‘We’ll give you a push off all right!’ another said, and they all sniggered. ‘Want us to come along with you?’

To my surprise, Olivia, instead of telling them to get lost, was smiling impishly at them. ‘I don’t think you’d better come in the boat,’ she said, ‘but we could do with a bit of help getting going.’

‘Getting going!’ the third lad echoed, and they all laughed raucously as if she’d said something funny or dirty.

‘This your friend is she?’ one of them asked, eyeing me up and down. ‘Shouldn’t think you’d need much of a hand with her to help you.’

I scowled at them. I didn’t like being compared unfavourably with Olivia. I stood there awkwardly, dressed in an ungainly old pair of William’s shorts.

‘Ooh – she don’t like us!’

To my fury, Olivia carried on smiling and humouring the boys long enough to let them help us drag the boat the final few yards to the sea. The bow slid into the water, rising and dropping suddenly as the force of each wave broke over it, and we clambered in.

‘Right, here you go,’ the boys shouted, standing thigh deep in the water, the edges of their shorts wafting with the water’s movement. The boat was already well afloat, but they pushed us off, cheering and waving exaggeratedly as Olivia started to row. She stopped and waved back. I kept my hands by my sides, frowning.

‘We didn’t need those idiots!’ I exploded furiously as soon as we were a distance from them. ‘Why did you let them?’

‘Oh I know we didn’t, but you have to keep them happy, don’t you?’ she said in a pettish voice. ‘Anyway, what’s eating you?’

I didn’t answer. I watched the water curl away from the oars. Peering down I could still see pebbles and sand on the bottom and trails of green weed. I screwed up my eyes against the white light on the water. I hated it when Olivia was like this. She had suddenly gone into what I called her witch mood, when she was sharp and mean and stirring up trouble and I couldn’t get near her.

After a while I said, ‘I saw your dad. He’d been to the town.’

For a second Olivia hesitated, frowning, the oars stilled at right-angles to the boat. Then, abruptly, she carried on rowing.

‘Can I have a go now?’

We swapped places and I started off, enjoying the pull against the water, the feel of using all my strength. I dug in hard, trying to force the boat fast across the bay.

‘Don’t pull down so deep,’ Olivia snapped. ‘You’ll catch a crab.’

‘Look. What’s the matter? What’ve I done?’

‘Nothing.’ Olivia stared down miserably into the bottom of the boat. ‘You haven’t done anything.’

The breeze helped propel us back towards the beach. Soon the prow jerked the boat to a halt against the sandy bottom and it tipped sideways so we were forced to jump out.