That’s all I could think of when I stood at the edge of the water, those terrible few moments when Sarge held me under. I could taste the silt in my mouth, feel the panic and thudding in my chest, making my heart seem like it would burst. The water had been my punishment – now here was Isobel telling me that I should come and join her like it was a treat. None of it made any sense. In the end I think she realized that I was going to need a little more persuading and she came wading towards me, all heavy with water, and put out her hands.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s so lovely in here. Hold on to me. I won’t let go. I promise you.’

And, unlike Sarge, she kept her promise. For ten minutes or so I held her hand as we floated across the surface of the water and I realized that I had become one of the figures, those magical beings that had visited me since I was a kid, who had put on little shows for me, dancing and twisting across the water. Those creatures weren’t in my head but nor were they real – they were me. They had always been me. But not the me that traipses up the crag with Sarge or the me that stands peeling veg for hours on end, but the other me, the me that could maybe exist in the future or in some parallel world. The happy me.

It was the happy me that let the water cover my face and not get scared, that allowed Isobel to lead me to the deepest part of the lake and lie on our backs and float. And the happiness came about because I was with someone I trusted, someone I knew would never let me go under.

And then. I find the next bit hard to write so I’ll do it quickly. Isobel and I were having so much fun that at first we didn’t hear the shouting. I was lying on my back looking up at the perfect blue sky when I felt Isobel’s body jerk upwards. I lifted my head and saw that she was looking across to the edge of the lake. I followed her gaze and that’s when I saw him. He was standing by the old boat, his hands on his hips, and he was shouting my name so furiously I knew I had no choice but to swim back towards him.

I heard Isobel whisper something behind me, something like, ‘It’s okay. We were just swimming. It’s not a crime.’ But I knew when I saw him that I’d done something really bad. He looked terrible. His hair was all over the place and his eyes were red and puffy. He was still wearing his big army coat and his boots. But it wasn’t his appearance that made me feel like I was about to face my judgement. It was the fact that he was holding his gun. And it wasn’t his shotgun, it was his pistol, the one he told me he kept for protection, the one he only brought out when matters were deadly serious.