Then I marked four rows using wooden sticks and string. As I let the rough fibre run through my fingers, I remembered Mum finding me, aged eight, with a length of garden twine wound too tightly round my hand. I was sitting in our shed, staring at my cold fingers; they were pure white, like the dead skin you strip off your feet in the bath. I expected a scolding, but she unwound me without a word, and held my hand in hers until it was warm again.

When I’d marked out the plot, I told Robert to put some old clothes on.

‘These are old.’ He plucked at the leg of his shorts as if it wasn’t worth touching.

‘They don’t look old to me.’

I heard him tut.

‘Do you want to plant these or not?’

When he came back out, he hadn’t changed his shorts or his sandals, but he was wearing an old T-shirt. It was far too small for him; his arms looked restricted by the tight little sleeves, and he kept hooking his hand beneath the front and pulling it down over his stomach, the outline of his knuckles bulging through the printed face of Mickey Mouse. I bought him that not long after the Minnie Mouse bell, as a sort of apology.

Music thumped over the fence and into our garden. The lad next door, Graeme, was playing his radio again. He always listened to the same radio station, just that little bit too loud, but not so loud that I could go round there and tell him to turn it down. And sometimes he sang along, in an out-of-tune voice, wailing when he didn’t know the words.

I put a hand on Robert’s shoulder and walked him round the plot, ignoring the beat that swelled around us. ‘First of all, you dig a shallow trench. Water lightly. Then plant each seedling at even intervals. Bring the soil up around them. Water generously.’

He was gazing towards the fence.

‘Shall we try it?’

Without looking up, he nodded.

When I came back with the trowel, Robert had left our spot next to the shed and was standing on tiptoe by the fence, trying to see over. I stood behind him and saw what he was looking at. Graeme was lying on a red towel on his concrete terrace. To one side of him was an oil spot from his motorbike, and to the other was another lad, also lying on a towel. Small swimming trunks and large sunglasses were all they wore. A bottle of suntan oil, its label stained dark from the grease, was upturned between them. A transistor radio blared by Graeme’s friend’s head. Neither of them moved a muscle as they lay there together, grilling in the sun.

‘I like the music,’ said Robert.

‘Let’s get this trench dug, shall we?’

I stood over him as he flipped the trowel in the earth. ‘Can’t you help me?’ he asked.

‘It’s your patch,’ I said. ‘You dig. I’ll help with the planting.’