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"It's all right, she hasn't had a stroke or anything, just broken her arm. It's been put in a cast, and the doctor wants to have a look at it."
    "Well, that's a relief. Is she all right?"
    "Of course. She'll be back for lunch."
    "And who are you? A nurse, or one of her perpetual students?"
    "No, I'm a perpetual niece."
    "You wouldn't by any chance be Prue?"
    "Yes, I would." I frowned. "But who are you?"
    "Daniel Cassens."
    I said, ridiculously, "But you're in Mexico." "Mexico? Never been to Mexico in my life." "Phoebe said you were probably in Mexico or somewhere mad."
    "That was charitable of her. In fact, I've been in the Virgin Islands, on a boat with some American friends, but then somebody said there was going to be a hurricane, so I decided the time was ripe to get out. But back in New York, I was instantly bombarded with cables from Peter Chastal to say I had to be in London for the opening day of this exhibition he's mounted for me."
    "I know about that. You see, I work for Marcus Bernstein. We're practically next door to Peter Chastal. And I read the reviews of your exhibition. I think you've got a success on your hands. Phoebe read it, too. She was enormously thrilled."
    "She would be."
    "Were you at the opening?"
    "Yes, I was. I finally made it. At the last moment I gave in and caught a flight over."
    "Why were you so reluctant? Most people wouldn't miss it for anything. All the champagne and the adulation."
    "I hate my own exhibitions. It's the most ghastly form of exposure, like putting one's children on display. All those eyes, staring. Makes me feel quite ill."
    I understood. "But you did go?"
    "Yes, for a little. But I wore a disguise—dark glasses and a concealing hat. I looked like an insane sort of spy. I only stayed for half an hour, and then when Peter wasn't looking, I slunk away and went and sat in a pub and tried to decide what to do next. And then I got talking to this man, and I bought him a beer, and he said that he was driving to Cornwall, so I hitched a lift with him and arrived last night."
    "Why didn't you come and stay with Phoebe?"
    Without thinking I asked the question and immediately wished that I hadn't. He looked away from me, pulled at a tuft of grass with his hand, and let the wind blow it from his fingers.
    "I don't know," he said at last. "So many reasons. Some high-minded, some not so."
    "You know she would have welcomed you."
    "Yes, I know. But it's been a long time. It's eleven years since I was here. And Chips was alive then."
    "You worked with him, didn't you."
    "Yes, for a year. I was in America when he died. Up in the Sonoma Valley in northern California. I was staying with some people I knew who had a vineyard. Phoebe's letter took a long time to find me, and I remember thinking then that if nobody ever told you that people you love have died, then they would live forever. And I thought then that I could never come back to Cornwall. But dying is part of life. I've learned that since. But I hadn't learned it then."
    I thought of the carousel that Chips had made for me out of an old gramophone; he and Phoebe laughing together; the smell of his pipe.
    "I loved him, too."
    "Everybody did. He was such a benevolent man. I studied sculpture with him, but I learned from Chips a lot about living that, when you're twenty, is infinitely more important. I never knew my own father, and it always made me feel different towards other people. Chips filled that gap. He gave me a great sense of identity." I knew what he meant, because that was just the way I felt about Phoebe. "Coming down from London yesterday, I kept having second thoughts; wondering if I was doing the right thing. It isn't always wise to return to the place where you've been young and dreamed dreams. And had ambitions."
    "Not if your dreams and ambitions came true. And surely that's happened for you. The Chastal exhibition must have proved that. There can't be a painting left unsold . . ."
    "Perhaps I need to be unsure of