“And your mum had that crazy clinic with all the hippy dippies coming in and out of her sweet little office. Is she still into all that homeopathic mumbo jumbo? Oh, and how’s Eliza?”

Sarah flinched, visibly. Both men stopped eating. Had Veronica gone too far? What with? Hippy dippies? Hadn’t they both used to joke about that? Yes, all summer long they’d giggled at the pashmina-draped women and bead-adorned men who parked outside the suburban house in cars that almost always brandished a rainbow-clad bumper sticker. Veronica noticed David flash Sarah a meaningful look, and Sarah subtly shake her head to subdue it.

“Mum’s busier than ever,” she smiled with exaggerated cheer. “It’s Dad who’s retired. That was a strange old summer though, wasn’t it? And then you left for that school in Kent. We thought we’d see each other in a few weeks, and then, never again. Until now of course.”

“Until now,” agreed Veronica, raising her elderflower carefully to toast the reconnection.

But Sarah continued. “We didn’t spend much time with Eliza though, really, did we? We were so intent on, swimming. I’m surprised you remember her. Do you remember her?”

There was something about the way Sarah intoned ‘swimming’. The slight pause. And all at once Veronica did remember the swimming pool, sunken at the far end of the garden, and the pool house next to it. Her stomach lurched abruptly. “Gosh, the swimming!” Veronica exclaimed. Sarah shook her head very slightly, but now that Veronica had remembered, there was so much to say. “We swam naked in Sarah’s pool,” she mock whispered to George.

David glanced up at Sarah inquiringly, mirth dancing at the tip of his mouth.

“But Eliza hardly swam, did she?” Sarah flailed on. “Eliza read all summer.”

“Probably because you hated her. She treated Sarah like an infant,” Veronica explained to the men before turning back to Sarah. “You hated her. Do you remember her party? That was my first kiss, you know. I just remembered that this evening. It’s funny, I just remembered a lot of things this evening.”

“I didn’t hate Eliza,” said Sarah softly.

Veronica noticed David reaching for Sarah’s hand under the table, their fingers locking in familiar intimacy. George had his own clasped around a glass of wine.

“No, of course. But you did detest her a little. You were jealous I think. She was older, and very beautiful.” Veronica said this again to the men, not quite meaning to sway to the beat, but feeling the pulse of it. “And you were still much more a child. You definitely didn’t like me getting friendly with her.”

“Eliza was beautiful,” agreed Sarah. “But I wasn’t jealous.”

“I think you told me one evening that Eliza had… Oh wow—” Veronica stopped. “Do you remember that game – ‘What would you do’?”

“Eliza had what?” prompted Sarah. “What about Eliza?”

But Veronica only smiled. The tempo had touched her. She was doing this now.

Veronica reached over to David and intercepted the hand he was using to reach for his wife. “We played this game where we would concoct all sorts of awful choices, and then have to decide which horror we would pick.”