Helga shrugs. ‘The sea is always cold. It’s just a matter of degrees.’

‘Honestly, I’m buzzing,’ Claire says, readjusting Dominica’s hot water bottle against her chest. ‘You should try it.’

‘Me?’ The woman is shocked. She laughs. ‘No, no, I couldn’t.’

‘Why not?’ Helga asks.

‘Because … because, despite what you say, it’s freezing.’ She laughs as if this is a crazy fact they’ve all overlooked.

‘It’s only cold water. We’re not dying of hypothermia,’ Helga points out. ‘In fact, it’s quite the reverse.’

‘Well, you might be right, but the sea is not for me.’

‘How can the sea not be for you?’ Helga has never heard anything so ridiculous and the woman blushes.

‘If you must know, I’m scared of fish,’ she admits. ‘I watched Jaws at too tender an age.’

‘Oh, well then, I agree it’s not for you,’ Helga says, pretending to be serious. ‘There are eels under the pier.’

‘Well, exactly. Who knows what lurks under the water?’

A line of kittiwakes with their black-tipped wings fly across the beach towards the horizon.

Helga wants to tell her the truth: that there’s a whole wonderful world out there – garfish, blennies, dogfish, starfish and seahorses. Instead, she smiles.

‘You know the best way to get over a fear?’

‘No.’

‘Conquer it.’

‘You make it sound easy.’

‘I bet you’d enjoy it. If you were brave enough to give it a go?’ Helga shrugs again and side-eyes the woman, wondering whether she’ll rise to the bait. It’s no skin off her nose whether she swims or not, but Helga has a feeling that it might do her some good.

13

The Promise of Fireworks

Maddy is feeling in a decidedly better headspace when she gets back to her apartment block. She feels silly doing it, but she checks her hair and puts on another slick of lip gloss before Matteo opens his door.

‘How did you get on?’ he asks, taking Luna’s lead.

Maddy has been planning on recounting what a nightmare Luna has been, but she can see that he’s so grateful that she doesn’t want to make a fuss. Behind him, she sees a glimpse of his apartment. Unlike her drab living accommodation, she sees that his is cluttered with low furniture and retro lamps. She sees a record player and a stack of records leaning up against it. It’s decidedly male. A bachelor pad, she concludes. She can’t see any female shoes in the stack of trainers and boots below the hooks full of coats behind him.

‘It was lovely being on the beach. I got talking to some sea swimmers.’

‘Oh, yes, I see them all the time. My colleague has a vendetta against those funny coats they wear. He thinks we’re being taken over by mad people. Especially the camouflage ones. He and his friend play a drinking game where they have to drink every time they spot someone wearing one.’

‘That’s perhaps a little mean. I wouldn’t say the women I met were mad, just brave. Swimming in this weather …?’ She rubs her arms as if just the thought makes her cold.