Pat poured herself some coffee. “Last summer.” She made a stab at her egg, put her fork down and reached over the table for Joan’s newspaper. She only got half way – her arm wouldn’t reach further than the salt and pepper pots.

Joan handed it over. “Are you going up to see her?”

Pat laughed, and coughed, and dug into her egg again. Joan poured herself a glass of lemon water. Her hair was dishevelled, her limbs elegant and long.

Why did she think of Joan as fat when she wasn’t with her? There was nothing fat about her; the largesse of her childish body had gone long ago and been replaced with something full but neat, a majesty that Enid remembered now. “I went to Cherry Trees.”

Pat struggled with some bacon. Joan said, “If you’re not going to read the racing, can you pass it back?”

“It was shut up.”

“Did you expect everything to be kept on ice for you?” said Joan, folding the pages into a manageable size.

“Do you know where Douglas is?” Her egg looked over-cooked, and the black pudding was collapsing.

“Don’t you mean the children?” said Joan.

“I expected the children to be at home.”

“Looked after by whom?” Joan tipped the coffee pot but only a few black dregs dripped into her cup.

“Everett and Mary.”

Joan pushed her cup away. “It’s been two years, Enid.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“You can’t just walk out with no explanation and expect nothing to have changed. No one knew if you were coming back.”

“No one asked.”

“We didn’t know where you were.” Joan scrunched her napkin as if to discard it, then stretched it out again and laid it back on her lap. “You just walk in here as if it were yesterday, happy as you like, sitting down to breakfast. You arrived last night, did you? Was a telegram too much?”

“I don’t plan these things.”

“No.” Joan picked up her napkin again and threw it on the table. “You don’t. You just disappear at lunch and reappear for breakfast, two years later.” She flipped open her cigarette case.

Pat looked up from the paper. Her savage finesse had narrowed into a single, fine point of elegance. “Where were you?”

“Norfolk.” Enid stared back.

“Very flat, Norfolk,” said Pat and returned to the paper.

Enid looked at Joan. “I shall need to stay here until I’ve made arrangements.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t.” She got up and went to the window.

“But I’ve nowhere else to go. And I don’t have any money – I had to borrow the train fare. I need time.”

“Two years not enough?”

Enid snapped back, “I’d forgotten you know everything.”

Joan leant against the glass. Her cigarette sent strands of smoke about her head. “What have you been living on?”