‘Good, ’cos I’m not sure I can do it without you,’ replied Rose.

Claire saw large tears slide slowly down Rose’s face.

Claire got up from behind her desk. ‘Shhhh, shhh, come on now, it’s okay.’

Putting her arm around the young girl, she led her over to the sofa and the two of them sat down, Rose clinging to Claire like they were in a three-legged race. As Claire held Rose, she wondered what the young girl had heard about her. It was all such a long time ago, surely no one would even remember? But somehow Rose had and had sought her out. Perhaps, like Julia had said, this was an opportunity for some good to come out of the whole horrible experience she’d had with Paul. Unlike Rose, there had been no police involved, no charges pressed, no arrests.

Claire thought back to the aftermath of it. Charlotte’s screams as she found Paul on top of her, Claire’s own shame as she lay there half dressed, and finally Paul’s aggression as he was taken away.

Even now, years later, she couldn’t think of that afternoon without feeling sick. Humiliation filled her to the core when she thought of him, both as the young teenager he once was and the man he must now be. She wondered where he was, what he was doing. The last she’d heard was that he’d been expelled and had had to move schools. Afterwards, she’d tried to put him out of her mind and whenever he intruded on her thoughts, as he so often did, especially in the years immediately afterwards, she’d fought hard to supress the panic.

But sometimes fear coiled its way around her, so tightly that she couldn’t breathe and that’s when she’d increased her swimming sessions. At one point, she was going twice a day just to block out the images that filled her mind. For the most part, it had worked, although she’d lost a lot of weight. She remembered her mum worrying about it and trying to cook filling foods for her. Swimming had been the only way she’d been able to move on. With every stroke, she affirmed that the incident with Paul was over. She had nothing to feel guilty about.

She also had to hand it to Charlotte – it was then that the club had really come into their own. Charlotte and her swarm of bees had surrounded her, never leaving her side during school and then college hours. Charlotte had organised a rota so she never had to walk to or from school by herself and Claire was christened a survivor, a victim who had overcome the odds. Such was the girls’ intensity that Claire almost started to believe it herself.