‘I hope it’s nothing to do with wine making,’ Diana said. ‘That Jack’s been here, turning the basement into a lab! I feel as if I had a couple of sick patients down there, needing their temperatures taken, needing tests run, wanting this yeast, that acid.’

‘Are you going to enjoy it?’

‘You know, I think I am,’ Diana admitted. ‘Except for the stairs. It makes me feel ever so slightly illegal, though I know I’m not. And I amuse Constance.’

‘Good,’ David said. ‘And no, it hasn’t to do with wine making.’

‘D, I’m too old to be taunted with surprises. There’s nothing I want.’

‘Only because you haven’t been out to look around,’ David said, having learned to distinguish between her irritabilities, when she was actually pleased, when truly distressed.

David wanted to ask her if she’d thought any more about going to the desert, but he decided to leave that subject until after the holidays. She could be pushed only so far at a time.

David was busy wrapping presents when he recognized Mary’s knock on the door. He looked around quickly to be sure there was nothing she shouldn’t see and then called her welcome.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever in my life seen you wrap a present,’ Mary said.

‘It isn’t as generally a sex-specific activity as it has been in this house. I know lots of men who do it.’

‘Mother loved everything about Christmas,’ Mary sighed.

‘Could you use help in this department?’

‘No, I’ve set Christine to that. She’s at loose ends now that school’s out. Patsy and Tyler seem to have endless ideas about what to do with themselves. Not Chris.’

Mary had settled herself in David’s reading chair, an indication that she intended to stay for a while. David decided to go on with his wrapping until something she said required more than his casual attention.

‘I’ve just had a long conversation with Aunt Sue,’ Mary said.

Sue was Patricia’s oldest friend, a connection dating back to their high school days, who had married a dull, good man with money. Though David fairly put himself under those adjectives as well, it did not prevent him from finding Sue’s husband a bore. Kirk’s social conversation sounded much like what David was paid to do, right down to the weather report, but Sue and Patricia never ran out of things to say to each other, and their passion for bridge allowed David to shift his boredom to a less personal activity than conversation.

‘She’s worried about you,’ Mary went on. ‘She thinks you’re spending too much time alone. She knows for a fact that you’ve refused four Christmas parties.’