I was pretty sure I couldn’t, but I didn’t want her to know that. I felt the sparrow flutter of my heart; I knew she was going to call me a coward.

‘Course I can,’ I said.

‘Go on, then. Prove it!’

‘Don’t want to,’ I said, scuffing the toe of my trainer against the lintel and wishing we’d found some cooking chocolate, or even leftover dates rolled in sugar. But then our mother didn’t bake, so it wasn’t likely.

‘You can’t do it,’ Bethany said.

I found myself climbing on top of the hearth, searching for handholds in the powdery cement and wrapping my fingers between the thick stems of ivy. Bethany stood below me and, now that she’d got her way, switched to cheering me on enthusiastically. I don’t suppose I got very far, but it seemed as if I was really high up. I was level with the top of the sapling, looking down at Bethany’s upturned face, the sun hot on my own, once I was no longer sheltered by the trees. I was too frightened to go any further. And that was when it happened.

I remember realizing that something was terribly wrong; I was no longer upright. I was falling backwards, still clinging to the ivy, the bright blue of the sky disappearing. There was a whoomp and my lungs were emptied of air. Something hot and wet against my face. Someone was screaming. The sky fell in on me like I was Chicken Little.

Amy told me afterwards that the ivy had come loose and the wall I was climbing had collapsed. In the ambulance the paramedics said I’d hit my head, splitting my skull open; I’d broken my forearm, smashed several ribs and fractured my collarbone. I’d have a few scars when I was all patched up, they said, like that would please me. One of them described how they’d dug me free from the fallen stones, as if the story would entertain me on the way to the hospital. I was lucky, the doctor said later, that I hadn’t been buried alive. I was lucky, he added, that I hadn’t died.

Since then, but only to myself, I’ve always rephrased his statement: I’m lucky my sister didn’t kill me.

24

AMY

When she and the children reach the piazza below the fort, she’s surprised to see it’s bustling with activity. There’s a marquee; men are setting up small fairground rides, and others are unfolding tables and weighing down awnings and buntings with sandbags.

‘What’s going on?’ she asks the young woman in the cafe, as she orders ice cream and a coffee for herself.