Ursula sat on the padded stool in front of her dressing table. She pulled the hairpins out of her bun and shook her head to loosen her hair before running her fingers through it. She was not a proud woman, but she was quietly pleased that despite being well into her forties, her hair was still the same colour as it had always been, with only a few sprinkles of white creeping in at the nape of her neck. And since she couldn’t see the back of her head unless she was sitting with the dressing-table mirrors angled just so, it didn’t trouble her.

‘I know it’s still a way off, but we need to discuss Ann’s birthday present,’ she said to John, who was already sitting up in bed with his nose in a book.

‘Mmmm?’

‘Ann’s birthday?’ She began to brush her hair from root to tip. It was so long she could sit on it.

He lowered the book, resting it on his chest. ‘I thought maybe a set of encyclopaedias.’

‘I’m not sure. I think we need to be treating her like the young woman she is about to become. Someone who will marry one day.’ Ursula’s brushing halted for a few seconds. ‘And anyway, doesn’t Finlay have encyclopaedias she can look at?’

‘He’ll move away soon. He’ll go to university and I’m sure the books will go with him.’

She tried again. ‘There’s plenty of time for learning at school. Ann needs to have a gift that is pretty. I’m sure all her friends have nice things; in fact I’ve noticed a few of them starting to put their hair up.’

‘She’s a child. Her brain needs to be fed.’

Ursula unscrewed the lid from the jar of vanishing cream and applied small dots of it to her face. Three on the forehead, two on each cheek, one on her chin. She began to stroke the cream in. ‘I don’t think you realise, but she’s not a little girl any more. Her shape is changing. I’m not sure she has even noticed it herself yet.’

He didn’t reply.

‘I was thinking that Finlay could give her something for the garden. From what I remember of last summer, she seems to like being outside.’ She leaned forward to examine her face in the mirror. ‘I ordered a few packets of seeds for the flower border; that’s what was in the parcel she was so interested in. Maybe he could give her those. There are snapdragons and cosmos and sweet peas. All of them could be cut for the table.’