Then again, if Alicia did stay, what kind of life would she have? Mike was a roofer by trade, his wife Anna was a nurse. Two skilled workers. But Mike couldn’t get enough work locally and Anna’s wage wouldn’t cover a shift-worker’s childcare if he worked away, so two years ago Mike had taken Donald’s offer of head barman – flat-out with ten part-timers under him in the season just compensating for erratic shifts with casual extras in the off – and now he and Anna were clinging on by their fingernails. What would Alicia do for a job? The pub kept one adult and one child in modest comfort but it couldn’t do more. And besides, he didn’t want her to work in a pub.

“Blimey,” said Mike, from by the door. “They get better every year.”

“What get better every year?”

“The camper vans.”

Donald carried the blackboard out and watched the van pull into the beachside car park. Psychedelic flowers and mystic swirls, executed not with the smooth nasty airbrushing that always made him think of fairground rides, but with what looked like ordinary brushstrokes. The van even had a name: The Jolly Deathtrap of Doom and Loveliness. It was against the unwritten Code Of Being Local to stare, but he watched anyway.

The first person out was a man, tall and brown with a mop of wild curls. His jeans looked expensive, something which mystified Donald; how was it possible to make a pair of jeans so artfully that even a middle-aged publican could tell their value at fifty paces? His t-shirt had clearly been painted by whoever had done the van.

His companion was his shadowy feminine copy. Her hair was long and brown and wavy and her skin was pale, but they had the same-shaped face, the same wide eyes, the same build. Surely they couldn’t be a couple. No-one could be that in love with their own appearance. Brother and sister, maybe? The woman’s white peasant blouse blew in the wind. Her hair got into her mouth and she clawed it out impatiently. Then they both turned to face the beach and let the wind blow through them, holding their arms out to embrace it. Pair of oddballs. He realised he was staring, and went back inside.

As he turned the key in the till and emptied out coin-bags, two voices drifted through the open door.

“It looks just the same.” A man’s voice, not local.

“We’re actually here!” They sounded like siblings as well as looking like it. “I wish the wind was in a different direction though. Damn it… ”

“Have you got hair in your mouth again?”

“Yep.”

“Do you remember the time you were unpacking that trolley in the supermarket?”

She began to laugh. “And I breathed in a big mouthful of hair… ”

“And you were trying to claw it out and hawk it up at the same time… ”

“And you wrote to the supermarket afterwards and asked if they’d captured it on CCTV, and they actually wrote back… ”