I retreated to the shade of a small willow copse to the side of the grassy area and sat on a log, watching them belly-flopping into the water with bellows of shock, then starting to horse around, racing with splashy strokes, swimming underwater to grab one another’s legs, trying to duck each other.

By now I was feeling deeply awkward. Paddling with Robert was nice, and being at the lake on our own, quietly, had somehow been magical. The arrival of the boys ruined all that. Their careless noise seemed to desecrate this beautiful, peaceful place. Had they forgotten that the lake was supposed to be private property?

The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I felt, and the more I wanted to get away. I tried to attract Rob’s attention, but he was having too much fun to notice. Just as I was about to leave I heard a shout: ‘Hey! You lot. What’s going on? Don’t you know it’s private property?’

I hid behind a tree, expecting at any time to see a burly gamekeeper wielding a shotgun. Or, worse, Mr Waddington. But no, a tall, slim and dark-haired boy was striding towards the piles of shoes, socks and shirts hastily strewn across the grass. It was Kit.

‘Waddington!’ Rob shouted. ‘Where the hell have you been all these months?’

‘Oh, here and there,’ Kit called back. ‘Now, lads, how do you like your clothes? A bit wet, or just sopping?’ He gathered up the piles of clothing and ran to the edge of the lake, dropping them one by one into the water.

‘You bastard!’ Rob said, rushing to tackle him, so that they both fell into the shallows, laughing wildly. Socks and shirts floated all around them, like small coloured islands. I lingered in my hiding place, watching, unable to take my eyes off Kit as they played in the water. He had a sporty body: his legs muscular and tanned, and his chest so much broader than any of the others’. Robert seemed spindly, childish by comparison. Kit was well on his way to becoming a man, while the others were still only boys.

I couldn’t help laughing at their playfulness. How enviable it was to be so free of care and responsibility. I tried to imagine my friends from school doing the same, but failed. They would all be too conscious of their hairstyles, their new clothes, their dignity. Not for the first time I wished I’d been born a boy. And that I wasn’t the daughter of a vicar.

The distant sound of church bells chimed twelve; half an hour before I had to be back at the vicarage. The boys were coming out of the water now, gathering up their wet things, wringing them out and hanging them over willow branches to dry.

Rob looked round. ‘Molly, Molly,’ he shouted. ‘Where are you?’ A pause, then, ‘You can come out now.’