Helga is surprised at the self-loathing in her voice. ‘A fraud?’

‘It’s true. I’m making all this content and you know what? It’s all bullshit.’ Maddy pushes the cuff of her coat to her eyes. ‘You know, actually, it feels very good to say that. To let that out.’

‘If you feel like that, then why not be honest? Why not report on what’s real? What you’re going through? How it feels?’ Helga says.

‘Because …’ Maddy sighs. ‘People expect me to be perfect and I’m not brave enough to admit the truth.’

‘Oh, I think you’re brave, Maddy,’ Dominica says.

‘It’s so easy to see with hindsight where everything went wrong. I wish I could go back. Unmake the mistakes.’

Helga shakes her head. ‘No. Keep flying forward,’ she says, meaning it. ‘We’re Sea-Gals, after all.’

34

Destruction

Claire comes up for air in the pool and waves at Andy where he’s standing in the shallow end, his muscled torso rising up from the water. Dominica is right. All he needs is a trident and he’d be a good model for a water deity. She knows that it’s completely wrong to sexually objectify him, but it’s hard not to.

He smiles beneath his swimming hat and applauds. Buoyed up by his praise, she clings on to the side and prepares herself to set off again. He’s certainly given her power today. That’s her first ever full length of front crawl in the twenty-five-metre pool, breathing every three strokes and remembering to twist her body in the water and glide, stretching her arm out. It feels great and she pushes off now, determined that this length will be even better. She wants to impress him, just like she impressed Helga and the Sea-Gals yesterday.

She thinks back to her half-arsed, ill-fated attempts at getting fit in the past. There was that costly gym membership that just became embarrassing, a spate where she was determined to run, until she got painful shin splints, and the spin classes in which she was the fattest and nearly had a cardiac arrest.

But this is different. And necessary. She’s signed up with the others to swim around the pier in July. Dominica presented it to the group. It’s the annual gathering of all the sea swimmers along this bit of coast in aid of a mental health charity. Having helped out Tor with Home Help and raised money for her charity with the dawn swim, Claire was a little bit surprised that she might be involved in another fundraiser. But then again, she likes it that the women she swims with have a social conscience. They are, as Dominica says, the kind of people charities rely on. As Claire doesn’t have a paid job, being a force for good and helping people makes her feel like she’s contributing to society in a good way.

But still. Round the pier? It feels like a long way. Helga says they’ve done it a few times and it’s easy and that Claire can do it, but she wants to be sure she can. Pim told her she was mad and the boys clearly think she’s too old to attempt anything like that, so she’s going to prove them all wrong. And, since she met Andy at the pool at 6.30 a.m. and it was still dark, her family aren’t even aware that she’s out of the house. So what’s it to them?