Tor passes her a silver hipflask, and she takes a sip. Usually by ten, she’s tucked up under the duvet, watching Netflix in bed, but now she’s on the beach in the dark with loads of women drinking rum. It’s making her feel more alive than she has done in months.

‘Isn’t this fun?’ Claire says, passing around the box of the cake she’s made.

‘Oh, tell me it’s your carrot cake.’ Dominica grins and takes a big piece. ‘I love your cakes.’

‘Me too,’ Tor says, grabbing a big piece too.

Claire smiles. It’s lovely that her baking is so appreciated.

‘It’s a shame Helga didn’t come.’ Dominica frowns. ‘I wonder what happened to her?’

‘She’s probably turned her nose up at the thought of the crowds,’ Tor says, but Claire isn’t so sure. She’s with Dominica. It’s really weird that she hasn’t turned up. Something is off. She can feel it. Because come to think of it, it was Tor who’d replied on the group chat saying they’d all be coming, when the post went up about the full moon swim, but had Helga actually replied herself? Claire is sure now that she hadn’t.

They don’t stay too long on the beach, as the after-drop is making everyone shiver. It’s dark, the clouds obscuring the blood moon they’d glimpsed earlier, as they walk up the shingle to the promenade. Claire’s shivering and it’s very late, but even so, on a hunch, she takes a detour on the way home in the car to Helga’s cottage.

There aren’t any lights on inside. She knocks on the door, then she crouches down and nudges the letterbox flap, but Helga’s place is empty. She stands up, feeling silly. She’s just being nosy. Helga doesn’t need to explain herself. What is she even doing snooping around here? She should just go home and warm up.

Claire is turning away when, just over the path, the door in the next cottage opens a crack. A woman is behind it, looking out suspiciously and Claire smiles, hoping she can help. She has a baby nestled against her chest and she puts her finger to her lips to signal Claire to be quiet. The baby is asleep and the woman, her hair in a messy ponytail and dressed in linen dungarees, looks beautiful in an exhausted kind of way. Claire smiles at her and the baby, noticing its cherubic pursed lips. Her stomach flips with a strange emotion. It’s amazing to think that she was once a mother to newborns herself. It seems so long ago.

‘I’m so sorry to disturb you. I’m looking for Helga,’ Claire says.

The woman’s tired eyes change now. ‘You didn’t hear?’

‘Hear? Hear what?’

‘We think Helga was attacked in the alley at the weekend. She certainly fell and had a heart attack. That’s what they said when the ambulance came. She’s still in hospital.’

41

The Unexpected Cwych

That night there are dozens of messages on the Sea-Gals WhatsApp chat between Tor, Maddy and Claire as they all express their upset and discuss what to do about Helga, but it’s Dominica who is the first one to get through to the hospital the next morning.