Jenny hadn’t brought flip-flops with her and it hadn’t occurred to me to warn her to do so. She didn’t flinch as she grappled with walking barefoot, over the stones. I was worried that she might step on something sharp, possibly a syringe – it was well known that junkies frequented that part of the beach, on account of its peace. I imagined there might be something attractive about shooting up with the sounds of the surf in the background.

I ran on ahead of Jenny and quickly dived into the greedy depths of the water. I called her to join me. She was hesitant and after I did a couple of strokes of the crawl I swam towards the edge and attempted to take her by the hand. She told me to stop. I splashed her. I claimed the water wasn’t that cold and she should make a run for it and not allow herself time to think about it. She hugged herself and looked to the yellow buoy out beyond. I was getting to a cold zone and standing about wasn’t helping. You needed to keep moving, that was the whole trick. And I was getting pissed off, I wanted her to stop arsing around and take the plunge. I realized that it wasn’t going to happen like that so I came out of the water and physically pulled her in.

She began to scream, like a child, and I told her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen to me. I figured she was hysterical so I slapped her face. I laughed the slap off, even though I could tell she was deeply shocked. I told her to stay down in the water and to swim ten strokes of front crawl because it was the stroke that had always managed to control my breathing – that had always calmed me. Jenny managed a couple of strokes and then she ran back towards the white towel she had left scrunched in a ball on the stones.

I followed her out of the water and towelled myself down. I put my shorts on and sat on the ramp and looked out to sea, briefly. I stabbed at an empty Budweiser can that lay on the beach. I gathered a handful of pebbles and threw one at the can. It made a satisfying ping. I continued to throw pebbles at it and Jenny lit a Camel Light. She had waited for me to become distracted so she could take advantage. I explained I had slapped her to calm her down and that she was using that as an excuse to smoke.

I despised the petty quality to my voice but it came with the territory. Jenny seemed to have trouble registering me. She continued to smoke and I felt at a loss. I didn’t feel happy just sitting there, the two of us with this awkwardness between us and I decided to change tack.