‘Is it warm in the desert?’ Constance asked.

‘Relatively … and dry,’ Diana answered.

‘Sometimes we do things, don’t we?’ Constance asked. ‘We aren’t always locked up in this house, are we?’

‘No, not always,’ Diana said.

‘Do you have the key?’ Constance asked. ‘Or does he?’

‘We both do,’ Diana said.

‘Well, then. You can do anything you want.’

‘But being some place you don’t recognize frightens you,’ Diana said.

‘Not if you’re there.’

‘Would you go swimming with me?’ Diana asked.

‘Are we a bit old for that sort of thing?’

‘You’re a wonderful swimmer,’ Diana said. ‘Let me remember that for you. You didn’t learn until you got over here, and you were very proud of yourself.’

‘I may not remember,’ Constance said.

‘I think you might,’ Diana said, smiling, as she turned to set the needle down on Vivaldi, a favourite obviously, for its opening was pocked.

A number of the records they listened to were noticeably worn, and David wondered if he might replace some of them for Christmas. It seemed in a way a dull gift, no duller than the years of potted plants, but he was under no constraint now.

He went to the Magic Flute on Fourth Avenue with that intention, having come up with nothing else.

Since he had left the CBC, David had paid scant attention to the technical gossip so familiar at his job. He knew some of the lingo from the half-attention he paid to Clide Gilmore’s patter between the records he played on Sunday CBC, terms like digital recording and compact disc. With his own modestly impaired hearing, he suspected that his only reaction to being directly exposed to this new technology would be the high shriek of his hearing aid. But when the clerk offered him an opportunity to listen, David, out of years of polite habit for the enthusiasms of his sound technicians, couldn’t refuse.

His hearing aid did protest once, but that didn’t interfere with his amazed pleasure at how much more he could hear than he ever had before, even in the presence of an orchestra, the voices of each instrument floating out on a base of true silence.

He left the store with all the literature on compact disc players, already certain that this would be his gift to Diana and Constance, with a modest selection of discs which he could add to on various occasions. His enthusiasm carried him so far that he also finally bought a player for each of his daughters’ households with gift certificates for discs from the Magic Flute for each member of the family to choose a favourite. And he asked to have the mail order catalogue sent to his sister.

‘You know,’ he confessed to Laura, ‘Christmas shopping could become an obsession.’

‘You’ve launched out on your own, have you?’