‘No,’ said Penny, ‘I’ll have to stay here and do breakfasts. You’ll be a million times better at that sort of stuff, anyway. But can you do me a favour and pop in to my place afterwards? I’m going to move back here while we do this, and I need you to bring the cats over.’

‘Sure,’ said Elle, but secretly dreaded the thought of manhandling those creepy animals.

Penny stayed in the kitchen while Elle went for a walk along the beach. Of course, she had helped her mother a thousand times, but she had never truly realised how much work went into making the hotel what it was. There was all the cleaning and linen, and food of course; greeting people and tending to their every need, all of those things took time.

But guests here, having been so well looked after by Anna over the years, had certain expectations. There was a couple booked in for dinner that evening who had celebrated their first wedding anniversary at the hotel. It was now their tenth, and they wanted the exact same dessert they had all those years ago. The husband, whom Penny had dealt with over the phone, couldn’t exactly remember what that dessert was, though. ‘It had chocolate. And berries in it,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Sauce maybe?’ Which wasn’t much for Penny to go on as she searched her mother’s daunting stack of recipe books. Possibly something that Anna had created on the spot, now lost forever.

She scanned all the recipes containing chocolate. Fudge cakes, souffles, meringues . . . ‘Ah, this could be it. Maybe,’ she said, pulling out a loose page. Light, fluffy meringues, sandwiched with a chocolate cream, drizzled with berry sauce. ‘Well, let’s give it a go then,’ she said out loud to the empty kitchen.

Elle loved the beach. It had been such a long time since she had gone for a proper walk on the golden sands.

Locals still made bonfires on the shore now and then and let off fireworks in the height of summer and at New Year’s. She could still see in her mind the old hut she and Penny had made out of driftwood and filled with scavenged items from the hotel.

Further up was where she and Rob had first kissed, where he said to her: ‘I’ve always had my eye on you, Harte,’ and she had laughed and felt thrilled at how daring he was, how cheeky.

‘Elle! Elle Harte?’

Someone was crashing down the dunes and waving madly at her, a child in tow. They came over, the woman laughing and puffing with exertion.

‘I knew it was you,’ she grinned. ‘I’d recognise that hair anywhere.’

‘Hazel!’

They had been partners in crime in secondary school, but had lost touch when Elle left for college in Dublin. Just like everyone else.