I heated up a can of ravioli, using a whole army of matches because most of them were swollen with damp and as soft as putty.

Then Marie tried to practise but the cold seized up her fingers. In any case, the sound wasn’t coming out right: the cello seemed to have lost its voice.

“It’s super sensitive, you have to admit,” I said.

“It’s a living thing, that’s all,” said Marie. “It’s caught cold.”

Then she did something extraordinary. She began to rub the cello, on its belly, on its back, on its sides. She blew into its lungs through the sound holes, just as you’d do for someone who’s nearly drowned.

She’d caught cold too. She went to bed and slept through most of the afternoon, wrapped up in her sleeping bag. Her sleep was punctured by fits of coughing, mingling with the sound of the rain beating relentlessly against the trees and dripping through the gaps between the planks of our shelter. It was like being on board the Titanic. After the iceberg.

One more night, one more day.

I remembered a historical documentary I’d watched with Dad about those soldiers in the First World War who’d fought for four years in terrible conditions and who’d then succumbed to Spanish flu on the day of the Armistice, in the middle of all the celebrations.

I was beginning to wonder if we’d have to surrender before the end of the battle, beaten by a simple case of flu that wasn’t even Spanish.

That evening she asked me to read her some poetry from a book she’d brought on purpose. I admit there were some nice poems in it, but what worried me was that she wanted to listen to the poetry whilst lying flat on her back. It had a sort of religious feel to it that turned my blood cold. While I was reading, she watched me with a strange frown on her face, her eyebrows quivering slightly. And then she almost coughed her lungs out. At this point I felt like giving up.

“Would you like to go back?”

“Don’t be silly, Victor.”

I don’t know quite why she said that because to be honest I’d never been less silly than I was on that day. And to be honest perhaps just quietly going back home would have been the least silly thing of all.

I wanted to make a hot meal, but I realized that my calculations had been a bit out: there was only one small tin of ravioli left. And one match. I had a look in the dictionary:

Sacrifice ritual offering to a deity. The act of giving up something valued for a religious, moral or practical purpose.