‘If you took a photograph of it, it wouldn’t look like that. It would look much smaller, just like it does when it is high in the sky – that’s just an optical illusion. Your brain’s tricking you.’

‘Can that be true?’

‘It’s true.’

‘I never knew that.’ She walked in a bit deeper. The water soaked into the dipping hem of her skirt. ‘Everything seems so far away,’ she said dreamily. ‘London, the kids, everything that’s happened.’

‘I know.’

‘And in a couple of days this’ll seem far away too …’

Then Luke was walking towards her, in his light summer trousers and his thin cotton shirt, as if he didn’t notice that he was in a lake. Calmly wading into the water, looking at her. She let her skirt fall, so that it spread for a moment like a flower around her, and backed away from him. He followed. The water was up to their hips now.

‘You’re mad,’ she said. ‘Crazy. Like standing in the thunderstorm drinking whisky. And they all think you’re the sensible, practical one.’

‘Quiet Uncle Luke?’

‘Something like that.’

He’d reached where she stood, and stood smiling down at her. Then his smile suddenly vanished.

‘I’m tired of being good,’ she said. ‘I’m so very tired of everyone thinking that I’m good. Good old Irene. I’m not fucking good. Not inside me, where no one can see.’

He put one hand on her shoulder; she could feel the wet imprint of his fingers through her shirt. Then he bent his velvet head and kissed her. His cheek scraped her skin; heat coursed through her and the dark water lapped around her. She closed her eyes and put both arms around his wet, solid body, under his sodden shirt, pulled him closer to her. They fell back into the lake, still wrapped around each other, and for a brief moment were under the darkly glinting surface in a drowning embrace.

They came up gasping and without saying anything, sloshed their way towards the shore weighed down by their drenched clothes.

‘Look at you,’ said Luke, pulling out a few sodden euro notes from his pocket and grimacing.

‘Look at both of us.’

‘Irene?’

‘Mmm.’

‘What were you going to tell me? In the restaurant.’

She could feel desire changing, like a cloud changes as you watch it, into something else. A mountain becomes a valley; an arrow becomes a dragon.

‘Nothing.’

‘OK then.’ He picked a trail of weed out of her hair. ‘It’s up to you.’