PEACH STONES, band of brothers

one, GIRLS WHO TIE MEN IN KNOTS

Besides, she'd always been quite good when it came to caring for children — her dearest sister, Hermia, had given her a niece at just the end of last year, beautiful and button-nosed and all ebony skinned, a trait from the tiny baby's own father. It made Robin Winifred sad that her sister's little baby Jane would never quite live a life of total upmost normality like most children would.

It was September, but hardly bitter like most British winters. Robin Winifred often came down with post-August ache, as the thought of the oncoming winter really watered down her spirits. Though today the air was clammy with humidity beneath the overcast clouds, so it wasn't so disheartening, temperature wise. She was certainly dressed for the occasion, in her Sunday skirt and pearl white blouse. The privilege of working downstairs for the Hamiltons had set her on a different course looks-wise, and she was less inclined towards the extravagant things she'd worn during her youth (take lilac wellies and an amber slicker, for example).

However, her grandmother's treasured hatpin still sat safely in her breast pocket. She'd never not have it on her; as it really meant the world, in all respects. It was crafted from a fine metal, with a shapely rose melded onto the end without the point. The edge petal of the silver rose peeked out from the linen of her shirt as the pointer sat diagonally. Bessie Hubbard had gifted it to her specially, knowing her youngest granddaughter's favour for gardening and all things floral. Not much had changed. Robin still had flowery bedspread. She treasured that pin, and she never let it leave her side — well, not most of the time ...

With both feet planted nice and firmly onto the ground, Robin sat on the flat and moulded concrete edge of the fountain, pushing around one of the buoyant tin boats that stroked the surface of the still water. The family dog, a Sheltie fondly named Gatsby, wove restlessly around her legs, yapping, much to Cyril's distaste. They used to have a pond in their back garden, when Robin Winifred was a little girl. It had been just pot lock, and had come as an addition on their house. Her sister fell in one time and they had to stop using it. Robin sighed as she recalled the crystalline dragonflies and lilypads that sat on the glazed water surface. Poking the miniature tin boat dubiously, she watched it as it bobbed, wondering if the Navy boats out at sea really looked that way. As one of the tactics that she'd been reinforced by Mrs Hamilton to further his eduction, she inquired, "Cyril, how many words do you know that sound like boat?"

"All the words like boat?" Cyril sighed, puffing air out of his chubby cheeks, "Well ... c — coat, I suppose, and goat ... hey! — my boat!" he grunted desperately and extended out his arm to try and grab the miniature before it drifted out of reach and too far in towards the monolith in the middle of the fountain.

Robin Winifred harrumphed, holding the concrete slab beneath her thighs with one clammy hand, and reached over to scoop up the tin boat with the other. She bent at too far of an angle, though, and the hatpin slid from her pocket and dropped into the water with a plop. Cyril gasped as Robin chucked his toy boat over her shoulder in alarm, squinting at the reflective surface of the water to try and locate it. She let out a whine, and plunged one hand into the chilly water just below her elbow, slicing through the cool substance and waving around, hoping to be able to cradle it in her palm before it reached the fountain floor.

She whimpered and whined in frustrated aggression, pulling her hand out and flicking it, running the dry one through her hair frustratedly. Her grandfather was going to be so cross with her. She unbuttoned the cuff on her sleeve and rolled it up to her bicep, dunking her arm into the water again, deeper this time. The water fit her as close as her skin, yet she still couldn't feel the hatpin, nor the bottom of the fountain. Even more distressed than before, she knew that she'd find no resolution in holding herself flush to the water. She unbuttoned the front of her blouse and whipped it off of her person, shimmying down her skirt and leaving her outclothes in a pool at her ankles.