Zelda looked beyond Vicky to where a tall, dark-haired young man was standing next to Berthold.

‘Landsakes!’ she said, shocked into using an Americanism for the first time in years. ‘Are you Paul?’

‘’Fraid I am, Ma,’ Paul said, walking towards her with easy self-assurance and a wide grin. ‘Six years has this effect on ten-year-olds. They grow.’

‘Like Redwood trees, it would seem,’ Zelda said with a glimpse of her old dry humour. She hugged him and kissed him and then held him away from her appraisingly, saying, ‘You’ve been away too long for me to feel comfortable having you refer to me as Ma. Why don’t you call me Zelda? I’d prefer it.’

His eyebrows rose, but he said equably, ‘If that’s how you want it, Ma…Zelda…that’s fine by me.’

Determined though she was to do everything to recreate the closeness that had once existed between herself and Zelda, Vicky was already cross with her again, certain that Zelda wanted Paul to refer to her by her Christian name so that no one outside the family would know he was her son. An English cousin was something she couldn’t hide, not when the cousin in question was married to her brother-in-law, but an American son was something Zelda had obviously become too berlinerisch to want to admit to.

‘Who are those children?’ Nancy asked, tugging at Berthold with one hand and pointing to Claus and his two sisters with the other. ‘Why are they staring at us like that? Why don’t they speak?’

‘They’re your cousins, Liebling. Claus, come and say hello to Paul, Max, Hugo and Nancy. And you as well, Lotti and Ilse. Come downstairs and make friends.’

As Zelda’s children did as he asked, Vicky saw with a shaft of amusement that she had been right about Lotti. Where Claus and Ilse were as fair-haired as their father, Lotti was all Zelda in colouring, dark-haired and dark-eyed and, if the expression in her eyes was anything to go by, as full of lively impudence as Nancy.

‘Claus, this is Nancy,’ Berthold said, squatting down by Nancy’s side. ‘Nancy, this is your cousin, Claus. He is eight.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Nancy said forthrightly, feeling very grown-up and important.

‘Freut mich,’ Claus said stiffly.

Though Vicky couldn’t have sworn to it, she thought she saw a look of satisfaction on Zelda’s face.

‘Now then, Claus,’ Berthold said reprovingly. ‘Remember what I told you—and what I’ve taught you—now your cousins are here, you must speak English as well as German. And they will speak German as well as English.’

Max and Hugo shot each other panic-stricken glances.

Paul cleared his throat. ‘Ich heiße Paul,’ he said, doing his best to help things along and hoping he wouldn’t be required to say much more until he’d had the chance for a bit of swotting.

He held out his hand to Claus. Claus took it, clicking his heels as he did so.

It was a step too far for Paul. ‘Can’t do that, I’m afraid,’ he said cheerfully. ‘How about you say hello to Max and Hugo?’