Tom could have become a professional pianist, had he tried, or so Jelly thought. Like Sep, he won a music scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford; like Sep, too, he had lessons with Donald Francis Tovey, the d’Arányis’ oldest friend in Britain. Still, it wasn’t easy to be a musician if you also had to please your family. Tom neither expected nor wanted to inherit the baronetcy in Ireland, but when it happened he went obediently into the diplomatic corps. There, he’d been as lucky as a tomcat, landing on his paws: when the Twenties were about to start roaring, he was posted to Paris.

Jelly remembered his apartment in the rue de Seine: sunshine on the glass, the smell of fresh baking from the patisserie across the street, and waiting for her on Tom’s piano, her black tango shoes with red heels. Her circle had vested interests in living as hard as they could, trying to swamp with fresh sensations the involuntary flashbacks to roaring guns or the arrival home of loved ones’ books from the trenches, their torn pages splattered with mud or worse.

This time, though, Tom sounded distant: a reed of a voice, echoing from another world.

‘I’ve got some news, Jelly – ’

‘– and what are you doing in Ireland?’

‘Sai, do please listen.’

Tom began to explain. He had been very ill in hospital. Now he had decided to resign his post and return to County Kerry. Sometime, he didn’t know when, he would probably have to go into a nursing home. And that would be the end.

‘I’m sorry.’ Tom’s dear, warm tenor cracked slightly. ‘There was so much I wanted to say to you… things I wanted to tell you and ask you… but now there doesn’t seem to be very much point.’

Jelly couldn’t get her breath. If only she could rewind time to five minutes earlier when there was no phone call, when she thought Tom was perfectly well. ‘But there must be something someone can do? Have you been to Harley Street? You must see the best specialists.’

‘I’ve seen them, my darling.’

‘A second opinion. A third. A fourth! You must try everything. I’ll help you, I won’t rest until we find someone who can make you better.’

‘It’s too late, Jelly. An operation or two might give me longer, but ultimately there’s nothing to stop it.’

‘But what is “it”?’ Something secret, silent, of which nobody dared speak? If this were the same ‘it’ that had destroyed her mother, eating away at her until only morphine could ease the pain and only death could end it –

‘It is what you probably think it is,’ he said, sounding perfectly good-humoured.

‘But you are too young to die!’ Jelly cried out.