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pay for her poor aunt in the nursing home. The rent covered the fees. The tenants didn’t like all the over-crowding from the furniture but Pat had insisted the house should remain untouched since Auntie Delia
could
get better one day and
might
come home. She felt slightly disloyal thinking about taking Auntie Delia’s treasures, but surely she couldn’t live in a barn like this while Auntie Delia lived in a world of her own, and the tenants lived in a house that they thought vastly overstuffed with things they didn’t like.
    It was morning coffee time, so she gathered from the smell of fresh coffee coming from the kitchen. She was right, they assembled on the balcony, and had coffee from lovely china cups.
    “I’ll be sending to Leicester for my real furniture this week,” she said.
    “We’ll be dying to see it,” said Marigold, her china-blue eyes lighting up with excitement.
    “And I must give you some money and everything,” blurted out Pat. “I’m not much good at this you know, not having shared a flat before.”
    “Oh, Joy will look after that,” said Marigold. “She’s so good with money, working in that office where there’s a lot of accountancy. She should have been a solicitor from the start you know, it’s so silly to have waited until she’s twenty-seven before starting her indentures.”
    “I’d never have done it at all if it weren’t for you,” said Joy gratefully. “I’d still be working on there and taking my money each week.”
    “It would have been pointless,” said Marigold. Her blue eyes looked out over the park, where people who weren’t in wheelchairs jumped and played and ran about.
    Pat sighed happily. It was so peaceful here and she had the whole week-end before facing the bank again. Nobody ever told you how easy it was to find a flat.
    “Would you like me to do any shopping or anything?” she asked helpfully.
    “Joy does that on Friday nights, we’re very well organized,” smiled Marigold. “We have a small deep freeze as well. It helps a great deal.”
    While the rest of London sweated and fussed and shopped and dragged themselves through traffic jams or in crowded trains to the seaside, Joy and Marigold and Pat sat peacefully reading, listening to music, or chatting. By Monday Pat felt she had been on a rest cure. She and Joy had done a lot of the washing up, and preparing of things, rougher jobs like peeling potatoes and cutting up meat, and taking out rubbish.
    Joy was friendly and eager to do everything, Marigold was gentle, serene, and calm. Pat began to think that she couldn’t have found two more perfect flat-mates.
    On Sunday night she telephoned the people in Leicester and asked them to arrange to have seventeen pieces of furniture, some huge, some tiny, collected and delivered to London.
    Nobody had telephoned the flat, nobody had gone out. Pat wondered what happened if you invited a friend in for supper. Would they all eat as a four-some? She saw no other way.
    She gave Joy £80, and asked what to do about the tenner for food.
    “I’ll spend £20 this week, and you spend it next week,” said Joy cheerfully.
    Pat wondered where Marigold’s tenner came into it but said nothing. Why upset things? Things are not always so peaceful in life, it’s silly to question just for the sake of questioning.
    On Tuesday she rang Joy at work to say that she was going to the theatre so would not be home for dinner.
    “Oh.” Joy sounded upset.
    “But that’s all right, isn’t it?” asked Pat. “Marigold won’t start to cook until we get home anyway, so it’s not a question of letting her know in advance. I’d ring her at home but I…well, I just thought I’d ring you.”
    “Oh yes, it’s better to ring me,” said Joy. “No, no problems. I’ll pop home at lunchtime and tell her, it’s not far. Don’t worry.”
    It all seemed very odd to Pat, but she put it out of her mind.
    On Thursday her furniture arrived. Marigold was delighted with it. She