This really must be a lovely place to swim every day, she thinks. You don’t get the trees at the ocean. There’s a resplendent bank of them in their full May majesty and Helga sees how beautifully they are reflected in the still water.

Her gaze strays to a group of people talking on the jetty and Helga is about to turn around and continue onwards with the others, when the sound of laughter reaches her on the gentle breeze and something about it makes her turn her head to look.

One of the guys talking on the jetty is blurry at this distance, but there’s something about his profile, about the shape of his head …

Her heart thuds once, very hard. She suddenly stops in the water. She sinks slightly, then scrambles to keep afloat.

Oh, for God’s sake, she tells herself. She’s just latching on to objects and people to make sense of this unusual environment.

It’s not him. He lives in Australia.

Doesn’t he?

But before she consciously realises what she’s doing, she’s swimming back towards the jetty, as if pulled by a higher force.

‘Helga?’ Dominica calls. ‘Helga? Where are you going?’

She turns her attention back to Dominica and the swimmers who are heading for the far bank, but there’s shivers running up and down her spine.

Dominica swims some crawl over and surfaces with a frown on her face. ‘Are you all right. Do you feel OK?’

‘I’m going to … I’m getting out,’ Helga says.

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No, no, please don’t. Carry on. I’m fine.’

‘But—’

‘Don’t worry, honestly. I’ll just be on the side.’

She smiles reassuringly at Dominica and squeezes her arm, before turning away.

‘Helga?’ Dominica calls out. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure,’ she calls, but she doesn’t turn. Her heart is hammering, as she breaststrokes fast, like she used to, dipping her head way below the water undulating her body and coming up for air, treating herself to the sight on the jetty each time. Her heart is going mental now, as she gets closer. It can’t be, she says to herself, as she frog-legs powerfully; it can’t be, it can’t be …

Soon she’s at the metal steps at the jetty and she climbs out, feeling the water dripping from her hips down her legs. The group have moved away now to the other end of the jetty and she’s telling herself that she’s being ridiculous as she pulls up her goggles onto her hat and feels the wooden slats beneath her feet. She feels self-conscious in her figure-hugging swimming costume as she walks towards the changing area as if she’s on a catwalk.

And then she hears it again.

His laugh.

A man in jeans with shoulder-length silver hair is standing with his back to her, his hands in a padded black gilet, but she’d know that unmistakeable profile anywhere. She’s sure of it. The boy she didn’t meet on the dock nearly half a century ago, all grown into a man. An old man. As old as her.