Mahon Pool, Tuesday

I go to Mahon most Tuesdays. The same five people are usually there before me — two swimmers, a woman with a flask of black coffee and a small terrier, an older bloke who doesn't swim but walks the sandstone edge slowly each morning, and a triathlete who arrives last and leaves first. We don't really speak. Nods, mostly.

Some Tuesdays the pool is glassy and the tide is out, and the camera doesn't come out of the bag. Some Tuesdays a wave clears the whole thing and you can't see anyone. The mornings I remember are the ones where it could go either way for an hour.

The trick at Mahon is to wait until you'd usually leave, and then stay another twenty minutes. The light changes twice in that window. So does the conversation, if there is one.