‘We were going over old times.’ Tovey, his gaze full of empathy, glanced from one to the other. ‘The Wigmore concerts. Do you remember, Jelly, Sep was there?’

‘Of course. And we brought Ravel over.’

‘And Elgar tried to kiss you.’ Tovey smiled, but Jelly did not. Elgar, too, had died this year.

‘Now Elgar’s gone, everything’s different. As if he was the last of it all.’

‘I’ll say hello,’ Tom tried to joke. ‘Perhaps I’ll meet them. I’ll greet them for you, Jelly, yes? Schumann, Brahms, Onkel Jo… ’

‘Don’t talk like that. We’ll get you well.’

‘Sweet Sai.’ Tom tried to prop himself up on his pillow, but to no avail; soon he had slipped into deep-drugged sleep. Jelly and Tovey sat silent while his breathing became intermittent – a long pause followed by a deep, rapid lungful, then a barrage of short, gasping intakes, as if each could be his last. His hand lay chilly and grey within both of hers.

‘This happens,’ Tovey said. ‘Don’t be alarmed. He is peaceful and has no pain, which is all we can hope for.’

Jelly picked up the Thomas Hardy book. It fell open in her hand. ‘“Experience is as to intensity”,’ she read, ‘“not as to duration”.’

She felt tears welling up. ‘Darling Donald,’ she said, to distract herself. ‘How are you? How’s Edinburgh? How’s Clara?’

‘Edinburgh is enduringly exuberant,’ Tovey smiled, ‘and Clara is charismatically cherishable. As for me – I’m all right, I think, but my hands hurt. I fear I’m not playing as well as I’d like.’

‘Nor am I. My hands hurt too, and my elbow.’

‘We should all emigrate. We should follow Sep’s memory back to Australia, where it’s warm and dry. Our bones wouldn’t suffer as they do here.’

Jelly lifted the unconscious Tom’s fingers to her lips and felt the icy ridges of his knuckles against her face. His breath was immobile. All she could hear was the staccato of raindrops on the window and the legato of Tovey humming as if to comfort them all. In Tom’s vanishing frame: nothing. For a moment she thought he was gone. She was about to call out in alarm when his torso gave another effortful shudder. The body clings to life, sometimes even after the spirit wants to let go.

Death, Erik said, should be something beautiful, according to the messengers. That did little to help Jelly, watching him, choking back the agony of it from her throat.

His eyes opened a slit. ‘Sai, dear,’ he whispered, ‘play to me?’