‘It’s just that it’s so rough at home at the moment and so stupid. …’

‘Ah, your Aunt Mary.’

‘I could help. I could set the table. I can peel potatoes well enough to join the army. While you phone.’

‘What a good idea,’ Diana said, more accustomed, now that David had been around for so long, to help.

‘Constance,’ she said, stopping by the TV room on her way to the kitchen, ‘we’re having a guest for dinner, Mike, David’s grandson, my great-nephew. You’ve met him before.’

By the time Diana had spoken to several people on the phone, she was encouraged by how adequate a support system had been set up, not at the instigation of her profession, though there were responsible doctors involved, but by volunteers who referred to themselves as members of the gay community or friends of the gay community, knowledgeable and personally concerned. These were the people whose existence she had always denied, who believed, as she never had, that they were members of a real minority and responsible to it. Dealing with them behind her professional mask, she was aware of it now for the first time as a mask, but the guard at the centre of herself had locked her behind it. This was a medical problem to be dealt with like all medical problems with dispassionate confidence. Mike had come to her because she was a doctor.

At dinner, Diana explained to Constance that Richard would be here at eight, and he might be very upset because he’d just found out he had AIDS. Did she know what AIDS was? Constance shook her head.

‘It’s a disease which attacks the immune system for which there is no known cure. On this continent the large majority of the victims are sexually active homosexual males.’

‘This Richard is queer?’

Diana saw Mike flush at the word.

‘It’s only our generation’s slang,’ Diana said to him, and then to Constance, ‘Yes, he is. And his parents have refused to help him.’

‘I’d like to speak to them,’ Constance said, brightly.

‘I’ll bet you would,’ Diana said, smiling.

‘Where is David? You’re too young to be David,’ Constance said to Mike.

‘He won’t be here tonight. Only Richard’s coming,’ Diana said.

‘I’m no help, you see,’ Constance said to Mike, ‘but have I ever been? I don’t know how to worry about what other people worry about.’

‘That’s the greatest help in the world,’ Diana said.

‘Well, tonight I’m going to read to David whether he’s here or not.’

‘You could read to me,’ Mike suggested. ‘Richard really needs to talk to Aunt Diana by himself.’

‘Would you like that?’ Constance asked uncertainly.

‘Sure,’ Mike said. ‘Would you mind reading me some of my homework?’

‘I don’t care what I read.’