‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a little high voice. ‘But it was so exciting.’

‘Never mind, princess.’ Alec recovered quickly and swung her up into his arms for a moment. ‘Daddy doesn’t want to be cross. Come on. Let’s go and find something else you can have a go on.’

The photograph was taken after one of our merry-go-round rides. A young fellow with sticking-out teeth and a badly fitting suit approached us with his camera. ‘Councillor Kemp, I’m from the Gazette. Could I trouble you for a picture?’

‘Of course. It’s no trouble, is it girls?’ He smiled amiably. Courtesy to everyone, he maintained, was the trick. He was a great one for presenting the right image. ‘Would you like the girls in as well?’

‘That’ll be a treat,’ the young man said, squinting into his lens. ‘Stand nice and close together now.’

We were both still alight with the thrill of it, standing warm together, arms wrapped round each other’s back, utterly friends and absolutely happy.

The picture made the evening edition.

* * *

OLIVIA

They moved the piano forward in the drawing room, left music open on it and a vase of huge chrysanths on the top, which spread a heavy scent through the room.

‘Don’t make me,’ I begged Mummy. ‘Please. I don’t want to, I can’t.’

‘Oh, Olivia.’ Mummy knelt down beside me immediately. Her face was white. She implored me with her eyes. She had to make me, had to, for him. ‘Daddy’s so proud of you. Do it for him, please, my darling. You must do things for Daddy to make him happy.’

She put her arms round me. She was so thin and pale. I could smell her cologne. ‘Please Olivia, my pretty darling. You’re so clever.’

She cupped my face in her hands, stared into my eyes and she was frightened, I knew. She stroked my hair as if I were a pony. I had no choice. I was only ten and they expected me to play in front of all those people: councillors, aldermen, even MPs like Neville Chamberlain.

‘We’ll ask Kate to come along and keep you company,’ Mummy said.

It was 1931, the summer leading up to the formation of the National Government. They were all smug and expectant, of course, much talk of the eclipse of Socialism, Ramsay MacDonald having fluffed it. Waiting like vampires to do their duty for King and Country.

Daddy held a party, which meant giving orders for a marquee, terracotta pots with cascades of geraniums and busy Lizzies spilling from them like blood, lanterns strung between posts in the garden for when dusk came, and days of frenzied preparation of food. Mummy was pretty and charming but she was a draper’s daughter. She had a little green book called How to Entertain, and kept it by her bed like a Gideon Bible. The responsibility made her eyes bulge. It took away her sleep.

I went to talk to Lady and King, my budgerigars. They were in my bedroom. I was allowed them there as long as I kept them clean. Lady was an unpromising-looking creature, pale sulphur colour with a smudge of green down one wing. King, though, looked perfectly splendid. A green-patterned bird, he lived up to his name, mottled with black and majestic. But they were such mute birds. They made sounds but they didn’t speak. I wanted them to talk to me.