About a week after she heard that Sep had been killed at the Somme, Jelly, who had sunk into an arid subterranean world of mourning, woke around 2am. Suspended in a state of semi-dream, as if she were hovering as a spirit over her own body, curled alone in her bed, she thought she heard… What? She knew it. What was it? The opening melody of Sep’s violin sonata? He’d written it for her in his head, in between digging trenches and dodging Ottoman ammunition; then he’d written it down on the boat, leaving Gallipoli after the horrors of battle. It began with a strong theme, full of nobility and poise. But what she heard in her mind’s ear now seemed to reach her from the other side of a distant sea, as if in the scraping of a beginner violinist, as Sep, a pianist, would have been: the sort of valiant try that goes straight for the nerves under your teeth.

Sep had not said goodbye to her before he left for France. Was that his farewell? Jelly came to, the sounds scratching away inside her head. She felt exhausted even before she could stand.

*

Back at the hotel, after breakfast, Jelly resumed her place at the desk overlooking the lawn to begin writing to people who might help her start hunting for the Schumann manuscript, notably Tovey. Taking time to ensure that language and handwriting were logical and legible, and would not frighten away her targets, she scarcely noticed the hours pass. It was only when a bark reached her – high-pitched, officious, unquestionably Caesar’s – that she realised her companions were nowhere to be seen. Beyond the window she glimpsed the flash of Adrienne’s lilac dress and the gleam of her mahogany hair, while the dog galloped by, chasing a ball.

‘Adri?’ Jelly went onto the terrace. ‘Where are Mummy and Daddy and Uncle Erik?’

Adrienne shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand. ‘They went to the beach.’

‘Without you?’

‘Mummy said it’s a beach that children and dogs can’t go to, so we should stay here and you’d look after us. Not that we need looking after, you know, but that’s what she said. She didn’t want to disturb you, because you were busy.’

‘Oh,’ said Jelly. ‘I see… ’

So Adila, Erik and Alec had gone together, à trois, to… that beach, leaving her to babysit. And without telling her, because they thought she was too busy to listen – or perhaps because they didn’t want to explain. Jelly felt briefly floored, but this was not something to tell the blissfully innocent and dog-focused Adri. She placed her outgoing letters on the hotel’s post pile, then went into the sunshine to play with her niece.

Chapter 5

Myra Hess, cigarette smoke curling around her, listened long and well after Jelly burst into tears in the middle of the Brahms Sonata in G major.