Now, Mrs. Swinney was installed in her wing-backed armchair in the front room, waiting for Jean to help her to wind some wool. She had knitted a pullover to send to Dorrie for Christmas, but it had kept growing and stretching as she worked at it and the end result would have fitted two Dorries standing side by side. Privately, Jean doubted that it ever got cold enough in Kitale to warrant such an abundance of wool, but her mother was adamant. There was nothing for it but to unravel the whole thing, wash and dry the skeins and start again.

But Jean couldn’t seem to settle. Every time she sat down she would jump up again, needing her glasses or remembering some urgent unfinished chore elsewhere. She prowled from room to room, bored and restless, and finally found what she was looking for—an old leather manicure set of pearl-handled implements, with which she began to trim and neaten nails coarsened by housework. This task done, she leapt up again and hurried from the room.

“Where are you off to now?” Her mother’s plaintive voice followed her up the stairs.

In Jean’s bedroom was a dressing-table drawer filled with things too precious ever to be used. Soaps, cosmetics, perfume, stationery—mostly gifts, or the occasional rash purchase—they had been accumulated and hoarded over many years. The contemplation of these treasures, still pristine in their packaging, gave Jean far more satisfaction than using them ever could. A leather notebook with marbled endpapers and gold-tipped pages was a thing of beauty only so long as its pages remained blank. A lipstick was spoiled the moment it touched her lips—unused, its potential was infinite.

Tonight, though, Jean opened a pot of rich hand cream, releasing a gust of rose-scented air, and drew her finger across the surface with only a faint tremor of regret. As she rubbed her hands together her crumpled skin seemed to soften and uncrease. She knew the transformation was only illusory and fleeting, but for a moment she felt a rare kinship with those legions of women who bother with such things and take pleasure in them.

“What’s that smell?” her mother asked on Jean’s return. Her nose had become keener lately, perhaps acquiring territory from her hearing, which was in brisk retreat.

“Pink roses.”

“I thought so. You usually smell of the office.” Her mother’s face puckered. “Cigarettes and newsprint and work. I prefer the roses.”

“Well, I haven’t been in the office this afternoon. I’ve been to visit a jeweler’s near Covent Garden.”

“Jewish?”

“I’ve no idea. I didn’t ask.”

“I expect so. They usually are.”

“His name was Tilbury. He showed me his workshop where he does all the repairs. It was rather interesting.”

“I should think it was. I wonder if he’d be able to mend this.” She began to drag at the garnet-and-pearl cluster ring on her middle finger, forcing it over her knotted knuckle. “There’s a stone missing.”

“It would be expensive to replace a stone.”