Diana looked over at her brother, attending to Liszt. She’d asked him once if he wanted to be a pianist. No, he’d said, it was just his way of building up his muscles so that no one would kick sand in his face. He had been prodigal with so many gifts. The only one he had consistently developed was an awareness of himself and his motives.

Diana was not unscrupulous, but she had lived out her desires mostly on blind will. She did what she had to without counting the cost. If she would simply put David back on the list of her imperatives, she could stop resisting him as an intrusion, as a threat, and accept whatever came to her because of him. Why, after all, did she want to see him as a matter of choice? He was her brother.

‘Lovely, lovely,’ David said at the end of the record. ‘It’s a marvellous instrument.’

And he stood up, reading this offering as the end of the evening, as it had been intended. But Diana was now reluctant to have him acknowledge the sharp limit of his welcome.

‘Shall we make a habit of Wednesdays,’ she suggested, ‘or don’t you like habit?’

‘I’d be delighted,’ David said, ‘if you’ll let me do some of the providing. Do you like fish? I’m quite good with fish.’

‘You cook?’ Diana asked, surprised.

‘I cook,’ he answered, smiling.

‘Are you reliable?’ Constance asked.

‘Within limits,’ David replied.

‘Do I cook?’ Constance asked.

‘You’re a wonderful cook,’ Diana said, ‘except for timing.’

‘Next Wednesday then,’ David said, ‘and I’ll do the dinner.’

Diana turned from seeing him out to find Constance in tears.

‘What is it, love?’ she asked.

Constance shook her head.

‘Is it something about David?’

‘It’s nothing,’ Constance said softly.

Diana put a comforting arm around her and let her cry. Whatever sorrow this was, its name was locked out of reach somewhere in the storehouse of Constance’s memory, out of which only emotions could sometimes escape, whether from years ago or from the music she had so recently listened to.

Diana had to reach far back into her childhood to know what it was like to cry without being able to explain, even to herself, the source of her grief. She could remember enraging David with her tears, his shouting at her, ‘I haven’t done anything!’ And often he hadn’t. Perhaps she cried only because he no longer cried with her. By the time he had relearned those tears, she had given them up.

Constance grew quiet, and Diana took her up to bed. Then, singing to her in a voice no longer confident of the tune, Diana undressed her as if she were a small child, took her into the bathroom to wash her swollen eyes, and put her to bed.

‘You are so patient with me,’ Constance said.