Clara was not much of a swimmer, disliked the seaside, and so each Sunday in July I set out early, on my own, to the beach. I swam out and out in the cold water, watching the boats traverse the bay, watching the sky as it changed colour. I did not think of anything at all during those swims, my head stayed clear and empty, until gradually even the sounds and sensations of my surroundings fell away. It was only once I had towelled myself off and dressed that I perceived someone trying to get my attention one morning. There was a woman sitting outside the café on the pier who appeared to be waving at me. I thought she must have mistaken me for someone else and started walking in the opposite direction, but she called out my name. She did it in a way that made me turn around, retrace my steps, progress towards the table at which she was sitting, and stop. But it was only one of my colleagues, she worked on Yeats, I could not for the life of me understand why she hailed me in so familiar and congenial a manner. I was surprised that she knew my first name, that she had recognised me at a distance, that she seemed to want me to join her for coffee at the table she was occupying. Nevertheless I did sit down, out of curiosity more than interest in carrying on any exchange with this woman, and she talked pleasantly for a while about the travails of having children, how her work had suffered, how she had manoeuvred her husband into taking charge of them on Sunday mornings so that she could have one single second of peace, of time to herself, what a pleasant surprise it was to run into me of all people. I wondered what she wanted. She was respected in her field, could not possibly expect to gain anything from a strategic alliance or enmity with me, and eventually I concluded that she must merely be lonely. I revelled, briefly. I relaxed. She bought me a coffee, and, while nodding sympathetically at the lengthy account of her grievances, I watched the people passing by. At intervals I offered some encouraging comments of my own, which I cannot now remember but which seemed to satisfy the requirements of the encounter. In the time that elapsed since I had taken a seat, the pier had filled up, busy now with families toing and froing, toddlers on scooters, the elderly being pushed along in chairs by their descendants. I had finished my coffee, the time had nearly come for the Yeats scholar and me to say our goodbyes, and just as I was about to rise from my seat, I saw Clara emerge from the crowd. She looked – I do not know exactly how to describe it. She seemed to be waiting. I excused myself from the Yeats scholar and walked over to Clara, ready to explain myself, at once I felt blameworthy in some obscure way, but she merely began speaking as if resuming a conversation only briefly interrupted, and we progressed down the promenade. She told me about the history of the Turkish baths we were just passing, how she had long been interested in the implied connection between the sensual and the spiritual, that she would be very interested in trying out ritual ablution, perhaps I might accompany her some time. She would understand if I declined, she continued, she respected my Sunday morning routine, had given me my space, although, she pointed out, I should be wary of our esteemed colleague, with whom she had not known I was acquainted. Something had passed between them, it was suggested, a power struggle of some kind ending in an uneasy truce. In any case, and in her opinion, Clara said, the woman’s interest in Yeats was suspect, likely motivated by an underlying strain in her intellectual production that could be described as fascistapologist. The manner in which the topic had been introduced disconcerted me, but the rest of what Clara had said was not particularly surprising – the woman had demonstrated even in our brief interaction a slight sycophancy, coupled with some secondary cloying aspect characteristic of such people. It was evident in her efforts to conscript me at once by intimating I was in her confidence, that I was a trusted companion even though we were in fact speaking for the first time. In my experience there was a flip side to such precipitate advances, this was not my first turn around the block, I had been collected before. In any case, I trusted Clara’s judgment, and we left it at that. And yet sometimes actions reverberate in ways impossible to foresee. Sometimes, I thought of Clara’s expression as she stood still on the boardwalk.