“Anyway, there’s a Bergman retrospective at the NFT this weekend. Twelve hours’ solid viewing. Immaculate art.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Bergman. Antonioni. Fellini. Godard. Not your American directors. Not anymore.”

“You used to like my American directors. Mean Streets. Taxi Driver. The Godfather. We saw The Godfather three times at least, Tom.”

“Yeah. Well, early Coppola’s okay. And Scorsese is great. Did you see Goodfellas? Oh, and Tarantino, of course. I mean, Tarantino is seriously amazing. You’ve seen Reservoir Dogs? Pulp Fiction?”

“No.”

“The two greatest American films ever made. Bar none. Postmodern cinema. They’re violent, of course.”

“So I hear. I’m not in the mood for violence right now. I’ll catch up with them eventually, I guess…”

“You must. There’s this scene in Pulp Fiction—I don’t want to spoil it for you, because he plays these narrative games, of course, but there’s these college kids, and you know they’re about to get shot, and Travolta gets out his gun, but he doesn’t point it at them or anything. He’s just standing behind them, and then—” Tom stopped.

“Hey, look. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have started in on that. Mum warned me. She said—”

“It’s fine, Tom. Really. Don’t worry about it. I’m okay. Just pass me that saucepan, would you?”

Tom passed it across. He stood beside her, wielding his dish towel ineffectively, occasionally glancing in her direction.

“I would like to know—” He hesitated. “I mean, what happened to you in Sarajevo? Do you talk about it? Mum says you don’t talk about it. Not to her, not to anyone. Why?”

“You used not to talk,” Gini countered. “Tom, for three years, four years, you scarcely spoke at all. It drove Lindsay wild with anxiety and guilt. I’m sure you had thoughts, ideas, feelings, that you could have chosen to communicate. You decided, for reasons of your own, not to do so. And I don’t think I badgered you, Tom, at the time…”

“No. You didn’t You were cool.” He paused. “That’s okay. I can read that. People talk too much anyway. In this family they talk all the time. Mum never draws breath. Gran never draws breath. I just needed a bit of space. A bit of silence for a while.”

“Yes, well, sometimes that can help.” Gini looked away.

“Sure. No sweat. You used to talk, that’s all. I liked talking to you—you remember that? We’d go out, you’d treat me to a movie, grab a hamburger. It was fun.”

“Yes. I remember. I enjoyed it too.”

“So I can’t help wondering… what brought this on.” He hesitated again. “Mum says it’s post-traumatic stress disorder—did she tell you?”

“No, she didn’t. And it’s nothing so grand.”

“Too many dead bodies, Mum says. I said—Pascal can handle all that, he’s covered hundreds of wars, so why can’t Gini? Mum says it’s different for women, because they feel things more, but I don’t buy that. I think…” He weighed his words. “I think you’ll get inured to it in time. And it had to be hard for you, because it was your first war, and it meant a whole lot to you because that was always your ambition, right? To cover wars?”