‘It’s a bit rough, don’t you reckon?’ Dominica asks.

Helga nods. ‘I agree. Let’s pilchard. Now we’re here.’

She changes quickly and together they walk to the water’s edge, where the waves are breaking, fighting each other to reach the beach, overlapping and jostling like boys in a playground around a football. The gulls caw overhead, wings out, stationary as they ride the wind.

Helga sits down on the stones and leans back on her elbows, as if she’s on a sunlounger. She nods at Tor, who follows her lead and sits on the cold stones. They’re freezing under her bum. She likes pilcharding, though. It’s the best way of getting soaked and enjoying the benefit of going in the sea, without swimming.

Up close, the stones glisten in the weak sunshine; tan and brown and black, they seem to chatter as the sea moves them. At eye level the sea is a busy torrent of foam. She braces herself for the next wave, gripping on to the shore, the backwash dragging her in, as if the sea is trying to claim her.

‘She’s boisterous today.’

Suddenly, a much larger wave rolls over Tor and she’s tussled in its clutches, the water going up her nose.

‘It’s like being in a washing machine,’ she gasps, coming up for air, but she’s laughing, the water plastering her long purple hair in fronds across her face, like seaweed.

Dominica has been dragged in with the backwash. She finds her footing but only just as another wave hits.

‘I’ve got pebbles where no pebbles should ever go,’ she says, laughing, when Tor finally reaches her. Walking, even in this knee-deep water, makes them both look like they are dragging ten tonne weights behind them. They hold hands with Helga too and pull her away from the clutches of the next wave. Helga loves seeing Dominica’s face light up with that knockout smile of hers. The mix of laughter and the sea is the best medicine she knows.

They lie down again where the waves lick the shore, giggling like little children. Helga splashes her arms then lifts them up, unwittingly gulping in sea water as the next wave hits her in the face, but she doesn’t care. This is magic.

6

Resolutions

‘You’re going now?’ Pim yawn talks, his tone somehow accusatory. Claire used to find him so sexy in the mornings, but he’s grown a beard in lockdown, which hides most of his face. Without his glasses, he squints at her across the pillows of their bed.

Pim’s green irises are rimmed with a thick line of black and always used to remind her of Shah Rukh Khan, her favourite Bollywood star to whom he used to bear a passing resemblance. She wonders whether the ‘King of Bollywood’ has gone to seed in quite the same way as Pim has in recent months. ‘It won’t even be open.’

She resents him for questioning her plan. He does that a lot these days. He doesn’t get it that, if she leaves now, she’ll be the first person into the supermarket, and she can get back out and home before the boys are up.