‘That’s right, so you don’t have to play the troll under the bridge because you don’t scare me either.’

She laughed, and he laughed with her, sounds which came down the stairs to Diana where she stood guard at the open front door, for she was afraid Constance might try to bolt from all this confusion being inflicted on her, some of which, when David settled in, might be permanent. That his presence now might not reassure Constance as it had in the desert, that instead he might prove to be what broke her last ties with this place and made her a stranger in her own home was a risk there was no longer any point in not taking, for the ties were breaking anyway. Diana needed David now. She couldn’t any longer manage without him.

When the boys had finished and were saying goodbye to Diana and David in the front hall, Constance came down the stairs to join them.

‘I want to go home,’ she said to Mike. ‘Could you take me home?’

‘Sure,’ Mike said, and before Diana could object, Mike was escorting Constance down the front walk, leaving David, Diana and Ben to stare after them.

‘Back in a bit,’ he called after he’d helped Constance into the cab of the rented truck and run round to climb into the driver’s seat.

‘What is he going to do?’ Diana demanded.

‘I think he’ll drive her around the block a few times and come back. Maybe if we make ourselves scarce,’ Ben said to his grandfather, ‘and you’re just here by yourself, Aunt Diana, it will seem more familiar to her. There’s been a lot of traffic around here today. No wonder it’s got to her.’

First fright and then indignation flashed and flickered out in Diana, for they weren’t simply playing a stupid trick on Constance but trying to invent a way of participating in her doubt to allay it. Maybe it would work, temporarily anyway.

David and Ben disappeared up the stairs to David’s new quarters. Diana waited in the living room, watching the street. In a few minutes, the truck pulled up and Mike was helping Constance down from the high cab. How tiny she looked in front of that large machine, at the side of that tall boy, but she was smiling at him and talking to him as they walked up the path.

‘This young man was kind enough to bring me home,’ Constance said as Diana opened the door to them. ‘Could we give you something? A drink of some sort?’

‘No thanks,’ he said, smiling down at her.

He did not even tip Diana a wink, for it wasn’t for him a game he was playing but something he was doing for Constance which he wanted to do well, which he wanted to work.