I had never been to Lake Garda before, and I was surprised by how much it reminded me of the coast. The water was a soft turquoise, rippling with silver and white crests. The hills rolled gently, dotted with olive groves and cypresses. Braccobaldo Beach turned out to be a mix of pastel colours – terracotta roofs, lemon-yellow houses, pale pink facades – and construction sites.

Cola took me to the pebbly beach where his friends hung out and introduced me to Leo and Sandro. His girlfriend, Cinzia, came from San Giorgio in Salici. She relaxed on a sun lounger, attracting attention from cheeky young Italian boys who had arrived on scooters. Cola sat glaring at them, but he needn’t have worried because it was obvious that Cinzia was in love with him. She spoke in English (because it was better than my Italian) and wanted my views about Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni, who she plainly didn’t like.

Cinzia asked what I did for a living, and I told her that I was a writer, which sounded grander than it was meant to be. I explained that the novel I was writing, if it ever got published, would struggle to sell because only romantic fiction was keeping the book market alive. She raised an eyebrow when I told her that people had moved on from Harry Potter and were now interested in raunchy romantasy books.

The boys went swimming in the lake, and we watched as they grappled and tried to duck each other underwater. These were the last antics of teenage boys, a final celebration before they became men. All three were dark and handsome, but skinny Cola towered above the others. They had known each other since school, Cinzia told me, and were inseparable, but that was about to change. Leo was training for the army, Sandro was joining the Carabinieri, but she was unsure what the future held for Cola.

I asked how he was able to afford a brand new Abarth 500, and she laughed. It was not his car; it belonged to a signor from Torricelle who liked Cola and let him use the car in exchange for doing jobs around his big house in the hills. Cola was very skilful, she said, and could put his mind to anything that involved manual work. He was not, she added with sarcasm, very good academically. And she worried about what might happen if the signor dispensed with his services.