‘Well, ballet tutus are a bit – you know – fluffier.’ Of course, she took dance lessons as a teenager, I remember now. Her modelling career wasn’t her only failure. She’d wanted to be a professional dancer in school, but then she did her knee in and had to quit. It was a minor scandal; it made the local papers, I think. Something to do with her ballet teacher, who’d been pushing students too hard and a whole host of injuries. I haven’t thought about this in, how long? A memory flashes: I remember her pirouetting down the stairs of our hostel, in Rome, leaning against the railing. A white sundress and big round sixties sunglasses. ‘This is a plié,’ she’d said, bending low on her knees, her back straight. It was sunny and I remember I felt happy. It was the first day of our holiday. The memory is a small, good one. I smile at the thought of it. Alanna narrows her lips, looks at me seriously. ‘Sturdier also. The tutus?’ she says. ‘More aerodynamic. They’re work clothes, basically.’

‘Of course you know everything about ballet,’ I snap. Why try?

‘No, but you’re right, it looks a bit like a ballet skirt. Is that what you meant?’ Her voice softens. ‘I wore the kind you’re thinking of, for training, and they look a bit like that, you are right. I wore it in the gym. I spent hours and hours there and the fabric was a little heavier, a little warmer. It was a comforting weight when I was there until late. And when I did the splits it would spread out and I felt a bit like a flower. A peony perhaps!’ She claps her hands. ‘Ruth! I told you you’d be good at this!’ She flashes her little pointy canines. But she’s just smiling.

‘Do you miss dancing?’ I ask.

‘I miss it. But that’s another story. For another day. I focus on the present these days.’ She squeezes my hand on the book. She looks at me.

‘Now, seriously,’ she asks. ‘What do you think the peony means?’

‘Well, let’s find out! What does the peony mean?’ I try to pull my hand back but she holds my wrist in place, with gentle restrain.

‘Take a guess?’

‘I don’t know what it means.’

‘Think about it. It’s not so much about what it means in general, but what it means to me. What would it mean to me, having peonies at my wedding?’

‘To you?’

‘From what I just said? About having to quit dancing? What do you think the peony means to Alanna?’