‘Aunt Diana,’ Laura said, offering her cold cheek, which Diana touched briefly with her own.

‘Dr Crown,’ Jack said, offering a quickly ungloved hand.

‘Diana,’ she corrected him, approving the kind intelligence in his face; he seemed substantially older than his wife or she young for her years.

They had brought their homemade wine, and Laura wondered if it would be all right to ask for a glass of that. It certainly would—Diana had already sampled it and would like a glass herself. Would David. …? Of course he would, pleased to play host to show how much he was at home here.

‘What a wonderful Gordon Smith,’ Jack said.

‘Some people find it disturbing.’

‘It’s full of hard energies,’ he answered.

As a scientist, he would greet them impersonally.

Diana would have asked her niece whether paintings interested her but for the blank eagerness on the young woman’s face, that common mask worn even in Diana’s office where she had to say, ‘Don’t answer these questions to please me; tell me the truth.’

‘Where’s Constance?’ David asked as he came back into the room with a tray of drinks.

‘She was too tired, she said,’ Diana answered. ‘But she may have thought this reunion would go more smoothly without her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Laura said. ‘I was looking forward to seeing her again.’

‘People do,’ Diana said, smiling, but Laura looked uneasy then, as if she might have said the wrong thing.

‘As a family,’ Jack said, moving nearer his wife, ‘we like to think of ourselves as workers, but Constance Crowley and her crew put us to shame twice a year.’

‘It’s odd to have been so good at a thing, to take such pleasure in it and not remember,’ Diana said. ‘You’ll have to remember for her when you do meet her.’

‘It must be very difficult for you. …’ Laura offered.

‘I feel lucky to have her still,’ Diana said.

Laura glanced quickly at her father, made aware of his loss rather than her own. Turning back to Diana, she asked. ‘What was he like when he was a boy?’

Diana looked over at David. ‘Very like he is now. He only looks made up to be old, doesn’t he? Not like me. I’ve taken growing old seriously. For him it’s just an act.’

‘Take care,’ David warned. ‘I’ll take out my teeth!’

‘And Mother always used to say to him, “Don’t play the fool,”’ Diana said.

‘I didn’t take her advice, obviously,’ David said.

‘The only thing you don’t take seriously is yourself, Daddy,’ Laura said.

‘Well said,’ Diana nodded. ‘And I suspect you’re a bit like him in that.’

‘Oh no, I’m not good at laughing at myself at all,’ Laura said. ‘The only reason I don’t take myself too seriously is that I couldn’t get away with it. My boys are awful teases.’