“Why don’t they put on some music for us,” Leslie said, “and do a dance? It isn’t every night they got two fellows watching them in the rain. Not every night, anyway!”

All over the dripping town, small lost people with nowhere to go and nothing to spend were gooseberrying in the rain outside wet windows, but nothing happened.

“I’m getting pneumonia,” Leslie said.

The cat and the fire were purring, grandmother time tick-tocked our lives away. The supper was cleared, and Hetty and Hermione, who had not spoken for many minutes, they were so confident and close in their little lighted box, looked at one another and slowly smiled.

They stood still in the decent, purring kitchen, facing one another.

“There’s something funny going to happen,” I whispered very softly.

“It’s going to begin,” Leslie said.

We did not notice the sour, racing rain any more.

The smiles stayed on the faces of the two still, silent women.

“It’s going to begin.”

And we heard Hetty say in a small secret voice: “Bring out the album, dear.”

Hermione opened a cupboard and brought out a big, stiff-coloured photograph album, and put it in the middle of the table. Then she and Hetty sat down at the table, side by side, and Hermione opened the album.

“That’s Uncle Eliot who died in Porthcawl, the one who had the cramp,” said Hetty.

They looked with affection at Uncle Eliot, but we could not see him.

“That’s Martha-the-woolshop, you wouldn’t remember her, dear, it was wool, wool, wool, with her all the time; she wanted to be buried in her jumper, the mauve one, but her husband put his foot down. He’d been in India. That’s your Uncle Morgan,” Hetty said, “one of the Kidwelly Morgans, remember him in the snow?”

Hermione turned a page. “And that’s Myfanwy, she got queer all of a sudden, remember. It was when she was milking. That’s your cousin Jim, the Minister, until they found out. And that’s our Beryl,” Hetty said.

But she spoke all the time like somebody repeating a lesson: a well-loved lesson she knew by heart.

We knew that she and Hermione were only waiting.

Then Hermione turned another page. And we knew, by their secret smiles, that this was what they had been waiting for.

“My sister Katinka,” Hetty said.

“Auntie Katinka,” Hermione said. They bent over the photograph.

“Remember that day in Aberystwyth, Katinka?” Hetty said softly. ‘The day we went on the choir outing.”

“I wore my new white dress,” a new voice said.

Leslie clutched at my hand.

“And a straw hat with birds,” said the clear, new voice.

Hermione and Hetty were not moving their lips.

“I was always a one for birds on my hat. Just the plumes of course. It was August the third, and I was twenty-three.”

“Twenty-three come October, Katinka,” Hetty said.