‘Are you here on holiday?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m staying in Wynmouth for a couple of weeks.’ The words made my heart race. ‘You?’

‘Visiting my sister. She moved here a few years ago after she lost her husband.’

‘She’s a local then.’

‘Oh, dear me, no,’ the man laughed before turning up the road which led to the pub car park. ‘You have to have lived here for seven generations to be considered a local. At least!’

He brandished the walking stick he was carrying and pottered on.

‘Bye!’ I called after him. ‘Nice to meet you.’

My breath caught in my chest as I stepped out of the lane and on to the seawall and I allowed myself time to absorb the beautiful view I had been craving in recent weeks.

‘You’re here, Tess,’ I whispered, a smile slowly spreading across my face. ‘You’re actually here.’

The tide was out so far the sea was hardly in sight and the beach seemed to stretch into the distance forever. I rushed down the steps, on to the pristine sand and pulled off my sandals. I didn’t care about the chill beneath my feet, I wanted to let my toes sink into the silky sand. The heady cocktail of pure and wholly natural sensations surrounding me and the plethora of emotions rushing through me, brought a lump to my throat. Standing there, taking it all in, I felt proud that I had put myself first for once, taken the plunge and run away to the seaside, rather than resolutely powering on at work.

I instinctively turned left, shielding my eyes from the welcome glare of the sun and spotted the rockpools not too far away and the tops of the beach huts in the distance beyond them. It was all still here then and, at first glance, exactly as I remembered it. I pictured Mum, wearing her sundress and reading in a deckchair as I explored the pools, and Dad poring over the newspapers beneath the shade of a striped beach umbrella.

Everything had seemed so simple then; we were a happy family with uncomplicated lives and we might not have had much money to throw about, but it never mattered, not to me anyway. As I imagined my pre-teen self skipping about and yelping as I darted in and out of the chilly sea, I knew these happy memories were made long before Mum had written her heart-wrenching diary. How I would have loved to turn back the clock and warn her of what was to come. I would have given anything to keep things as they had been before the business, among other things, became the focus of my father’s ambitious attention.