Diana didn’t expect to, but she was much encouraged by the number of outsized garments in the stores. They may have been intended for slight teenagers, but they actually fit her. Finding a bathing suit was another matter, but there was a shop in Kerrisdale which specialized in swimwear, and it carried not only large sizes but suits for women who had lost breasts to cancer. Though Diana looked like a grotesquely blown-up toy which a wrap only exaggerated, there were her still good legs. She shook her head at herself in the mirror. It was amazing what vanity could survive.

Her shoulders and neck ached from pulling things on and off over her head. Her feet hurt, but she did have time to stop on her way home for a haircut, and at least she could sit down for it. It was a good cut, shorter than usual, but shaped to a head that carried its authority of grey proudly.

‘You look marvellous!’ Constance exclaimed when Diana arrived home.

‘Well,’ Diana said, dumping her packages on the couch, ‘I’m done in.’

The pain she had learned to ignore at its lower levels burned down her back, shot through her feet, and her hands trembled with it.

‘What you need is a drink,’ Jill suggested kindly.

‘It’s just what I don’t need, ever, but I’d love one,’ Diana admitted.

Jill stayed to cook dinner, for which Diana was grateful. She sat with her drink, listening to a violin concerto, while Constance gently rubbed her neck. To be cared for and cherished in this kind of domestic harmony was something that perhaps couldn’t be learned except in old age where the needs of the flesh, though humiliating, were rarely competitive. It was an accomplishment that came out of failure.

The late winter dawn was just lightening the low clouds when the doorbell sounded. She and Constance had been ready for half an hour though Ben and David were early. David sent Ben upstairs for the suitcases while he himself made a check of the kitchen, the basement, and finally the windows and doors on the ground floor.

‘What is he looking for?’ Constance asked.

‘What I’ve forgotten to do,’ Diana answered, but she was glad of his thoroughness.

It had been years since Diana had put the house on hold and left it to its own mechanical life while she and Constance went off into the world. She let her domestic apprehensions occupy her mind so that she did not anticipate the fears of travel any more than she could help. And here was David willing to share even those with her.