‘She always did look delicate,’ Celia said. ‘Though as I say, I didn’t have a great deal to do with her. Kept out of her way really.’

‘Now everyone!’ Marjorie hooted suddenly in her huge voice. ‘Shall we have some music? Does anyone fancy a dance?’

‘Let’s have a singsong,’ someone called out. ‘Cheer us all up. And then we can carry on drinking!’

There was a flutter of agreement round the room. ‘Come on, Marj – play us a song!’

‘She’s very staunch, isn’t she?’ Celia said, mouth near my ear. ‘You know the other brother’s missing?’

‘I had no idea.’

‘Oh yes – air force. They’re all worried stiff, poor things. But Marjorie’s got such guts – look at her. You’d never guess.’

Marjorie advanced on the piano, looking serene.

As people began to move towards the edge of the room to claim chairs, I suddenly saw someone sitting in the corner next to the mantelpiece, who had been hidden before by all the chattering bodies. I squinted, pushing my specs further up my nose to see more clearly.

‘Excuse me,’ I said distractedly to Celia.

As I walked across he looked up at me. That face with the prominent cheekbones, vivid eyes, a scar worming down his left cheek.

‘Douglas Craven?’

He frowned, taking his cigarette from his mouth. ‘Yes, officer?’ Looking at me more closely, his face broke into a smile which seemed to take it by surprise, pulling the pink scar tissue tight across his cheek.

‘Florence?’ he called out loudly. Marjorie had started playing ‘Hands, knees and Boomps-a-Daisy’ with heavy-handed enthusiasm, and a group were bottom-bumping in the middle of the room.

‘Kate,’ I corrected him. ‘Florence Nightingale is dead. As is Queen Victoria.’ Already, before we’d exchanged more than a few words, I felt the same combination of prickliness and attraction towards him that I had when we first met.

He smiled cautiously. ‘Are you always so tart with everyone?’

‘Not everyone.’

‘So it’s my fault. Listen – take a seat. Forgive me for not getting up.’ He spoke with the odd, ironic tone which I remembered.

I looked round at him, using an examination of the healed wound as an excuse to take in his appearance now his face was free of dressings. He had wiry-looking blond hair, long compared with the clipped styles of the servicemen which we were growing used to. His eyes were less blue than I remembered in the soft light from the candles above his head. The scar curved round from one high cheekbone towards his fair moustache. He obviously found the candour of my gaze disconcerting and looked down. I thought he was blushing.

‘It’s healed well. You’re jolly lucky it missed your eye.’

‘Yes,’ he said sardonically. ‘Jolly.’ He turned and grinned at me suddenly, looking into my eyes so that it was I who felt compelled to look away.

‘Not in a dancing mood?’ I was glad to see Brenda across the room jigging about and laughing with a woman I didn’t know. This was more her cup of tea than polite chit-chat over glasses of punch.