Constance would have nothing to do with the water. She sat in the sunny shelter against a wall, inscrutable behind dark glasses. Diana was glad even the two women who had been there were gone. Even by themselves, she felt self-conscious as she took a firm hold of the railing and stepped down into the pool. The water was warm. For a moment she forgot the mocking Constance and her brother behind her, watching that misshapen old body, exposed. The water took her weight from her, and she swam the length of the pool and back.

‘Bravo!’ David shouted.

‘It’s wonderful. Come in.’

Purposefully, Diana turned away as he took off his robe, and then he was in the water with her, still with his glasses and white sun hat on, swimming the breaststroke like a stately turtle.

When they got out and went into the Jacuzzi, Constance was persuaded to sit on the edge and dabble her feet, but she wouldn’t actually join them.

‘I could live in this,’ David said.

‘No more than five minutes,’ Diana warned, but her medical good sense vied with the pleasure she took in the heat.

A pair of men, discussing golf scores, came into the enclosure. Before they could join Diana and David, the sister and brother in unspoken agreement got out, put on their robes and took Constance back to the house.

Constance did not want her puzzle set up on the porch.

‘I’d feel like an animal in the zoo,’ she said.

It discouraged Diana that even here Constance couldn’t escape the sense of imprisonment, but Diana didn’t argue., She cleared the coffee table in the living room instead and set out a puzzle of flowers Jill had found.

David also chose to stay indoors, for the glare of the sun troubled his eyes. He read for a few minutes and then sighed. Constance looked over at him.

‘Old as I am,’ he said, ‘I’m still looking for miracles. I just can’t read.’

‘Do you want me to read to you?’ Constance asked.

It was a solution that hadn’t occurred to Diana.

‘Would you?’ David asked. ‘I haven’t got very far. We could start at the beginning again.’

‘It makes no difference to me,’ Constance said wryly.

She took the book from him and began on the page where he had lost patience with his difficulty. Diana went into the kitchen to fix lunch. Her own uncertain hearing let her know only that what Constance read must be a novel. Diana had never been a novel reader, but Constance had. Though she wouldn’t be able to keep the story line in mind, she’d probably enjoy it scene by scene. Far more important, of course, was that she was doing something for David. It wasn’t a trumped-up activity like sketching to fill empty time.