‘Morning,’ he says. ‘Just watch yourselves,’ he says. ‘The water quality isn’t great today.’

Claire is confused. ‘It looks glorious to me.’

‘Well, there’s been a spill. Don’t swallow any of the water. Just giving you the heads up.’

He turns away on the bike and the stones rattle under the tyres and Luna yelps and trembles. Dominica soothes her and she snuggles into her arms. Dominica notices Maddy staring after the lifeguard, her eyes shining.

‘Are you OK?’ Dominica asks.

‘He was exactly the same age as Jamie. For a moment I thought it might be him …’

‘What does he mean? A spill?’ Claire asks.

‘It’s a bloody outrage,’ Dominica says. ‘It means a “combined sewage overflow”.’ She holds up her fingers to quote it.

‘A what?’

‘Basically, the British Victorian sewer system is archaic, and the water companies haven’t modernised them. So, we still have combined sewers, which means that all the rain water that drains off roads and roofs goes into the same sewage as everything from the loos. When there’s loads of rain, the sewage plant can’t process the sheer volume, so they discharge the whole lot into the rivers and the seas. Untreated. They say it’s better that way, than to flood people’s homes.’

‘That’s revolting!’ Claire can’t believe it. ‘It’s where we swim.’

‘What’s revolting is that it’s only half the story. What’s really revolting is that they’re doing spills even when it hasn’t rained,’ Helga adds.

‘Isn’t that illegal?’ Maddy asks.

Dominica nods. ‘It should be, but there’s nobody to check. The water companies get away with spills all the time. Or they just do it anyway and pay the fines, if they happen to get caught. And they’re privatised, so nobody holds them properly to account.’

‘A spill. That makes it sound very dainty. Like a tiny drop in a bone china saucer,’ Claire says. ‘When they’re actually taking a shit in our bathing water.’

They head out together to the water, but Claire feels differently now that she knows the water could be dangerous. Dominica’s right. It is an outrage, she thinks. Somebody ought to do something about it.

Claire is still thinking about the swim and the situation with the water quality, as she serves up lasagne later for supper. Ash is miserable as he’s got to do a geography project.

‘What’s it on?’ she asks.

‘The environment.’

‘Boring,’ Felix says.

‘It’s not boring.’ Claire frowns at him. He’s always pouring scorn on his younger brother’s ideas.

‘The environment is the one thing you two can’t afford to be cynical about. Because it’s up to you lot to change how we all live to save it. I’m afraid we haven’t covered ourselves in glory when it comes to what we’ve done with the planet.’

‘Your mother is right,’ Pim says, surprising Claire by backing her up.

‘Yeah, well, I have no idea where to start on my project, let alone saving the world,’ Ash says.

‘Well, how about on our doorstep?’ Claire suggests.