‘At least you get noticed,’ Lotte says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing,’ she says, glancing across to where Tor is laughing, greeting some other swimmers. ‘It’s just that it’s hard being hidden away by someone you love. Like you’re a dirty secret.’

‘You’re not a dirty secret, Lotte,’ Claire says, shocked by this rare insight into Tor’s relationship. ‘You and Tor are great together.’

‘Yeah, well, tell her that.’

They get split up and Claire turns away and heads for the shore and she sees that Dominica has drifted with the others in the pull of the water. There’s another group of swimmers and Claire suddenly sees that one of them is Jenna. She’s laughing with her friends, but her smile fades when she sees Claire.

‘Oh,’ she says in a haughty way. ‘It’s you.’

‘Hi Jenna,’ Claire says. She tries to keep her voice neutral. ‘I’m glad we got to see the moon.’

‘Yes, well, I’ve seen the full moon loads of times before,’ she says in a snotty way, as if Claire seeing it too has somehow spoilt it. How exhausting it must be, Claire thinks, to have to turn everything into a competition. ‘I’ve done this loads of times.’

‘Good for you,’ Claire says. And suddenly she realises that she doesn’t need to justify herself. She’s not going to give Jenna what she wants – which is an opportunity to put her down. She’s done with people-pleasing. She’s never going to be Jenna’s friend and that’s OK. She remembers Pim saying that she was silly to reject Claire’s friendship, and he’d been right. What a shame that Jenna can’t see past herself to the community spirit of this swim. How sad that she’s missed the whole point.

‘You got your way about the tree. I hope you’re satisfied,’ Jenna calls after her.

Claire smiles and swims on.

On the beach, they get dressed, quickly pulling on their clothes in a haphazard way, and huddle around the camping light Tor has brought. Claire tells Dominica about seeing Jenna in the sea. She can’t wait to tell Maddy about it.

‘I nearly said something,’ she confides to Dominica, ‘but you know what? There’s no point. She’ll never see our point of view. And so there’s no point in arguing with her. I see that now. I’m so bloody glad Maddy got the council to shut her down; that she and Rob weren’t able to bully their way into something that was going to have a negative impact on us, just because they wanted it.’ She thinks of Sam, the robin. ‘I’m so glad the tree is still there.’

‘You did a good thing,’ Dominica says.

Someone has lit a bonfire and the woody smoke mixed with the briny air reminds Claire of being on holiday. There’s something very simple about being under the night sky that makes everything else fade away. She feels salty and tired, but in a wholesome way. All around, swimmers are huddling down to get warm, like the gulls who ruffle out their feathers and bed down on the stones. There’s the murmur of voices and the occasional sprinkle of laughter.