Then we were all laughing and shouting.

‘So that was Kyria Stavridi!’ my sister Phrosso shouted. ‘Did you notice the gap between her front teeth?’

‘And the bows on her dreadful Titina!’ Agni remarked. ‘You could dress a bride in all that satin!’

‘Do we have to know such very vulgar people?’ asked my brother Aleko.

Then our Aunt Ourania replied:

‘You are the one who is vulgar, Aleko.’

And slapped him in the face.

‘Aleko, you will go to your room.’

This might have shocked us more, Aleko the eldest, already so strong, if Myrto – she was the quiet one who noticed things – had not begun to point and shriek.

‘Look! Look!’ Myrto shouted. ‘Titina Stavridi has done it on the floor!’

There, in fact beside the best chair, was Titina’s pool. As if she had been an untrained dog.

At once everyone was pushing to see.

‘Such a big girl!’ Aunt Ourania sighed.

She rang for Aphrodite, who called to the Arab, who brought a pail.

After that I began to suspect everybody in our house had forgotten the Stavrides. Certainly the two girls from Lesbos had seen the Kyrios Stavrides singing and stumbling at the end of the street. He had put his foot through his straw hat. But nothing was done about Titina, until one hot evening as I searched the garden with a candle, looking for insects for a collection I was about to make, Aunt Ourania called me and said:

‘Tomorrow we must do something about Titina. You, Dionysi, shall fetch her.’

Several of the others groaned, and our Aunt Thalia, who was playing Schumann in her loveliest dress, of embroidered purple, hunched her shoulders.

‘Oh!’ I cried. ‘I?’

But I knew, and my aunt confirmed, it could not have been otherwise. It was I who must be the steadiest, the kindest. Even Kyria Stavridi had said that responsibilities often fell to the middle ones.

On the following afternoon I fetched Titina. We did not speak. But Kyria Stavridi kissed me, and left a wet patch on my cheek.

We were going to the beach, on that, as on almost any other afternoon.

‘Oh!’ moaned my sister Phrosso. ‘The old beach! It is so boring!’

And gave Titina a hard pinch.

‘What, Titina,’ asked Agni, ‘is that?’

For Titina was wearing a blue bead.

‘That is to keep away the Eye,’ said Titina.

‘The Eye!’

How they shouted.

‘Like an Arab!’ cried Myrto.

And we began to chant: ‘Titina, Titina, Arapina . . .’ but softly, almost under our breath, in case Mademoiselle should hear.

So Titina came to the beach, on that and other afternoons. Once we took off her pants, and beat her bottom with an empty bottle we found floating in the sea. Then, as always, Titina only smiled, rather watery certainly. We ducked her, and she came up breathless, blinking the sea out of those very stupid, deep blue eyes. When it was wet, her freckly skin shone like a fish’s.