‘Got my own wave machine.’ Nodding towards the water.

‘But it’s freezing in there.’ She took a step closer as Matty’s head went under the towel. ‘Are you a mermaid?’

Matty came out from underneath the towel and kept rubbing. Curls coming back into focus. ‘Yeah.’

‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ She was eight, maybe nine. Her accent had the softness of the Irish, the surprising lilt of the Northern Irish and a twang of American. Like an out-of-tune banjo.

‘Which do you want me to be?’ Matty had said that before, to a girl in a furry white coat at a dive bar in Camden. But neither answer ever suited. How to explain that this body was partly a curse, Houdini’s straitjacket. How not one or the other would be quite right.

The girl looked out at the lough and made a sucking noise with her teeth on her bottom lip. F-f-f. ‘A boy.’

‘Oh yeah? Why’s that?’

‘Boys are nicer.’ She rang the bell of her bike absent-mindedly, a dull tinkling. ‘So you’re a boy mermaid? There’s not so many of them. I don’t know what they look like.’ Ting.

‘They look like me, don’t they?’ Matty tried to sound matter-of-fact.

‘Girls have their tops off except Ariel doesn’t, Ariel wears shells tied together.’ Ting. ‘Do you ever wear shells?’

‘Modern mermaids wear wetsuits.’

Ting ting. ‘I guess shells might be a bit uncomfortable. They might cut you a bit.’ She cupped a hand over one side of her chest and looked down at it. ‘I’ve got a book on mermaids. There are stories and facts and tons of pictures. No boys, though.’

‘OK,’ said Matty, starting to get really cold. The wetsuit needed to come off.

The girl seemed to sense it. ‘I’d better go home. I’m not really allowed to be this far down. Don’t tell.’ She launched herself onto her bike and bounced over the tarmac, the ribbons flying in the wind.

***

Matty sat in the corner, hood up, trying to eat fish and chips, savouring the warmth of the pub. Still trying to weigh up whether to camp or find a proper bed. English football on the telly, high up.

The pub was up past Donegal, a quiet road with bogland either side. Almost no one in it, though it was Saturday night. Two families were having dinner over on the other side.

Matty felt weak. It hurt to swallow now, and the afternoon had been spent on the bed until the sky had darkened.