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Roland experienced the scene for a moment as archetypally English, as if he saw it through Pilar’s foreign eyes: the simple white house with its arched window, the surging pillar-like trunks of the great beech trees with their canopies of sombre bronze-green, the dancing silver birch, the old church sunk in its graveyard, the white doves in the stone dovecote belonging to a barn conversion opposite. But it might all seem poky and parochial to Pilar, who had spent her childhood summers on a ranch on the Argentinian pampas, where her uncle raised cattle and bred polo ponies. Her uncle, whom she loved much better than her own father, had been up to his neck in junta politics.
    Molly and Pilar yawned and stretched, Pilar fished for her shoes. She had slipped out of her high heels in the car and tucked her feet underneath her on the seat while she was reading, as she always did; her feet were long-boned and slender like her hands. Roland began unpacking their luggage.
    â€” It’s a nice example of a small English rectory, he explained to her. — Built about 1820.
    She was smiling, willing to like whatever he liked. — It’s very pretty.
    â€” I’m fond of it because our mother grew up here. Molly’s been coming here all through her childhood. But of course the upkeep’s expensive, it needs a lot of work.
    â€” You can’t ever sell Kington, Dad, Molly said flatly. — You’re not allowed to. It always has to be here to come back to.
    â€” We’ll have to see.
    Roland had worried that Pilar and Molly wouldn’t get on. His own relationship with his only child was unproblematic and doting, but he had thought Pilar might be exasperated by Molly’s silences and awkwardness. They seemed to be all right, though; since they first met a few days ago – Molly lived mostly with her mother, his first wife – Pilar had taken her to have her hair cut and her eyebrows threaded, and had bought her new clothes. Molly had been gratefully absorbed in these initiations. Probably Molly’s mother wouldn’t approve – she was stern on the subject of the commodification of beauty. It was interesting to Roland that a woman’s appearance, so seemingly effortless, might in fact entail all this earnest expertise and hard work. Pilar’s elegance was accomplished out of sight, a daily miracle. She had never asked for his approval.
    Alice and Fran and the children spilled out noisily from the side door of the house; they crowded around Pilar and kissed her and then kissed Molly. — At last! At last you’re all here. Welcome! Don’t unpack now, leave it, come and eat. We’ve put out lunch on a table on the terrace. Isn’t the weather wonderful? There are going to be three weeks like this, I know there are. Harriet’s out bird-watching of course. And Jeff isn’t coming! He’s done his usual thing, booking himself in to play, claiming he’d forgotten all about the holiday. Are you all right in those shoes, Pilar? Divine shoes! Take care on the cobbles though.
    Alice linked her arm into her brother’s, walking round into the garden. — I can’t believe you in a white suit, Roly. Do you remember, when you were twenty you despised me and Fran because we cared about clothes?
    â€” I’ve never despised anyone.
    â€” You did, you did! You despised us. Now look at you! It’s such a good look. Like one of those academics on television, wandering around a ruined monastery or something. Crumpled and sexy and wise.
    Roland was short and compact and calm with blinking brown eyes, the lids very curved; his grizzled, tightly curled hair was cut close to his well-shaped head and his mouth was unexpectedly soft, loose-lipped. His smiles when they came transformed him. He didn’t mind his sister teasing him but he didn’t respond in kind, he never had: he hadn’t been very playful even when he was a child and supposed to