David wanted to buy something for himself to amuse them. But in the men’s shop, his courage failed before the loud plaids and garish flowers. Then his eye caught on a brown jogging suit. He heard Christine say, ‘Everything else you have is blue.’ Everything else he had had been chosen by Patricia until this Christmas when he was given shirts to go with his new jacket. He liked brown.

‘Don’t buy it without trying it on, sir.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ David said.

Once he had it on, he didn’t want to take it off. Would he be too hot in it walking back across the desert? If Diana was sitting on the porch, he would run the last hundred yards.

There she was, and David broke into a sprint.

‘Oh, D!’ she shouted. ‘Constance, do see what we’ve got.’

‘Yes, do,’ David said, jogging across the porch and into the house.

‘But your shoes!’ Diana protested.

David looked down at his brown leather shoes.

‘I hadn’t thought about that,’ he said.

Constance and Diana stood laughing at him, and he looked up at them, glaring vengefully.

‘Wait until you see what I’ve got for you,’ he threatened.

‘Not jogging suits, I hope,’ Diana said.

‘Oh, look,’ Constance said, as she took her robe out of the bag. ‘It really is for me’.

‘You had one very like that years ago,’ Diana said.

‘I know,’ Constance said.

She put a hand on David’s shoulder, and he bent down to receive her kiss.

Diana was more simply delighted with hers, and they both went off immediately to try their new clothes on. David looked again at his shoes and decided they had been the most effective part of his act, but he was suddenly very tired. He flung himself down on the couch and let himself breathe.

Constance came out first.

‘I do love you in bright colours!’ David exclaimed.

‘It’s mine,’ she said.

And then there was his sister, regal as she could be whenever she was robed in rich, dark colours.

‘You look like a queen from the south seas,’ David decided.

‘You look like a silly tourist,’ Diana said.

‘Always dress the part,’ David agreed.

‘You must buy him a proper pair of shoes,’ Constance said.

‘Would I look any less silly?’

‘You’re quite good looking, for a man,’ Constance said, amusement glittering in those eyes which only yesterday had been blank with animal fear.

Constance’s prejudice against men never rankled as his sister’s did. David enjoyed Constance’s back-handed compliments. He was exempted by them rather than reduced, as he sometimes was by his sister, to a category. Diana never admitted prejudice as Constance candidly did.

It was their last day. Both David and Diana put off the packing, wanting to savour the time as long as they could.