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Tim Dowling: this will be my last wetsuit. Trying it on may kill me

<span>Photograph: Alamy</span>
Photograph: Alamy

My wife and I are in Cornwall, visiting friends. This has required us to do things we have not attempted in months: packing clothes, driving long distances, talking to people in a room. The weather is lovely, but the sea is freezing. We are on our way into town to buy wetsuits, on a giddy whim.

“Right at the roundabout,” my wife says, chanting a remembered instruction. “Can you look it up on your phone?”

“It’s on this road,” I say. “Just ahead on the left.”

My wife parks in front of the surf shop, which is operating a one-way queuing system at the entrance, although there is nobody in the queue.

“Shit,” my wife says. “Do we need masks?”

“There are masks in the glove box,” I say.

No one else seems to be wearing a mask, so we step in warily and wait to be told off.

“What can I do for you folks today?” says a young blond man by the door.

“Oh,” my wife says. “We’d like some wetsuits, please.”

“OK, great,” he says. “What sort?”

“Nothing pink,” my wife says.

He shows us the cheapest wetsuits they have, and the second cheapest, the latter almost double the price of the former.

“What’s the difference?” my wife asks. He says something about seams neither of us understands. My wife and I exchange a long and meaningful stare, and I nod.

“I think we’re happy with the cheaper ones,” she says.

“Wait, are you sure?” I say. “I was sort of thinking.”

“Were you,” she says, an eyebrow rising behind her glasses.

“Because of the seams,” I say.

“Well, if that’s what you feel you’re entitled to,” she says. The man pulls a more expensive wetsuit from the rack and holds it under my chin.

“You look like a medium tall,” he says.

“I mean, these are probably our final wetsuits,” I say.

“That’s true,” my wife says to the man. “We’ll be dead before we need new ones.” He says nothing.

“Do I try it on?” I say.

“You should do,” he says. He directs me to a cubicle in a corner of the store, and pulls the curtain behind me.

I have put on a wetsuit before. I have taken an introductory diving course, and I once got in the water with a load of great white sharks in exchange for 1,200 words and some money. But it’s been a long time.

Before I have even got the ankle holes past both feet, two customers pause just outside the curtain to admire a T-shirt. This means I have to stop groaning. For a time there is no sound but the squeak of neoprene and the knocking of limbs against three walls.

“How you getting on, mate?” the man says.

“Yeah, almost,” I say, stepping out. “But I can’t reach the thing.” He does up the zip at the back. I turn to face him, and he appraises me from head to foot. His eyes say: man, this guy is old.

“Is it OK?” I say, looking down. There are rolls of neoprene above my knees and below my elbows. I can’t tell whether the wetsuit is too big, or if I still haven’t got it on all the way.

“Not bad, mate,” he says. “You could try the medium, to be sure.” I think about taking the wetsuit off, and putting on another, and then taking that one off.

“I might just wear this home,” I say. He makes no answer. I step back behind the curtain.

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After 10 minutes of peeling and gasping, which must sound like a man trying to stuff a dozen helium balloons into a gym bag, I emerge fully dressed with a wetsuit casually draped over one arm. My wife is standing by the till with her wetsuit.

“Aren’t you going to try yours on?” I say, a little out of breath.

“I tried on two,” she says. “Where have you been?”

“OK,” I say. “Let’s buy these.”

“I’ve paid for mine,” she says.