She was on holiday with her mother and Owen, and the room around her was the small, rather Spartan bedroom in the boarding house beside the sea, which they visited every year. There was the old, scratched night table beside her bed, covered in a yellowed lace doily. A huge, shapeless wardrobe of dark wood dominated the left wall. Without looking over the side of the bed, she knew the carpet would be almost colourless and threadbare. She could hear gulls outside and the faint roar of the ocean. The air smelled of the past, of childhood; the briny perfume of sand stuck to bare legs with the brackish liquor of stagnant rock pools. Lily shivered and turned over in the high, creaking bed. Then she remembered the events of the night before, and it came with a jolt. She sat up in the bed and the thin, white counterpane fell away from her body. She was fully dressed and the mattress beneath her, covered inadequately by an ancient flannelette sheet, was damp. No-one had slept here for years and this was not a seaside boarding-house.
