Nick towelled himself dry, lying back on the sand. He closed his eyes, exhausted from swimming. He’d wanted to wear himself out until it hurt, until his muscles burned from pain and his heart begged him to stop. Even then he’d carried on, pushing his body to the limits. The water had chilled him to the core but now the sun was breaking through the salty layer on his skin, warming him from the outside in. He felt good. He felt alive. He actually felt for the first time in a long while.

A shadow above him eclipsed the sun.

‘You realise she’s still in love with you, don’t you?’

Nick opened his eyes, his forearm shielding him from the glare behind her. Maggie’s hair was silhouetted with a crazy candyfloss corona.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Claire. She still loves you.’

He screwed up his eyes again. It was safer that way. Maggie sat down next to him, straightening out the rug.

‘She always has been, ever since we were teenagers.’ She sounded matter-of-fact, as if everyone knew except him. Did this explain the way he’d been acting – the way his body didn’t do as he told it when she was around, the way his mouth took his words and muddled them up when she looked him in the eye?

‘Is that the conclusion you reached on your walk, Mags?’

‘Yes,’ she said without hesitation. ‘Seeing you two together again made me realise how nothing much ever changes.’

‘Firstly, Claire is happily married. Secondly, we never had a “thing” in the past anyway. And thirdly, we’ve barely had a chance to speak yet, so I don’t know how you think you can tell.’

‘My point exactly. Since you arrived, you’ve both avoiding each other. It stands out a mile.’

‘And that means she’s in love with me?’ Nick rolled his eyes, making sure Maggie saw. But he wondered if there was some truth in what she’d said. It did feel as if they’d been skirting around one other, deliberately sidestepping conversations.

‘You’re a dark horse, Malone,’ Maggie said, unrelenting. ‘You’ve barely said a thing about your personal life.’

‘That’s not entirely true.’ Although Nick knew it was. ‘I told you I was getting divorced, didn’t I?’

‘You only told me, no one else, and even then, I had to wring it out of you. Claire asked me if I knew why you’d come without Jess and Isobel.’

Nick flinched, taking a swig from his water bottle. He didn’t want to talk about it but knew Maggie too well. She wouldn’t let up. ‘Jess and I didn’t work out, that’s all.’ He pushed his heels into the hot sand, wondering how much to tell her. ‘A lot’s happened, Mags.’

‘I’m a good listener.’

‘The divorce has been bitter,’ he said, hoping she wouldn’t push further.

‘You want to try screwing a married politician.’ She patted his thigh with a friendly shove before delving in the cooler bag and taking out a bottle of wine. ‘For emergencies,’ she said. ‘I think this is one. Besides, I couldn’t feel any worse.’ She cracked the screw top and shook water out of a couple of plastic cups lying on the rug. She poured two measures.

Nick took one. ‘Do you ever wonder if your childhood shaped you into…’ He hesitated. ‘Well, into the wrong shape?’

‘Sometimes,’ Maggie said thoughtfully. ‘Though I’d have been a lot more misshapen without those two.’ She stared down at the shore where Patrick was standing in the breakers holding Shona’s hand.

‘Isobel died.’

‘Nick, shit.’ Maggie gripped his arm. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry…’ He saw the tears gathering in her eyes, her hand come up to her mouth. It was all normal, nothing he hadn’t seen before. He always tried not to look them directly in the eye, not until the shock had subsided. Then came the sympathy, which always felt a lot like pity.

‘It’s not been the best couple of years.’

‘When? Do you mind me asking what happened?’

Only a couple of people had ever asked him this. Most waited for him to volunteer the information, which he rarely did. But this was Maggie. ‘A year and a half ago. No one knows exactly what happened. We probably never will.’ It was his stock answer. ‘We think it was an accident.’

‘What kind of accident?’ She was certainly more probing than most.

‘She fell down the stairs and hit her head. She was alone at the time,’ Nick blew out sharply.

‘How utterly awful.’

Nick nodded. If he and Jess had ever discussed it, it always ended in a searing row. She’d either turn grey with sadness, melting into a puddle of grief, blaming him, or she’d take to comprehensively smashing up their home before setting to work on Nick. Once, she’d broken both his nose and wrist on the same day. He’d told the hospital he’d fallen over. Those who’d pushed as deep as Maggie to find out details, those bold enough to tug a bit harder on the unravelling thread of their lives, soon backed off when they realised the sheer depth and danger of Jess’s misery. For a tiny person who’d wasted to skeletal proportions, she could certainly wreak destruction.

Even with the wine, Nick’s mouth was dry. ‘The cause of the accident was inconclusive in the coroner’s report. I was the one who found her at the bottom of the stairs. The police eventually ruled out suspicious circumstances.’

‘Eventually?’ Maggie said, not pressing for an answer when Nick remained silent.

They stared out to sea. Greta and Claire were deep in conversation at the water’s edge – Greta standing with her hands settled in the small of her back, and Claire rocking from one foot to another, gesturing with her arms.

Did he love Claire? He watched as she turned to escort Greta back up towards where they were sitting. Facing the sun, there was something ethereal about her, as if the brilliant light had coloured her in with hues not normally visible to the human eye. With Isobel on his mind, it felt wrong to be thinking these things. But he couldn’t help it.