We walked down the leafy path and round the still water of the lake to a shady spot from where you could look back up to the line of Chantry Road’s huge, ornate houses, their windows catching the light of the afternoon sun. Leaves rippled white, green, yellow. Moorhens and mallards slid over the surface of the lake. The boys started off with the nets. Olivia and I lay on our stomachs on the cool ground waiting for a turn and looking down into the dark water.

‘I look like the full moon,’ I sighed. My round face shuddered in the water’s surface. ‘Except the moon doesn’t wear specs.’ With her big dark eyes and long wavy hair Olivia looked like a wispy Ophelia in the water. ‘I wish I was pretty like you, Livy.’

Olivia smiled. She could be a minx when attacked but when I made a comment like that it brought out her better nature. ‘You’ve got a lovely face. All sort of big and generous.’ She called out to the boys, ‘Come on – let us have a turn now, won’t you?’

I took one of the long-handled nets and dipped it into the water. It came up containing nothing more than a coating of green slime.

‘Try again.’ I found Angus at my shoulder. He watched seriously as I dipped in the net and on the fourth attempt brought it up with something tiny flapping in the bottom amid the leaves and weed. Carefully we turned the net out into the enamel bucket. I saw the deft, precise movements of Angus’s slim fingers. Heads together, we watched the tiny, almost transparent creature struggle into the water.

‘We shall let it go, shan’t we?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes – it’d be cruel not to.’

For a second I became aware of Olivia watching us, her brown eyes puzzled. Suddenly she twirled round, floral skirt dancing about her legs, and skipped over to William.

‘William, will you help me? I can’t seem to catch anything either.’

William picked up his bucket looking surprised, walked over to Olivia and squatted down, his thick legs bent up on each side of the pail. Olivia inclined towards him as if she had a secret to tell him, and William, startled, jumped back and overbalanced, sitting down suddenly.

Olivia let out peals of giggles. ‘What are you doing?’ she cried. ‘Here – let me pull you up.’

‘I can get up myself,’ William said crossly, with a flushed face.

She kept on at him all that afternoon: ‘William, will you help me? William, walk with me. Will you carry my bucket?’ I couldn’t understand this sudden attention paid to him, nor his passive response to her clamouring. If I’d carried on like that I was quite sure he’d have told me to leave off. Finally he did say gently to her, ‘Can you leave me alone for a bit now, Livy, eh?’

Pouting slightly, Olivia stepped over to me.

‘William’s being rather mean.’ She turned her head to look at him over one shoulder, coquettishly, strands of her chestnut hair half covering her face.