Chapter 44
High tide at Daymer Bay on Sunday was at one thirty in the afternoon, plenty of time for Tug to travel from Falmouth to Wadebridge.
At the bus station, he liberated a bike by cutting through its padlock and cycled the seven miles to the bay.
He arrived as the small hatchbacks in the car park were offloading numerous middle-aged women wearing long padded coats and carrying over-stuffed kit bags.
As the women made their way down the short path to the beach, Tug pretended to be locking his bike while keeping a close eye on new arrivals. Tara Webb was one of the last, pulling up in a small electric Fiat that he recognised from the TV.
Keeping his eyes well away from the women disrobing, Tug walked a short way down the beach before setting down his rucksack and pulling his own clothes off. It was a hell of a long time since he’d swum in the sea.
He set off at a run and was first to enter the water.
Fuck a duck, it was cold. He forced himself to keep going, diving forward when he figured it was deep enough, feeling the cold rush over his head.
He set off from the beach in a slow front crawl, feeling the burn cover every inch of his skin.
The cold took his breath away, gripping a tight hold around his chest and giving him an instant freeze headache.
He was getting cold-water shock. On a mild Cornish October day.
His old mates would never let him hear the end of it.
A babble of sound – shrieks and giggles – told him the women had entered the water.
Tug stopped swimming and hung upright, judging that he was too far away from them to be intimidating.
Tara Webb wore a blue and turquoise suit that looked like a mermaid’s tail.
She wore thermal boots and gloves and had wound her long, fair hair onto the top of her head.
She seemed to be encouraging a woman who’d hung back, who was stepping cautiously through the ankle-deep waves.
As Tug watched, the two women joined hands and the water crept to their knees.
She was looking his way. She dropped the woman’s hand, letting her walk on alone, and stood, staring across the waves at him, as though she knew he’d come to the beach in search of her.
Tug broke eye contact first, twisting in the water and setting off for the far end of the bay in a fast front crawl. Fifty-five years old and only now had he become fanciful? But the connection he’d sensed across the water had been real, he was sure of it.
Well, that was a twist he hadn’t seen coming.