‘Dear Heart Pauline, daughter of a trapeze artist! Pauly, Pauly, I’m negative, I’ve just got back from the hospital and I’m negative. I’m fifty-eight and I don’t deserve it but I haven’t got Aids.’ He gave a kind of war-whoop down the phone and she realised he was crying.

‘Harry that’s wonderful, Oh God I’m so glad.’

‘Get into your posh pink car Pauly, come and meet me, we’ll go to lunch, I’ll buy you champagne, I’ll buy you a diamond ring – anything!’

‘Anything?’

‘Anything!’

‘Aren’t you going to Morocco today, what time’s your flight?’

‘Not till late tonight, come on Pauly, don’t make excuses, Franny and Em are both working, I need to see a beautiful woman.’

‘How’re you getting to the airport?’

‘Dunno – limousine, broomstick, hot air balloon – anything.’

There was a slight pause on the other end of the phone.

‘Harry, if I come and collect you will you take me out to Copperfield Hall and introduce me to – oh take me Harry, please, please take me. I – I’m too nervous to go by myself, I tried to go by myself earlier in the week but I just – couldn’t.’

Some old caution pulled at Harry, even in the middle of his elation, not for himself but for her.

‘Pauly,’ he said slowly, thinking of the old man sitting in the garden, ‘he might not – he’s old Pauly, he might not – want a daughter. It might be too late.’

‘I’ll take the risk.’

‘It’s just –’ Harry tried to choose the right words, ‘– he might not acknowledge you. Or he might even have forgotten. He’s over eighty I’m sure.’

‘And then I’ll take you for champagne and then I’ll take you to the airport.’ She seemed not to hear him.

What else could he do but agree? The sun was shining and he didn’t have Aids. ‘OK Pauly, OK OK OK, what time?’

‘I’ll pick you up about four. Pack your bag. And darling – I’m so glad.’

He rang Emmy Lou’s answering machine and shouted NEGATIVE NEGATIVE so that she’d know as soon as she came home from rehearsal, and he phoned Frances who was back at British Telecom.

‘Sales,’ she said.

‘Eureka!’ he said.

‘Oh Harry!’ she said, and burst into tears.

And of course, he had to tell Michael. Very slowly he picked up his coat again.

*

In the late afternoon they drove into the grounds of Copperfield Hall where the sun was still shining across the grass. Although the roses were really finished now, they still remained there, overblown pink and yellow blooms not quite falling off the bushes, still hanging on for one last day, clinging to the branch. Pauline bent down to smell one of them, her hand brushed the flower; its petals fell to the ground.