We stood in the sea and spoke gibberish. We invented words consisting almost exclusively of consonants. We gesticulated the possibility of sharks and splashed water in the direction of our homeland, a country we couldn’t pronounce the same way twice. We tried to wrest glances from the men but the other girls, the older girls, with longer arms and legs, tans and midriffs, were stronger. We laughed in foreign accents and tossed back our hair, and fancied that this European exuberance of ours was infectious. Did anyone believe us? I doubt it. But we wanted it. That was enough.

That summer, Nicole was my best friend. She invited me to her beach house for the holidays, and I went. This was out of character for me. I was not the sort of girl other girls invited to their beach house. I wore giant T-shirts over my bathers, drew intricate patterns on my jeans with a biro and wore flat sandshoes instead of toeless sandals.