Great things were expected of Peter, and I had the sudden appreciation that he would get them. Prizes. Glitter. Entrance to new worlds. A sudden and horrid vision—us bumping into one another in a supermarket many years in the future. Peter, all expensive, braying, “Well if it isn’t dear old Andy,” while lifting an enormous bottle of champagne into his trolley, and me in tracky bottoms and rags clutching a pack of value fish sticks. Or two liters of cider. Or the sticky paws of snotty triplets. The pain in my guts was so visceral that I had to turn away.

I didn’t mean to hurt him though.

Em found the diamonds around the neck of one of the stone cherubs that adorned the fountain, Peter among the weeds of a flower bed, Marcus inside the back of the old piano, David in an empty bird’s nest in the stables. Em found them most often, I think. They were always the ones we had hidden, always Em’s charity shop diamonds, never Mary Ashton’s.

The white burning sun was just above the treetops, the wood beneath was blue. July days. August around the corner. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the sun, burning dimly behind curtains of orange, a red mark.

Victory for Andy! The diamonds were sitting in the fork of the pear tree. I put them on, fastening the clasp around my neck, and then I took off my shoes and climbed up. Through the first-floor window, I could see Em and Marcus. They were on their hands and knees peering under dust-sheeted furniture.

“Oi!”

When they turned, I indicated my neck with a finger and watched their faces sink. Then I went on up, taking the drainpipe again. Only when I got to the roof, I couldn’t get up. I just couldn’t make my legs do it. Strange. I gave the order again, but my body said no.

I went back down. David was waiting at the foot of the tree.

“Lost your bottle?”

I sailed past him. What did it mean, the nerve being gone? In stories, there were magic mirrors that showed what was inside people. In reality, you couldn’t see. It was dark in there and you were left to guess.

I took him by surprise, putting a foot behind his and pushing. He went down into the grass easily. I knelt over him.

“No.”

“I see.”

I watched his chest rise and fall. His lips were coral pink. His eyes shifted color depending where he was. Now they were blue-green, like spring grass.

David put a finger up to touch the necklace. “They suit you.”

The keeper booted the ball long and it came down over the halfway line. Marcus got a toe to it, but one of the Pewsey players barged him and sent it back up the pitch.