To change the direction of her thoughts, Diana stopped, leaned on her cane and deliberately looked about her at the human attempts to transplant an eastern autumn to this temperate evergreen and alder shore. In every yard at least one bush or tree was in the process of scarlet dying, giving the lie to human expectations. The alder might be good for nothing but firewood, yet its long, dull, shabby shedding which went on from October until the end of the year was in keeping with much more of human experience. The flame-out of accident or trauma was for old grumps like Housman to romanticize.

She found Constance in the back garden, stymied, her memory board in her hand. Some days she could occupy herself for hours. On other days she was like a child’s toy, needing to be wound up every few minutes, set in a direction which couldn’t be changed, stopped only by whatever was in its path.

Her relief, when she saw Diana, lit her dark eyes, opened her smile to her white and perfect teeth, opened her arms wide and welcoming.

‘Ah, you’re a lovely woman,’ Diana said.

‘I feel more like a dog,’ Constance said. ‘If only I had nothing to do but be interested in my bodily functions, distracted into barking by anything that moved, into wagging my tail at any sight of you, I’d be fine. But by the look on your face, I can see that more is expected of me.’

‘Would you like to come in the car while I go shopping?’

‘That’s a good, doggy thing to do. Leave me a crack of air and I’ll growl at strangers.’

Self-disparaging jokes were part of the hard days, and Diana had learned not to protest against them because they were one of Constance’s weapons against falling into stupefied depression or further still into a past she couldn’t find her way out of.

Diana kept Constance with her through the day, glad that her own life could be suspended in this way any time Constance needed her. They were practised now in good diversions. Music was better than reading aloud, for Constance couldn’t hold a story line or argument in her head for long, but themes in music repeated themselves, and, even if they couldn’t serve to remind her of what had gone before, they had immediate as well as consequential meaning. Card games gave Diana too great an advantage, but they could work at jigsaw puzzles contentedly for hours. There were certain walks they had taken often enough, along the beach, out in the university grant lands, which didn’t confuse Constance, but Diana’s increasing lameness made those shorter and shorter pleasures.

Often in the evening Diana would begin, ‘I’d like to remember something for you.’

That invitation sometimes triggered simple questions from Constance.

‘How old am I?’

‘Sixty-seven.’

‘That old? You’re not that old.’

‘I’m sixty-five.’