Deep in the countryside, Tovey and his wife, Clara, had a house they regarded as their real home. Hedenham Lodge was in a secluded spot, difficult to access. This, Tovey admitted, was half the point. The sole good thing about his ‘year off’ in ’32 recovering from his heart issues, he said, was that he could spend most of it there. It was a graceful place, early 18th century, set into a rich and soggy lawn and surrounded by brambleful hedgerows, shrubbish hawthorn and ancient trees bowing under the weight of their own leaves. Jelly liked to imagine Jane Austen characters flitting about the slender-framed drawing room, or leaning on the windowsills to enjoy the soft air that drifted in from the Broads.

Tovey was nearly 62. Jelly still thought of him as a perpetual thirtysomething, as he was when she first knew him: his intellect still flamed like a crêpe Suzette. But even she could not deny that his physical state was changing with the years. Either his spine was less straight, or his tall-person’s stoop might have grown more pronounced.

‘I don’t mind being slightly closer in size to you,’ he told her, when she pressed him about his health. ‘What I do mind is what’s happening to my hands.’

The swelling around his knuckles was pronounced, shockingly so. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘I wish I could be brave and say it doesn’t. But it does. It hurts rather a lot. What hurts most is that it’s becoming more difficult to play the piano. I shall have to follow the example of Clara and stick to late Brahms.’

‘I didn’t realise she played.’

‘Schumann’s Clara. When she was changing from guardian angel to glorious grandma, Brahms wrote intermezzos, rhapsodies and the like for her to play, which weren’t technically complex, but could not be bettered in terms of profundity. I shall be very happy with them, assuming I can even manage that.’

‘You are a wonderful pianist – you will be fine.’

‘Dear Jelly.’ Tovey leaned down and kissed her forehead.

Jelly wondered what could make the difference: perhaps just the growth of a microscopic sliver of bone. Could something indiscernible to the human eye become a tipping point, switching you from one state to another – Tovey from a day when he could play his piano, if with difficulty, to one on which he could not? It was so alarming that she tucked his arm through hers to banish the notion.