I also waited for a day when Julie wasn’t there. Such days were becoming more frequent. Grace suspected that her surgery was in fact a facelift, which hadn’t gone well, and that her absences were related to attempts to have the damage reversed. She kept saying, ‘Look at her ears, Joan! It’s so fucking obvious!’ I looked for the signs Grace saw – scars, bald patches – but couldn’t see anything.

On the day I chose, I waited in the carpark, having smeared cherry balm on my lips and dried my hair beneath the hand dryer in the change-rooms. Finally, Aleks appeared.

‘Joan?’ he said. His keys were jingling in his hand. ‘You okay?’

The breeze made my skin turn to gooseflesh. I’d sprayed some of Lou’s perfume on my neck and down my underpants, and the bottle was wrapped in a wet towel at the top of my bag.

I walked over to where he stood, near his car, and he smiled.

‘You need a ride somewhere?’

I hadn’t planned on this development, but it suited me.

‘Yeah. Lou’s at work.’

This mention of my sister hung in the air between us for a moment.

‘Come on,’ Aleks said. ‘I’ll take you home.’

I put my bag in the back, then settled into the passenger seat of his dull, functional sedan. It shifted when he sat his own weight in the driver’s seat. He slipped his key in the ignition, but hesitated before turning it.

‘That perfume…’ he said, turning to me.

I didn’t answer. All it took was that tiny lean from Aleks and I swooped in.

In my daydreams I’d decided how I would like things to proceed, down to a level of granular detail I’d never applied to my studies, or, until recently, to my diving. When my lips touched his he would pull back for a moment, his eyes scanning the surrounding area.

‘Everyone’s gone,’ I’d say.

He’d put his hands around my wrists, say, ‘Stop. We can’t do this.’

He’d have to show a little hesitation. What kind of man would he be otherwise?

‘I could lose my job,’ he’d say.

But then his eyes would move to my lips, and he’d kiss me, and I would be shocked at the sheer force of it. I’d kissed boys before, but boys were sloppy, and needy, like dogs. Aleks would kiss me and I would understand that it was a skill, that there were techniques to be learned and applied. So this is how it’s done, I’d think, and I’d catch on to kissing as quickly as I caught on to turning a somersault.

‘We’re supposed to discourage you, you know,’ he’d say, breathless. ‘From boys.’

‘I know,’ I’d reply, slipping my hand under his shirt. ‘They’re a distraction.’