Helga sleeps fitfully, but she’s woken by a banging on the door. For a moment, she doesn’t know where she is and then she remembers that she’s home and stares at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the last few days. She gets up, surprised to find that she isn’t dizzy. She doesn’t hold on to the bannister in the same way either as she goes downstairs.
It’s only now that she realises how much she’s been compensating for her undiagnosed heart condition – deliberately not admitting that there’d been a problem to herself. Or anyone else. Mette had given her a right dressing-down on the phone about how scared Helga had made her. In a rare show of emotion, she’d started crying.
‘I was so scared,’ she’d said in a small voice that had made Helga think of her as a child and how she used to have night terrors. ‘You’re all I’ve got.’
Helga knows this isn’t true. She’s got her good-for-nothing father, but Helga used the opportunity to say something to Mette that she hasn’t had the courage to before.
‘I don’t want to be all you’ve got,’ she’d told her niece. ‘You must find someone of your own. You must stop being scared of love.’
‘I’m not,’ Mette had said tearfully. ‘I just haven’t had time.’
‘Then make time. For me. Promise me.’
And Mette had promised that she’d make more of an effort.
Helga can’t imagine she’ll have a problem finding someone with her intelligence, her looks and money being the icing on the cake. Mette’s promised Helga she’ll keep her posted on her forays into dating, although Helga can’t bear the thought of those terrible dating apps and her being exposed to all sorts of crazy people. She’s told Mette to do something out of the ordinary, something she loves. Because that way, she’ll meet the right person and, for once in her life, Mette has taken her advice and booked a walking holiday.
It’s Dominica at the door. She’s grinning behind a big bouquet of flowers. She flings her arms around Helga and embraces her and Helga wants to cry. It’s so good see her without her being covered in all that hideous plastic PPE.
‘I called the ward and they said you’d come home. This is easier without all those damned masks,’ Dominica says.
Helga is so touched that her swimming friends have looked out for her. She couldn’t believe it when she got home earlier in the cab and there was a flask of soup waiting for her and a cake from Claire and the house had been cleaned and her bed freshly made. Claire and Tor had got the spare key from Katie and had come in to clear up and prepare it for her return.
Helga unpacks the delicious-smelling croissants from the bag, along with the butter and jam. She puts on a pot of coffee, delighted to see her friend, but she can tell that something is bothering Dominica.
‘So? What is it? You’ve got something on your mind. I can tell.’
‘Oh God, Helga. You have no idea.’
It’s not like Dominica to be dramatic about anything, so Helga is intrigued by her tone.
‘Go on. Tell me?’
Helga listens, aghast, as Dominica tells her about the call with Jamie on Friday night and how Tor, Claire and Maddy went to the pier. Bill, her supervisor, is not happy with how things went down, but Dominica is unrepentant. What else could she have done? Knowing it was Jamie?
‘You did the right thing,’ Helga assures hers, but now the doorbell rings and Dominica smiles.
‘It’ll be the others. I said on the chat I was coming round and they all wanted to see you too.’
Claire, Maddy and Tor all bustle in and hug Helga warmly and soon they’re all sitting on the sofas whilst Dominica puts the kettle on to top up the coffee.
Helga won’t countenance any talk of her operation or recovery. She needs to know what happened on the pier.
‘You went in after him?’ she asks Maddy. She can’t believe all of this has happened whilst she was lying in that damned hospital bed.
‘Thank God Tor was there, pointing. I saw him and I managed to get a life ring around him.’
‘And Jamie? Is he OK?’ Helga can hardly bear to hear the answer. Oxygen starvation? Brain damage? She knows what happens to people when they end up in the water.
‘They revived him in the lifeboat.’
Maddy starts to cry.
‘We thought for a moment …’ Maddy says, then shakes her head. ‘Claire kicked up enough of a fuss to get the lifeguard out straight away. If she hadn’t have got there in time …’ Maddy takes a hiccuppy breath. ‘That’s all I keep thinking about. How close it was.’
‘You did the right thing. You all did. I told you the Sea-Gals were invincible. Look what you all did.’
Helga holds Maddy’s hand too and Maddy gives her a watery smile. ‘Thank you. At least you think so. Everyone else has told us off for trying to save him.’
‘So what happened then? Once the lifeguard got him?’ Helga asks.
‘They took Jamie straight off to hospital in an ambulance,’ Tor says.
‘Good. Don’t want him at any risk of secondary drowning,’ Helga says.
‘What’s that?’ Tor asks.
‘When you’ve been in water, even if you’ve been revived, a couple of days later, your lungs can fill up. They call it secondary drowning. It’s a real risk. They must have told you about that?’ She checks with Maddy, who nods, but she can tell it’s news to the others.
‘They mentioned that, but so far he’s OK. Hopefully he’ll be out by the end of the week.’
Helga nods and pulls Maddy into a hug.
‘You all saved him,’ Helga says decisively to them. ‘Together you saved him. That’s quite a thing. I’m so proud of you all.’
They eat some of Claire’s cake and the mood lightens, and Dominica changes the subject on to Linus.
‘I still want to find him for you, but I’m going to need more details,’ she says. ‘Emma has put a shout-out to all the groups who swim in Hampstead, but so far nobody has come forward.’
Helga sighs. She’s thought about it a lot – how Linus had been that day and how she’d felt when she’d seen him. And how entirely futile her feelings are. Because he has a family. A life. A wife.
‘I want you to stop.’ Helga sighs.
‘Stop? But—’
‘There’s no point in contacting Linus. If I’m going to move away.’
‘Move away?’
‘I’m thinking of going back to Denmark. To be near Mette. I’m warming to her idea of the retirement village. I’m not getting any younger. I can’t be a burden to other people.’
‘But you can’t move. What about the Sea-Gals?’ Dominica sounds upset.
‘You’ll be fine without me. It’s time to move on. To face up to the future.’