Of course they had. What had created the absolute gulf between Ted and David was Ted’s ability to contemplate leaving Mary. Marriage at its worst for David had been a prison term of solitary confinement, at its best the framing joy of his life. He had so little entertained the possibility of ever leaving Patricia that it even seemed his duty, against actuarial expectation, to outlive her. How could he have a rational discussion with a man who didn’t know his wife was his own flesh?

He couldn’t. His anger crippled him. Instead that evening he served temporary notice to both his daughter and son-in-law.

‘I’m going to southern California for a couple of weeks on Monday.’

‘Monday?’ Mary repeated in surprise.

‘Yes, with my sister. We’re taking our old bones to the sun.’

‘Two weeks?’ Ted asked.

‘That’s right,’ David answered, giving Ted an appraising look from which he glanced away.

It was Mary who followed him down the stairs.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t think I can manage. …’

‘Go back upstairs and have this conversation with Ted,’ David said sharply.

‘With Ted?’ she asked, puzzled.

‘Your husband,’ David answered, as if he were speaking to Constance.

‘Daddy. …

‘Don’t call me Daddy. You’re a grown woman.’

‘Oh well, then, go!’ she said, turned and left him.

— 10 —

‘WHEN UNA TROUBRIDGE WAS asked how she and Radclyffe Hall, as Catholics, managed confession, she said they had nothing to confess.’

Diana looked over at Constance, too used to these non sequiturs to be surprised. They were like messages in bottles washing up after years on the shores of her consciousness.

‘Any Christian has a lot to rationalize,’ Diana said.

‘You’re like them,’ Constance said. ‘You want to be innocent. I don’t care about being guilty.’

‘Nobody responsible can be innocent,’ Diana said. ‘I’ve made terrible mistakes. Loving you isn’t one of them.’

Constance smiled. The commercials were over. She punched the sound back on and returned her attention to the television. They were watching a movie Diana couldn’t have recounted any better than Constance. Not for the first time, Diana had the impression that Constance was not watching the movie but reading Diana’s mind.

Since David’s last visit, Diana had been able to think about little else but their argument. No one but Constance and occasionally Jill had ever forced Diana into conversation about the value of judgments out there in the ignorant and bigoted public mind. Constance flirted with opinions nearly as outrageously as she flirted with people not because she had any intention of living with them but to see what they were like.

‘How do I look, guilty?’ she might ask, as if she were trying on a dress in a shop.

‘It just isn’t you,’ Diana would answer.