It wasn’t good food, but both Diana and David ate every bit of it, down to the packet of cheese and crackers which Constance slipped into her handbag and would come upon weeks later if Diana didn’t remember to remove it.

Hardly had the trays been cleared away when Diana could feel the beginning of the long descent into Palm Springs. Constance twisted restlessly in her seat.

‘It’s your ears,’ Diana said. ‘We’re starting down to the landing.’

‘Will you stay with me?’ Constance asked.

‘Of course,’ Diana said. ‘We’re getting a car at the airport, and then we’ll drive over to Borrego Springs in the desert. We’ve been there before, and you’ve always loved it.’

Diana had packed Constance’s memory board as one more thing to carry and perhaps lose, but she realised how much in limbo Constance was without it unless she kept being reminded of where she was and what lay ahead. It was at the top of the suitcase. She would get it before they loaded the suitcases into the car.

Diana could feel David’s different nervousness on her other side as he checked luggage claim tickets, car authorization, the road map, the little map of the Road Runner’s Club which showed them which house was to be theirs. Diana was glad she would do the driving to take at least that burden from him.

Neither of the other two sat as patiently as Diana did while the plane emptied of its other passengers.

‘Here we go,’ David finally said with some relief. ‘I said you could manage the stairs if there was a wheelchair waiting at the bottom.’

Dry, Diana gratefully thought, as she slowly descended the stairs on to the tarmac where the chair waited.

‘Well,’ David said after he’d stowed the last of the suitcases and got himself into the back seat of their rented car.

Diana had the memory board propped against the steering wheel and was writing the names of the desert towns they would pass through.

‘Now, we can go on today or stop here if you think this has been enough,’ David said.

‘It’s only about an hour and a half, and it’s easy driving,’ Diana said.

David sat with the map spread out across his knees, but at the first decision requiring a turn, when Diana glanced into the rear view mirror, she saw that her navigator was asleep. She knew the turnings; there weren’t many. Soon they were on highway 86, a long, straight, two-lane road, the railroad on their left, great, shaggy, date-palm groves on their right, on their way to Salton Sea.

‘I must have had a dream like this,’ Constance said, ‘or else I’m dreaming.’

‘You’re awake,’ Diana said. ‘Feel the air.’