Diana was glad she and the cleaning woman had so recently turfed out the other unused rooms. Diana had dusted again herself only this morning while Constance stood timidly at the threshold of rooms no longer familiar to her. In the guest room with its prim twin beds were two of Diana’s favourite Koerners, one of the early coastal glitter series, another of his more recent African paintings, the one so full of familiar, cool light, the other hot enough to burst into flame.

The two rooms which had been Jill’s, originally furnished as a bedroom and study, had been haphazardly filled with cast-offs which would and should have been given away if there hadn’t been these empty spaces to receive them. Here the walls were crowded with paintings, as daunting as a room full of noisy people. Mike stood back, but Richard plunged in, for here was treasure indeed, early Shadbolts, Gordon Smiths, Tanabes, Koerners, Molly and Bruno Bobaks.

‘There’s an Onley watercolour in the bathroom,’ Diana confessed, for he was a painter generally too remote for her taste.

‘He’s the guy who crashed his plane on the glacier, isn’t he?’ Mike asked.

‘Yes, and threatened to burn his paintings unless the tax laws were changed,’ Diana said. ‘I wish his paintings were as colourful as he is.’

‘But he’s good!’ Richard said with such defensive urgency that Diana could finally hear him.

‘Of course he is,’ Diana answered.

Richard’s next remark didn’t reach her.

‘My aunt can’t hear you, Richard,’ Mike said. ‘He says he wishes there would be more retrospectives. There’s just nowhere you can see things like this.’

‘Why don’t people care?’ Richard asked, giving his voice volume as well as urgency.

‘I think people do,’ Diana said. ‘Look at the new gallery.’

‘It’s just a building,’ Richard said. ‘That opening BC show was awful, everything junked in together, everybody but Shadbolt stuck in one decade, buried there. It was like going to the funeral of British Columbian art.’

‘Like going to the funeral of British Columbian art,’ Mike repeated, for Richard had fallen again into a mutter.

‘I didn’t go,’ Diana admitted and wished very much for the first time that she had.

All Diana did now was sit at her desk and write out cheques for membership, for tickets, and then had to remember to send the tickets down to the art school or out to the university so that someone could make use of them. She had never stopped to imagine the students who might have used them, like this little gnome full of outrage and zeal.

As they arrived again in the front hall, Diana noticed that she had forgotten to relock the inside lock in her concern to make the boys welcome. Without explanation she left them abruptly and moved as quickly as she could into the TV room. There Constance sat, her timer ticking.