‘I need the Schumann Violin Concerto,’ said Jelly. ‘And the word you want is “rut”. Oh, if only Anna were here… ’

She thought of writing to Myra in America for advice, but before she could, a letter arrived from Myra’s assistant, Anita, reporting that the pianist was in hospital in Boston. Major surgery was required, with a long recuperation time; she would not be well enough to return to England for some while. Practising on automatic pilot, Jelly smarted with loneliness, terrified for her friend.

It was October 1934, with the leaves dropping from the trees and the whiff of early northern snow on the wind, when the telegram from Ireland that Jelly had been dreading finally arrived.

‘Go, darling,’ said Adila. ‘Don’t worry about us. Go to him.’

Jelly, numb, called the operator to book a call to the nursing home to which Tom was now confined. She must go to Dublin.

*

The house stood on a side street, set back from the road and overshadowed by plane trees. It seemed peaceful enough, more so than any London hospital, with those rows upon rows of orderly beds; but when Jelly was shown into the hall and up a wide staircase towards the room that had become Tom’s final home, she understood that he might never see the outside world again – he who had travelled so widely and so well.

When the nurse opened his door, though, an unexpected sound reached her. Laughter. And a familiar voice, strong, musical and slightly Scottish. There, sitting by the bed in an armchair, drinking coffee and telling jokes to his ex-pupil, was Donald Tovey.

‘They told me you were on your way.’ Tovey bumbled to his feet and wrapped her in his tweedy wingspan.

‘Hello, Jelly.’ There came a depleted voice behind her.

She bent to kiss Tom. His face was skeletal; his eyes, huge in that surround, seemed to pop out from his shrunken cheeks and brow; what remained of his hair, which had been tousled and light, had turned straggly and grey. She could see the ridge of his skull beneath his skin, yellowed against the white pillowcase. His glasses lay abandoned on the bedside table beside a dog-eared copy of one of his favourite Thomas Hardy novels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

He took her hand; she felt for the strength in it she used to know, but this mix of bone, tendon and skin did not really amount to flesh; the only energy belonged to her. She closed her fingers around his. ‘Bit off colour,’ he mumbled. ‘Dosed up. Sorry.’

Tovey caught Jelly’s eye: ‘Morphine.’

‘You’re not in pain, darling?’

‘No. Happy to see you. Jelly. So happy.’ The words were an outline, no more. Jelly cursed her own cowardice: she should have come sooner. She hesitated to ask Tovey to leave them alone together, since he had travelled all the way from Edinburgh to be here.