“In the – in the sea?”

“Why not?”

Because there’s no lifeguards and I’ll never get away with it and my dad will kill me. “I haven’t got a cossie.”

“I can lend you one.” Ava looked Alicia up and down. “You’re slimmer than me but we’ll manage.”

My dad will kill me. He’s bound to find out.

“My mascara will run.” And my dad will kill me.

“I’ve got make-up remover. It’s okay, you don’t have to, I just thought I’d ask.”

“Are you going to?”

Ava laughed. “Why do you think I moved here?”

He’ll absolutely kill me.

“Go on, then.”

It felt strange to wear Ava’s costume, stranger still to see her undressed. From a distance, and with clothes on, Ava looked younger than she really was. But in the strong sunlight Alicia saw the lines in Ava’s face, the silver threads in her hair, the downward pull of gravity on her body, the lived-in texture of her skin. Alicia secretly stroked the smooth firmness of her own thighs. If her mother had lived, would she look like that too? It was hard to imagine. The costume Ava had lent her was pretty but demure, navy-blue and cut in an old-fashioned shape with a skirt-like panel covering the tops of her thighs. Ava herself wore a black one-piece, plain and workmanlike. A wave slapped hard against Alicia’s belly and she gasped.

“You don’t have to swim if you don’t want to,” said Ava. “Don’t let me bully you.”

“You’re not – oh!” Another wave, puckering her nipples and splashing her neck. “You’re not bullying me at all, I want to, it’s just – cold!”

Ava was ahead of her now, pushing eagerly through the water. Her arms were brown gooseflesh but she plunged deep into the heart of a wave and out the other side, gasping for breath but laughing too. Alicia hesitated a moment, then threw herself after Ava, feeling her entire body contract and resist and protest and then suddenly accept the icy embrace of the ocean, the salt lifting her and the weed clutching at her and the sun sparkling so bright it hurt to look, and when she screamed aloud, wild and forgetful, she heard Ava screaming too, a savage joyful noise to frighten the seagulls, the very opposite of Sirens.

It was about their usual for a lunchtime; just enough to keep him and Mike and Angie busy. A few old regulars in for a pint, filling the hours before a snooze in front of Bargain Hunt. A handful of tourists, making the most of childlessness by booking in the off-season. Five tough old ladies with a gleam in their eye who called Donald ‘young man’ and winked at Mike until he blushed, and sat in the corner drinking gin and cackling lewdly to each other (would he ever be that old, Donald wondered? Would Alicia?). All leaving plenty of time for him to check his phone every few minutes, to see if Alicia had replied to his text.