She and Constance sat in the back seat. Ben drove with the alert confidence of the young, swinging them out into the traffic on Granville Street more quickly than Diana could have risked, but she felt quite safe in his hands. Next to him David looked less substantial, the back of his neck thin and vulnerable, his shoulders the hangar for his jacket without a sign of those functional muscles which played under Ben’s sweater as he did a final shift of gears to the settled speed he would maintain until they got to the bridge which would lift them over the Fraser River. It was full of stored log booms this morning around which tugs must navigate carefully as they pulled enormous barges to the mouth of the river and then around Point Grey to the Vancouver docks.

Diana had taken no interest in local industry until she and Constance had come back after the war. Constance had been fascinated by the log booms, pulp mills, lumber mills, the working water of the inner harbour, and was full of questions Diana couldn’t answer.

Now Constance did not look out of the window. She stared down at her hands, softly humming, a sound Diana could just discern over the sound of the motor. She rested a hand on Constance’s knee, not to shift her attention so much as to be part of it.

David had ordered a wheelchair for Diana. He settled her into it while Ben strapped the three suitcases on to a set of luggage wheels. Then David went round and opened the door for Constance.

‘Where’s Diana?’ she asked, alarmed.

‘Right over there, look,’ David showed her. ‘She won’t have to do all that long walking. We’re at the airport. We’re going south.’

Diana felt a moment of frustrated helplessness. How could she in this chair be reassuring to Constance? But her temptation to get out of it was unrealistic.

‘You must help me,’ Diana called.

‘Am I to push?’ Constance asked, suddenly amused, ‘or ride in your lap?’

‘Whichever you prefer,’ Diana answered.

Constance pushed Diana. Ben pushed the luggage right to the immigration and customs barrier and then took his quick leave.

‘We should have brought him along,’ Diana said, sorry to see him go, leaving David with the luggage, the wheelchair, and Constance, when he also needed hands for tickets, customs declarations, boarding passes, all the paraphernalia that made boarding a plane so nerve-wracking.