‘Love your dress,’ she said. ‘Just the thing for Spain.’

Phoebe smiled.

‘Yes, I know. My stepmother says I must buy something bright.’

‘Bright? You?’ April did one of her smiling grimaces, her mouth lifted high at one side. ‘Can’t see it, myself.’ She dipped her head – like a finch, Phoebe thought, with that little sharp nose and those pale, pinched nostrils – and drank again from her glass. It was almost empty. ‘What’s she like, that woman?’

‘Who—?’

‘Doctor Thing – what’s she called? – your stepmother.’ She paused, and laughed. ‘Are there really stepmothers? I thought they were only in fairy tales.’

‘Evelyn, is her name.’

‘She reminded me of one of those big carved heads on Mount Rushmore. Can’t remember which one. Is she wicked? They’re all supposed to be wicked, aren’t they?’

‘Only in fairy tales. She’s very nice.’

‘They took me to dinner. Did they say? Ghastly – be thankful you missed out on that treat.’

A sort of misery was welling up in Phoebe’s breast.

‘April, I don’t know what to say to you,’ she said. She felt she might be about to cry. She mustn’t – April would only laugh at her. ‘I didn’t forget you. I thought about you all the time.’

‘Even though I was dead?’

‘You weren’t dead to me. Somehow, in some part of my mind, I knew you were alive.’ She felt the tears pressing up into her eyes. ‘Are you happy here,’ she asked, ‘here in Spain?’

April shrugged. ‘You know me, Pheebs. I don’t like anywhere. The hospital is all right, I do some good.’

‘My father said you came to dinner with a – with a friend.’

‘Oh, Gerry. Yes. Jeronimo Cruz. My sugar daddy. He’s the one who got me the job here.’

‘How did you know him?’

‘He came to Ireland, years ago, to give a talk at the College of Surgeons. I collared him afterwards, and we went to bed in his hotel. The Russell. He gave me a wonderful dinner there that night and pledged undying love. I kept in touch with him. Lucky I did. He’s ancient, of course, but I like older men. If things had been otherwise I’d probably have made a go at your papa, at dinner the other night.’ She glanced sideways at Phoebe and grinned. ‘Yes, awful, amn’t I. Once a nympho, always a nympho.’

‘Doctor Cruz, is he a good man?’ Phoebe asked.

She expected April to laugh at so gauche a question, but she didn’t.

‘He’s very high-minded,’ she said after a moment’s consideration. ‘A little of it rubs off on me, I think – I hope. He makes me better than I am. What more can one ask?’

‘Are you— I mean, do you—?’