If they invited her in, would she say yes or no? And if she said yes, what would happen next?

“Do you remember,” said the woman from inside the hut, “that time when Ianto got his car stuck on that beach? Tell me about that again, please.”

“He said he’d seen someone do it in a film,” said the man, dipping his brush into the paint pot. “I can’t remember what film it was, but I know it wasn’t about people driving cars on beaches. I think it happened one time in the whole two hours. But it got right into his head. He said he wanted to drive his car onto the beach and see if he could drive it off again, or if the wheels would sink into the sand. So we drove onto the beach at Ynyslas, and of course it got stuck.”

“Instantly?” The woman came out of the hut with two blue-and-white-striped mugs.

The man began to laugh. “Instantly. It wasn’t like we were fine for a couple of minutes and then we went a bit too far – he just rolled onto the beach, and as soon as all four wheels were on the sand, like, the very second all four wheels were on, we were stuck.”

“And the tide was coming in?” the woman prompted.

“And the tide was coming in.” The man jumped off the chair, put down the paint pot and took the mug from her hand. When he laughed, a slop of tea fell out over the side. “We couldn’t call the police because his tax disc had expired. So we just did the best we could with what we had. I think we had the car mats, and Sam and Jenny, and a kid’s plastic spade Jenny found in a sand dune, and that was it. We finally got it off just as the waves were washing round the front tyres.”

“Now tell me the best bit,” the woman said.

The man was laughing so much he had to put his mug down.

“The best bit,” he said, “was that Ianto’s whole point was you couldn’t drive an ordinary car onto a beach, because it would just get stuck and it would take hours to get it off again. He risked his car getting washed away by the sea, just so he could prove that sometimes stuff you see in films isn’t strictly accurate.” The man was looking at Alicia, keeping a friendly distance between them but obviously aware that she was standing there, watching them. “Are you okay there?”

“I helped George build your beach hut,” said Alicia, then felt stupid.

“Really?” The man looked delighted. “You both did a brilliant job. It’s perfect. I’m Finn, by the way, this is my sister Ava. Want a cup of tea and a biscuit and a look around?”

She reached into her heart for the image she’d cherished, but already it was shifting, fading, changing. The walls were blue now, not a colour she’d have chosen. It was becoming somebody else’s haven. “I’m not sure.” If she crossed over the threshold, what would she find inside?