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shutting their eyes to the need for running repairs until it was too late. Francis with his head in the clouds over his Byzantine art and icons and Hope with her books and her senior maths syllabuses ... did they exist on another planet, divorced from such humdrum things? Imogen demanded.
    They tried to ignore her but she could be ruthless. She’d forced them to look at the situation fair and square, made them see that their only option was to do as Mr Crytch advised and move somewhere smaller. Francis had immediately assumed this to mean a custom-built bungalow or a luxury flat and had retreated into one of his haughty silences, refusing to discuss the matter. Hope had tried to be slightly more amenable but nevertheless managed to find some excuse to turn down every suggestion Imogen made. Imogen might never have succeeded in prising them out if Simla had not come on the market at about the same time, a face-saving solution, in that the vendor was almost as stubborn as they were, having inserted a proviso on the sale that the house should not be sold to a developer. It was smaller and better looked-after than Heath Mount, but of the same vintage, and it would mean they could live more or less in the same way they’d always been used to.
    Well, that was Imo’s version of the situation! Hope thought. Perhaps she wouldn’t have been so keen on the idea herself if she’d known she’d be back living with them within five years, back from Brussels, her marriage to Tom Loxley, Euro MP, all but over. But five years ago she’d been comfortably off, and secure enough to claim only a modest sum out of the sale of Heath Mount, with the promise of a couple of rooms at the new house whenever she might need them on her visits home.
    With her usual efficiency, she’d overseen the move to Simla, insisting on having the plumbing at least updated and a new kitchen installed before they moved in. But Hope had scorned attempts to get them to abandon the old sagging armchairs, bookcases and sideboards like mausoleums, all of them familiar and less alarming than new things would have been. The old curtains had been made over somehow to fit the new windows, despite Imogen having actually sought the advice of an interior designer in the town. She might just as well have gone down to Lavenstock market and bought curtaining by the yard to machine up, for all the interest Hope could summon up. So that in the end, Simla, lacking only the Benares brass and elephant-foot coffee tables brought home from India by the general who’d first inhabited and named the house, looked much as Heath Mount had always done. And by now, even the new kitchen had acquired a decent lived-in air.
    But still, Hope considered the price for freedom from financial worries was high: to be living in the middle of a housing development like the Close, with what seemed like more than its fair share of children, when they’d been used to space and privacy, was a lot to pay. Certainly, more than she’d bargained for.
    â€˜Mother would have sent round a note, asking them to tea,’ Imogen remarked, not without irony, still thinking about the new people at Edwina Lodge when Hope returned with the coffee things. ‘On the lawn, perhaps, with cucumber sandwiches. I shall have to go and knock on the door like the Avon lady, since I don’t know their name or telephone number. Oh, but of course, they’ll have the same number as the Burger, won’t they?’
    â€˜I’ll warn you, Francis is being difficult,’ Hope said.
    Imogen raised expressive eyebrows. ‘What’s new?’ She added, despite her promises to herself, before she could bite it off, ‘Do rinse those mugs out and empty the pot, don’t just leave them there,’ which had patently been Hope’s intention. Instead of saying, ‘Wash them yourself, if you’re so concerned,’ as any other sister might have done, Hope washed and