‘I think… perhaps Onkel Jo played me this. I feel as if I’ve heard it, and I have an image of him in my mind… let me concentrate… ’ Adila put on her psychic ‘sensitive’ expression. ‘I am sure he played me this, or something very like it.’

‘I remember something too, somehow… ’

The melody seemed familiar, as if she’d heard it somewhere before, long ago. No! It was Myra. That was it. Myra had played her a Schumann theme on which she said Brahms had written variations. It wasn’t the same, but it was remarkably similar. There, it was defined, hymn-like, complete. Here, Schumann was hinting at it, trying to grasp it, yet it eluded him. ‘Brahms,’ Jelly declared. ‘That’s why we know it. It’s nothing to do with Onkel Jo. Come on, let’s try the last movement.’

She stood. A transition from the slow movement, and then the Alla polacca – the Polonaise – loomed on the page, the instruction printed above an ant-heap of notes. She knew about this Polonaise, theoretically. Its silhouette, too, looked oddly familiar; soon she knew why. It was that same melody from the first movement, the one that curled towards an invisible sun, and now, at last, it broke through the canopy of leaves into the blue heavens, transformed. The spirit, transmuted. The earth shaken away, the essence flying out.

‘Slower,’ said Adila. ‘The metronome mark. Look.’ She tapped the number on the page.

‘That slow?’ Jelly was amazed; it sounded odd, anything but dance-like, at such a stately tempo. But so instructed Schumann…

They started again, Jelly laughing through her tears, Adila swearing in Hungarian. It was a triumphant end, this polonaise: a victory after a great struggle. The music grew more complicated, with virtuoso passagework that would have shown off Onkel Jo’s abilities, the piano twittering and trilling beneath, yet it seemed as if love, the spirit, life itself, must win eventually.

Their last note was together, but soon their laughter was louder than the music had been, and at an optimistic guess, Adila had hit one right note in every ten. Jelly needed someone who could do better.

While she was wondering where to turn next, the phone in front of her rang and there, at the end of it, was –

‘Donald! The very person! Darling, how did you know to call me now?’

‘Hush, Jelly… What’s going on?’

‘Wherever you are, can I come and see you? And can I bring the Schumann? It just arrived. We read it, Adi and me, and it’s – it’s so beautiful – but Adi’s not… I mean, I need a pianist. Will you play it with me?’

Tovey didn’t flinch. ‘Clara and I are off to Norfolk soon. When can you join us?’

‘Oh, Donald,’ Jelly was fighting tears. ‘I can’t stand the idea of it being captured by those terrible people in Germany… ’