‘And I said, your dick is so fucking tiny I’d need a microscope to find it.’ She spoke deliberately and clearly, giving each word time and space to sink in. ‘So I won’t be having sex with you.’ She moved her face so close to his he was forced to lean away from her. ‘Do you understand, moron?’

The corner of his top lip twitched as his fists clenched and unclenched like two beating hearts.

Edie stepped back from him then raised the ice cream to her mouth. She stuck her tongue out and, with her eyes bolted to his, licked the ice cream slowly. ‘Now,’ she said, her voice as sweet and smooth as honey. ‘If it’s okay with you, my friend and I were enjoying a nice walk on the beach.’

I held my breath as we walked away from them and carefully picked our way through the sea of people, who stared at us whilst muttering to each other, tutting and exchanging glances. But Edie didn’t care. She was magnificent.

‘Stuck-up cow!’ Billy shouted after us.

Edie swung around as she walked and flicked her middle finger up at him then collapsed against me and we both started to laugh uncontrollably.

‘Oh my God! His face.’ I could barely talk for laughing. ‘That lot are never going to let him live it down. They’ll be wiggling their little fingers at him for weeks.’

She laughed and licked her ice cream. ‘Stupid idiot. I mean, this ice cream is delicious, as if I was ever going to give him a lick.’

Then she hooked her arm though mine and we strolled through the crowds as if we’d been friends for years. My chest swelled with pride and at that moment, with the ice cream slipping down my throat and my arm linked with Edie’s on our way back to The Cliff House, I couldn’t have been happier even if I was the Queen of England.

But then the air was sliced through by a bloodcurdling scream.

We both stopped giggling and spun around in the direction of the noise. There was a woman running down towards the sea. She was screaming over and over. The picture-perfect holiday scene of a few moments before changed before our eyes. Other people began to run after the woman. There were shouts. Worried faces. Everybody looked out across the water. Shielding their eyes. Searching the waves for the source of her anguish. Gradually, like a building storm, the rumble of concern grew. Edie grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards the commotion. We joined the gathering crowd in time to see the lifeguard throw his loudhailer onto the sand and sprint down to the water. The breaking waves were large, rolling up and over, crashing down vertically. There was a steep shelf not far from the shoreline, and at certain points in the rising tide the water deepened there and caused a mighty undertow.