Severn Sands had been fading when he left but since he’d been away its decay had accelerated. The lights that used to be strung along the seafront had disappeared. The Paradiso lido was derelict, graffiti covering the concrete terraces where people used to lay their towels and slather their shoulders in sun cream; the American ice-cream parlour had been demolished, although the small wall that used to encircle it remained. All that was left of the children’s playground were empty beer cans and discarded crisp packets. The road was pot-holed; weeds grew through cracks in the pavements. The only sign of life anywhere was a dim, floating glow from the control room of a massive cargo ship moving slowly and distantly down the channel on its way back to Japan, and the constant stream of car and lorry headlights coming over the bridge.

The ship, tall as a block of flats, was a familiar sight. Will recalled how he used to fantasise about stowing away, sailing out to sea. Camille’s father, Lord Mills, had been in the navy and, when he was visiting, used to tell good sea-faring stories, about waves big as skyscrapers, whales breaching against the horizon, icebergs, sea frets a hundred miles deep; the melancholia of making landfall.

It was a good job, thought Will, that the old Lord wasn’t around to see the state of Severn Sands now.

He walked on, hands in pockets, feeling like a stranger and at the same time feeling like he’d never left this place. He breathed the estuary air, walked out of the town, passed the community cricket pitch, its grass still mown, the pavilion still standing. That, at least, had survived. John Morahan and Edward deVillars had enlisted Will to play for the local team. Will recalled being bowled out after one game, and, walking back to that same pavilion, finding Marnie doing handstands against the wall, bracing her elbows, arching her spine, her T-shirt falling down over her face. Her mother was still around then, although she never came to the cricket, and Marnie was an ordinary child, chatting to Will, pestering him to hold her hands and swing her round.