Rowan put a hand to her chest. ‘Why is she on her own?’ She raised her voice and waved both hands over her head. ‘Odette!’

As we watched, a tall figure walked up to her. Bent over to talk, before taking her hand. A man in baseball cap and sunglasses, his shirt open. I only needed to see him for a split second to know who it was. His stride, his profile, the way his shoulders moved, the way he held her hand.

Sean.

Hand in hand, he walked Odette back to our little encampment of towels, Daniel trotting along beside him carrying two big bottles of water.

Rowan went down on one knee, taking her daughter gently by the shoulders.

‘You gave me a fright, Odette,’ she chided. ‘You must promise that you’ll never go into the sea again without someone to look after you, OK? Do you promise?’

‘Wasn’t in the sea,’ the little girl mumbled, stubbing at the sand with her toe. ‘Only in the tiny waves.’

‘Russ?’ Rowan said, her face lined with worry. ‘Why weren’t you with her?’

Russ sat up. ‘Eh?’ He blinked in the bright sunlight. ‘She was supposed to be playing with the boys, making a dam. I told her not to go into the sea without me, but she doesn’t bloody listen.’

‘Perhaps if you weren’t sleeping off a hangover,’ Rowan said, her voice rising, ‘you would have noticed her in the water on her own! Christ, you’re so irresponsible!’

‘It’s all down to me, is it? As usual.’

Odette whispered something into her mother’s ear.

Rowan frowned. ‘What do you mean, honey?’

In reply, Odette turned to look at Jake and Ethan, pointing her tiny index finger at them. ‘It was the boys,’ she said in a small voice.

‘What was, honey?’

‘Their fault.’

Rowan frowned over at the two teenagers.

‘Why?’

‘Wanted to play with them but Ethan said I couldn’t, said I wasn’t allowed.’ Her index finger prodded the air for emphasis. ‘He told me to go and play on my own, in the water.’

Ethan’s face was a picture of calm. ‘That’s not true,’ he said, his voice steady. ‘She was trying to tell us what to do all the time, she wanted to build a fairy castle instead of a dam. She was kicking holes in it, letting the water through. Then she said she wasn’t playing and stormed off.’

‘Never!’ Odette said.

‘Did!’ Jake said loudly. ‘She’s just trying to get us in trouble!’

Sean held his hands up as more voices collided in disagreement.

‘All right, all right, the main thing is she’s safe now, right? So why don’t we all have an ice cream or something.’