I grinned and sat up. Then we crossed our legs and gathered daisies, putting them in a pile between us and taking one at a time to knit our chains. The sun was warm on my back and surrounding us were the sounds of gulls and songbirds, Max turning the pages of his newspaper, occasionally clearing his throat, and Jago tapping the edge of the paint can with his brush.

Edie and I didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. Our silence was comfortable as we pressed our nails into the stalks of each flower and threaded another stem through the hole, pulling ever-so-gently so as not to tear the delicate eye.

After a while she sighed heavily and threw down her chain. ‘Bored of that.’ She looked down the garden towards the fence. ‘I keep breaking them.’

‘Oh,’ I said, concealing a stab of disappointment. ‘That’s okay. You can have mine.’

I threaded the last daisy stalk and finished the circle, then got on to my knees and leant over to lower it onto her head like a crown. She was looking over my shoulder. I glanced back to see Jago smiling at us.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I feel like a princess.’

I sat back on my haunches. ‘You look like a flower child, a hippie from Woodstock or something.’

She smiled and held up her hands, her fingers making peace signs either side of her face. ‘I’d have been a great hippie, I reckon.’ She flapped her hand near her face to shoo away a fly. ‘I love travelling to exotic places and always go barefoot when I can.’

We lay back on the grass and I searched the clouds for faces as they drifted above us in the sky.

‘If you could get on a plane now, where would you go?’ I asked her.

She didn’t think for long. ‘India. And I’d get one of those red dots of paint on the centre of my forehead and wear a sari in emerald green. Or maybe black if they make them.’ She turned her head to look at me. ‘You?’

‘I’d stay right here.’ I patted the ground either side of me.

‘Here?’ She snorted. ‘Are you nuts? You have the whole world to choose from and you’d choose to stay in a place you’ve never left?’

I think she thought I meant Cornwall, but I didn’t, I meant The Cliff House. It occurred to me then that Edie wanted me to say something fanciful, an out-of-reach fantasy I could never make real. So I lied. ‘I’m joking!’ I said with a laugh. ‘I’d go to America. To Florida.’

She laughed. ‘Thank God for that. For a moment I thought you had no dreams at all!’