Half eleven and the sun is already brutal off the sand. You pull up in front of the old beach house with the windows down, and the road smells of hot tar and cut grass. The gate has been fixed. So have the front steps, and the shutter that used to stick.

Across the sand his uncle's pavilion is open, shutters up and a rack of boards out. A man leans on the post with one foot on the rail: dark hair still wet, a white tank clinging where the sea caught it, both arms inked, a chain at his throat, the red drawstring of his shorts loose. He does not look up from the water.

He says it flat, to the sea, like a word he has been saving.

Then he does look, and for about a second he is nineteen and it is the last week of August again. It is gone before you can name it; he tips his head at the boards and his mouth goes flat.