‘Should we work first?’ Ben suggested. ‘Once we’ve done the locks, there’s a bit of shovelling to do. We’ve brought our snow shovels. They’re in the car.’

‘Good boys!’ David said.

‘They don’t look a bit like gaolers, do they?’ Constance asked.

‘They’re not,’ Diana said.

‘May we stoke up that fire?’ Ben asked. ‘We have to keep the door open for a few minutes, and it may get a bit chilly.’

Mike moved quickly to put another log on.

‘Thank you,’ Diana said to him.

‘When Ben says “we”, he means me,’ Mike said, grinning,

‘What a nice arrangement for Ben,’ Diana said.

‘It is rather,’ Ben admitted, ‘but I’m second in command when it comes to anything difficult.’

‘That means he holds the tools and tells me what to do,’ Mike elaborated.

Diana was glad they went right to work. She wasn’t sure, at the end of this bizarre day, that she could think what to say to these full-grown great-nephews suddenly available to her. And they were more comfortable, too, for offering practical help to a pair of frail old women.

‘This front door is solid wood,’ Mike said with approval.

‘I bought that,’ Constance called from the living room. ‘Canada is a country of hollow doors.’

‘You’ve just given me the opening line for my next paper,’ Ben said, sticking his head around the hall archway.

‘On what?’ Constance asked.

‘Well, it could lead just about anywhere, couldn’t it?’ Ben asked, pleased, ‘Literature? Economics? History?’

Where did she get the energy to rise to the occasion? With strangers Constance could catch such a scrap of memory and then dance with it wherever it went, the little missteps noticeable only to Diana who, nevertheless, could still be led on. The boys would report to their parents that, all rumours to the contrary, they were helping to lock up a perfectly sane, perfectly charming woman. Well, Constance had slept a good part of the day, and dinner had given her new energy. All Diana had from her afternoon catnap was a stiff neck, which she longed to get into a hot shower. But, at least, when she went to bed, she could sleep in a house secured against this day’s terror.

— 7 —

‘PEOPLE SEEM TO ASSUME Christmas is going to be here this year,’ Mary said to her father as she sorted the family’s clothes in the laundry room.

‘We shouldn’t,’ David said.

‘Well, it always has been. I suppose it goes with the territory.’