‘I was tidying upstairs,’ she said. She kept her hands pressed together, as if more applause might be called for. She had a cloth tucked around the crook of one elbow. ‘I had to come down when the concert started. That was lovely.’

I could feel the heat flare in my cheeks again. ‘I think that’s the whole thing. I’m not even sure I got that bit right, but . . .’

‘You have a better voice than you know,’ George told me. He clambered around on the seat to face Mrs Keene and me, holding his robe down as his bare legs swung across. ‘You should never be afraid to sing, young man. And I don’t make that observation lightly. Some people should be afraid to sing. Mrs Keene should. Right, Mrs Keene?’

‘Sing like a bird, I do.’ She looked affronted. She moved to put her hands on her hips, then grabbed the cloth as it fell. ‘A bird that’s been trodden on. Not recommended.’

‘Quite,’ George said. ‘Mrs Keene’s many skills lie in other areas. Capability shouldn’t be afraid to sing, though. Right, Mrs Keene? Not with his luscious Mancunian baritone. And now, young man, melodious as your voice is, I think you’ve suffered enough. To the swimming pool.’ He stood decisively and strode towards the doorway, then stopped himself. ‘Music.’

The record was a collection of British hymns sung by church choirs and, as I lay in the water with my ears under the surface, I could hear the organ parts and muted massed voices, and I imagined it as the soundtrack to one of our Surrey Hills drives, Norman steeples coming into view over oak trees, cemeteries with blank stones tilted like old teeth, Church of England congregations putting breath again into the songs of their ancestors.

George practised his floating but didn’t stay in long. For him the pool was a bath that had got out of proportion. The record finished, and I kept my head under water. In my Surrey Hills movie, the days were warmer, no-one picked up suitcases and hassled for bigger tips, the punks didn’t die.

I floated, then swam some laps, then floated again. George sat at the table in his robe, unfolding The Times across his pile of business papers, smoking a cigarette and eating barley sugar.

‘I’m absorbing it by osmosis,’ he said when I got out. ‘That wonderful Australian crawl you do.’

Mrs Keene brought buttered toast and Battenberg cake from the kitchen, and George swept his paperwork into a single pile to make space.

‘You’re welcome to a barley sugar or two as well,’ he told me, ‘but they’re awful tooth-rotters. Had a full clearance in the war.’ He reached up and tapped his front teeth. His dentures were less bright, less obvious, than Mrs Keene’s. More like teeth.

Down the hall, the phone rang. The record had finished and the hallway seemed to amplify the sound. Mrs Keene left the kitchen to answer it. George paid no attention until she appeared again in the doorway.