She didn’t feel especially hungry any more, only a little dizzy, which wasn’t so bad. Making her way into the lounge, where sofas and armchairs lazed under the chandeliers, with low-glowing candles dotted around the tables for evening, she noticed that the resident pianist was remarkably good. Space was less of a problem in here at this hour; she spotted a few older couples, two or three gaggles of businessmen in dinner suits, and in the far corner a silk-gowned group who looked as if they might be sisters. As a single woman, it would be easier to disappear into a generous armchair here than to sit on full view in the Art Deco American Bar. She took the initiative herself, rather than allowing the staff to choose a table for her: ‘As close as possible to the piano. And a White Lady please? Thank you so much, that is wonderful.’

The armchair seemed to fold itself around her, warm and smelling a little of musky pot-pourri; she sat, legs crossed, head leaning back, breathing deeply and listening to ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, a song that usually made her cry. She wasn’t going to cry this time. She had to stop her silly habit of bursting into tears at the slightest excuse. She had to grow up. Forty-four was a little late, but it was time, was it not?

The cocktail hit home. Bliss. You had to drink the Savoy’s White Lady; the hotel’s own barman had invented it, adding Cointreau to gin and lemon juice, and its citrus flowers of coolness and heat could bolster you in an instant. It would carry you back to all the times you’d tasted it before, and beyond that to every occasion when you’d been here in this lounge with Sep, with Tom, with Tovey; with Elgar; and with Bartók, who wanted fresh fruit with his tea instead of scones and was overjoyed to find bananas there, since he couldn’t get them in Hungary. And you’d laughed and flirted and never thought of the future, and if now and then a whisper passed through your mind hinting that this life was too good, that the fairytale had to come to an end sometime, you’d ignore it as pessimism, or simply nuff and stonsense.

Her cocktail was finished; she ordered another. The pianist glanced across at her and she saw a flicker of recognition behind his spectacles. And then she knew him: of course, he’d played at the baron’s party. She’d spoken to him at length. He’d told her about Germany and his family’s persecution; he’d been praying that his wife and children could join him. That was several years ago. Now here he was, playing in the Savoy.

‘Miss d’Arányi?’ he said, his fingers still moving through the notes.

His name came back to her. ‘Bernhard Rabinovich! How are you?’