicia now? If anyone had told him a couple of years ago that somehow, insidiously, she would have manoeuvred herself to the position where she could spend hours and hours out of the house, with people he didn’t know, doing things he didn’t want to imagine, he would have laughed.

“Have a look at the plans if you like,” said George, in the tone of one conferring a great favour.

“A bit busy just now, George.”

Had he had this much freedom? It had been different for him. A boy on a bike in a tough city three decades ago, compared to a girl in a seaside resort with a mobile phone in the here and now. Did these differences add up to security or stupidity? And who was the boy she was… ?

His hand caught the side of the pump. Amber nectar gushed into the catch tray. He grabbed a glass, capturing just over a quarter of a pint, then shook his head. What was he going to do with it? He couldn’t stand the stuff personally.

“You don’t want ten mouthfuls of Fosters, do you, George? On the house?”

“I don’t drink Fosters,” said George. “The interesting thing about rafts is, even though they don’t have a hull, they can be surprisingly steerable.”

Anyone but George would have taken an interest in where the Fosters had come from, but once he was off, he was off. It was comforting in a way, having someone talking as he pottered. The character of his autumns was determined by the summers. Some years – the lean years where the sun hadn’t shone and the rooms hadn’t sold and next Easter fell late in the spring – the autumn was filled with gnawing anxiety, knowing his business was now dependent on his neighbours and no-one had harvested quite enough money to go around. But this year had been good. The pub had done what it needed to. It had washed its face and then some. They’d get through the winter in modest comfort. If it wasn’t for the irritation of those idiots down in the beach hut he would have been perfectly content.

A party of surfers came rampaging in at half-past twelve, tall and loud and aggressively healthy, narrow hips, wide shoulders and full thick heads of salty hair. (Had Alicia been with one of them? Was she with him still?) He thought about telling them they couldn’t bring their boards in, but there were six of them and they were already eyeing the menu hungrily. He compromised by giving the boards a slow, disbelieving stare, and the surfers regressed into the boys they clearly still were at heart and took them out to the lobby and leaned them against the wall. It satisfied Donald to know that he could still summon the Death Stare. He was getting on, but he wasn’t done. Life in the old dog yet.