I spun round on the spot, walking backwards in front of him, grinning and flicking my hair about. Then I stopped in my tracks. What on earth was I doing? Flirting with him? God, I’d been single way too long. I turned back around and faced forward, hoping that he couldn’t see the pink spreading across my chest and up my neck.

This part of the beach was strewn with seaweed and the revolting stench of rotting fish blew across us on the sea breeze. The seagulls called overhead, circling and then swooping down to pick at scraps from amongst the weed.

Marlon screwed his nose up. ‘It stinks here,’ he said, putting his hand over his mouth.

‘It’s the tide wrack,’ I said, quickening my pace. ‘It’s the highest point the tide gets to. When I was a girl, we used to say that it was haunted by the ghosts of all the fish that had died in the ocean.’

‘Aw, that’s sweet,’ he said.

I assumed he was taking the piss, but when I looked at him his smile seemed genuine.

‘Well, what can I say?’ I said. ‘I was a cute kid.’

We walked beyond the wrack and the air freshened a little.

‘So, what do you do when you’re not working?’ I asked him.

‘Not much,’ he said. ‘I sketch a bit.’

‘Are you any good?’

‘Not bad. I was going to go to art school, but my Uncle Joe said I needed a job that paid, so I went to agricultural college instead.’

‘Do you regret it?’ I asked, surprising myself with my directness, but Marlon didn’t seem bothered.

‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I probably wouldn’t make any money as an artist. This way I can eat and still draw whenever I like.’

‘Sounds fair enough,’ I said.

We reached the lighthouse. It stood on a little island joined to the beach by a stone causeway.

Marlon hesitated. ‘Have we got time to get across?’ he asked. ‘How fast does the tide come in?’

He looked out at the ocean warily. The waves were definitely closer, but I was a local. I wasn’t about to get caught out.

‘Yeah, we’re fine,’ I said. ‘There’s plenty of time to get there and back. Come on.’

He still seemed a little reluctant, so I grabbed his hand and began to pull him on to the stone path. He followed me. There was no reason to continue to hold his hand but oddly I found that I didn’t want to let it go. I did, though. I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.

The causeway was quite narrow, so I led the way with Marlon following behind. I imagined that I could feel his eyes on me and I clenched the muscles in my bum as I walked, just in case.

‘Can you go up to the top?’ he asked, as we got closer.