He’d been enthralled by her, right from the beginning. When Arthur first saw them they were in the garden. The boy was practising cricket and throwing a ball, a game of toss at the dog. The girl was sitting reading on the swing they had back then, strung up between two towering sycamores. She looked up from the book when her mother called her name and stared at him from under a dark fringe as if he had arisen from the sea carrying a trident. The swing slowed and stopped and the little girl jumped off, revealing herself to be his height even though she was only six and he was eight. She thrust her hand out and peered at him. When he said, ‘How do you do,’ as he had been taught by his mother, the girl let out a blast of laughter before shutting her mouth firmly. But it was still in her eyes, sparkling.

A ball flew at him, which, blessed miracle, he caught. ‘Come and play,’ demanded Peter, and with deep gratitude Arthur turned his back on the priggish little sister.

It was funny how he had resolved to hate her.

Determined to keep up with their games, she would appear, eyes narrowed with satisfaction, pouncing on their latest den in the pine trees or the dunes.

He would catch her looking at him over Peter’s shoulder and a small smile of victory would twitch at the corner of her mouth. Sometimes she would say mean things. If she’d been a boy he would have punched her, but she was just a little girl. He wanted to say something horrid too but when he opened his mouth to speak there was a hard defiance on her face which looked like it could burst and it made him uneasy. He often caught her peering at him from under the black fringe and he grew a kind of fondness for that fierce look of hers, the way her eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. He found himself looking for her when they were playing, wanting her to find them and missing her when she didn’t come.

Once, they were running together, he faster than her now he had grown, but he could hear her breathing behind him, the swish of the wheat as she pushed through it, just an arm’s stretch behind him. Through the woods she kept up with him, then something caught at his foot as he scrabbled over the dunes and down he fell. Falling, sand flying. She banged up against his back and down they dropped, like two dominoes. She thrust against him as they fell. He remembered the thrilling feeling of the weight of her chest on his back, her cry in his ear. They landed with their legs sprawled on the side of the dunes, sand in his face.

‘I’ve got you now,’ she said, triumphant.