‘You mean Mickey Mouse or white and gold? No, but it does have a volume adjuster.’

‘Where is it?’

‘By my bed. I’m calling to ask a favour, too. I was wondering if you had a free morning any time soon. I haven’t done any Christmas shopping for years, except for your mother.’

‘I can do it for you,’ Laura offered promptly.

‘No,’ David said, ‘but I’d like you to help me this first time round. And then maybe we could have lunch.’

‘Tomorrow?’

David was particularly grateful for his new coat and hat when he got into the car with his elegantly dressed daughter. Patricia had instructed the girls very well in the mysteries of colour and fabric and line as well as the appropriate time of day and the appropriate season for each, a knowledge David doubted his own mother possessed. Sometimes Patricia had seemed to him unnecessarily rigid. It could be the hottest day of the year, but, if it was after September first, she would not put on light colours or white shoes. If the girls ever protested that everyone else they knew would be wearing jeans, she told them there was nothing to recommend the herd instinct. She would have been horrified to see how lax both Laura and Mary had recently become with their children, letting them go on neighbourhood errands in anything they happened to have on, and Ben and Mike no longer wore ties when it was just David coming for dinner. But Patricia’s code was too deeply ingrained in Mary and Laura for them to change.

‘Where are we headed?’ Laura asked.

‘The Bay, I think,’ David said. ‘I’ve been trying to establish some framework for this or theme or what have you. It may sound too arbitrary, but, if I don’t have some guidelines, I’m lost.’

‘Quite right,’ Laura agreed.

‘So what do you think of this: for each one something to wear, something to read, something to listen to, something to work with … and, let me see, something to eat.’

‘A great idea, Daddy, but too many presents.’

‘We could cut out something to eat,’ David said, ‘or make that one a household matter.’

‘Mother never gave the kids more than a couple of presents each.’

‘She had less to spend than I do,’ David said.