Morning Swimmers

In the first week of May, before the water in Galway Bay changed to a mild summer blue, Eric Hartman and John Berry drove to Jim’s house and announced that they had gone swimming that morning, at eight o’clock, by the diving tower at the end of the promenade in Salthill. The three men had grown up together and still lived in the same town, though in recent years Jim had seen them less, or, as they put it, they had seen less of Jim.