‘Well, I don’t talk about my work either,’ Constance said, ‘whether it’s earthworms or slugs.’

She wanted evenings erotic or at least witty and certainly musical, which either Diana or Jill might have provided alone with her, but three together, Diana and Jill could only be talking heads, Constance impatient audience, wishing she had more than one channel to choose from. They increasingly arranged their life together as a carefully orchestrated series of scenes offstage until the stage itself was nearly always empty. ‘Two Without One’ Diana came to think of it, but, while she focused on the problems of being without, she did not see the strain on Constance of never being alone.

‘May I help?’ Jill asked, standing in the kitchen door.

That old tact remained, the invitation to come back in before too much time had elapsed, like a childhood game in which the one left out had to go back into the room to guess what had gone on.

‘I don’t suppose anyone’s hungry,’ Diana said.

‘But how else would we figure out your Christmas present?’

There still had to be, after all these years, the excuse.

Constance’s colour was high, as if her blood held pleasure longer than her mind could. Diana smiled at her, long since feeling anything but gratitude for whatever, whoever could bring that vitality into her face.

‘Food?’ Constance asked. ‘Haven’t we just eaten?’

‘Four hours ago, before Jill arrived,’ Diana said. ‘But don’t eat if you’re not hungry.’

‘What I wanted to talk about with you,’ Constance said, smiling at Jill, ‘is what I’ll get Diana for Christmas.’

‘You just have, darling,’ Diana said quickly, ‘but Jill didn’t give away the surprise, and now you won’t either.’

‘We have?’ Constance asked.

Jill nodded.

‘Well then,’ Constance said, ‘I could say, one less thing to worry about, but I won’t remember that either.’

Jill took a ritual mouthful of cheese, standing by the fire which was burning itself out. What a romantic figure she still cut, trim in the trousers she had had made for herself, in a silk shirt nearly the colour of her hair, which was brown with not a trace of grey, and made the strong lines of her face seem more marks of character than of the passage of time. Jill was a decade younger than Diana and Diana envied those ten years, though she would have little use for them except to be surer she would outlast Constance.

‘Are you going home for Christmas?’ Diana asked.

‘No,’ Jill said. ‘Holidays are too much for Mother by now. My sister’s taken over, and under her roof we’ve never even pretended to get along. I’m going to Mexico.’

‘All by yourself?’ Constance asked.

‘No,’ Jill answered.

‘Good,’ Constance said.