Maybe this will be the last time. I ought to stop but I can’t. It’s like I’m addicted. I can’t stop even though I know it’s bad. Okay, that’s exactly me being addicted.

He leaned towards her, wanting to kiss her. Even this, she thought, even this he wouldn’t do without her permission. She didn’t want to let him but she did it anyway. How could she despise the taste of his lips when not ten minutes ago her mouth had opened wide to welcome in his tongue, greedy for the closeness? She wanted him to speak but he wouldn’t. Then he was gone, ducking beneath the shutter, disappearing into the dark.

She sat on the floor and dabbed angrily at the cooling wax, burning her finger. The wax set instantly into a soft pale blob. When she peeled it off, its identical twin remained behind, a fat white blister that she longed to puncture even though she knew it would hurt more. She stared at the blister and thought about the day it began.

It was the middle of August. The whole town was bleached dry and pale by the hard bright sunshine, a fierce light that took the moisture from your hair and the colour from your curtains, compelling you to strip down to the briefest approximation of modesty your wardrobe possessed. The beach was a writhing maggoty mass of well-oiled bodies. At the café, they were run off their feet. She had done two extra hours and taken three hundred and ninety-six pounds at the ice-cream stall.

“Quitting time,” Emma’s dad told her once the mid-afternoon rush was over and the queue had reduced to a mere seven customers.

“I don’t mind staying.”

“Go on with you.” He moved her aside and smiled at the harassed-looking lady in the Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses. “What can I get you?”

“Three ninety-nines, please.”

“I’ll do another hour.”

“No you won’t, your dad’ll kill me. There we go, that’s one… ”

“Another half an hour.”

“You’ve done a great day’s work. Now off you go. And two… ”

“But… ”

“And three. Six pounds thirty, please… and three pounds seventy back to you, enjoy. Go on. Skedaddle.”

“See you tomorrow, then.” Alicia slipped out of the ice-cream booth.

She wanted to swim, but the sea wasn’t hers today. Today it belonged to the mob, who descended like locusts but left money in their wake, and were therefore necessary. She went home instead, to take a lazy shower and lie on her bed and dream. Mike was heading a busy team behind the bar, efficient and unflappable, tolerating George’s lecture on the subject of where the clinker-building technique had originated. Mike was a good worker, they’d be lost without him. That’s what Dad always said. She enjoyed the shower, her second of the day. The hot water felt like an outrageous luxury.

Cocooned in her towel, she padded into her bedroom. A fat oblong of sun warmed the polished floorboards. She dropped her towel and stood in the sunshine, wondering if she was actually steaming as she dried. She put on her knickers, then her bra, then her jeans, reached for her t-shirt, and saw Mike standing on the landing, rooted to the spot, gazing speechlessly in through her bedroom door. She had no idea how long he’d been there. When he saw her seeing him, his hands twitched in a helpless gesture that could have been either an apology, or a summons.