Eleanor read slowly, trying to hear the Nick she remembered between the sentences. There were a lot of brackets and exclamation marks, she observed wryly, her expert eye scanning the text. Far too many. Only nerves could account for it, she decided, feeling a flutter of the old bitterness that, after so many years and all that had happened, Nick Wharton should still betray such signs of jitters when placing himself across the path of her little sister.

‘Well? What do you think?’ Kat urged. She had finished with her repinning and was back in the beanbag, sitting cross-legged now, her knees neat bulges under her silk gown, her big blue eyes electric and staring. ‘Nice that “friendly line” bit, don’t you think?’

‘Yup. Very nice.’ Eleanor was trying to picture Nick in Cape Town in a white coat, being a proper doctor.

‘Well? Do you think I should reply?’

‘It’s up to you.’ Eleanor smiled. It was one thing to be wrong-footed, quite another to show it.

‘But what do you think?’

Eleanor shrugged. She found it hard to believe that Kat really wanted her opinion.

‘If you help me,’ Kat added impishly, ‘it will take no more than a few minutes.’

‘Me? Help you? Why on earth would you want me to do that?’ Eleanor set down the letter and moved away from the desk. Kat was putting her through some sort of sick test, she decided, prodding her emotions to see what came out. She had forgotten the power of her sister. Kat did what she wanted and everyone else dealt with the consequences. She either didn’t care, or didn’t notice.

‘It would take me hours, but you’ll be able to do it in two minutes,’ Kat pleaded. ‘I’m crap with words, all dyslexic and rubbish, not like you, always so brilliant.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Eleanor murmured, something inside her softening nonetheless. Nick Wharton was such water under the bridge. Ancient water. Ancient bridge.

‘I’ll tell you what I want to say and you make it better,’ Kat instructed, leaving her perch to turn on the computer and then pressing Eleanor into the desk chair. ‘We’ll do a cheerful potted history like he did, preferably not mentioning the jolly business of having had some of my gut removed—’

‘You’ve got follow-up checks and things, have you?’

‘Oh, heaps. Now let’s get on with it.’ Kat settled herself back into the dent she had left in the beanbag, lying on her side this time, one arm protectively cradling her lower stomach. ‘Start with “Hi Nick”.’

Eleanor obediently began to type. Kat, for whatever reason, had decided she should help with the letter. Test or whim, it was what she wanted. ‘And you’re sure Howard won’t mind…’

She glanced up in surprise as her sister hissed an expletive and slapped the bean bag.

‘What?’