Jelly could hear the piano. She made a clattery dive for the music-room stairs, and glimpsed, through the door’s rectangular glass panes, the gleam of Ulli’s fair hair; he was trying out the Bechstein. He sounded good. Very good. He was playing something she knew. A surging-waves accompaniment, a singing, faraway melody – it was from Schumann’s Carnaval, the number that was supposed to be a portrait of Chopin. Jelly watched, breathed, and prepared herself.

‘You like Bechsteins, Ulli?’ She strolled over as if she had left him where he was only minutes earlier.

‘I have one myself, rather like this.’ He stopped playing and his gaze met hers, every bit as bright as before. ‘It has a lovely woody, tenory tone. You can really sink your teeth into it.’

‘And you like Schumann? That was so beautiful.’

‘I love Schumann. He’s my favourite, especially to play. Jelly, please forgive me for just arriving, but I… ’

‘Darling, I’m thrilled you’re here! Now, what can I give you? You want some coffee, or something to eat, or perhaps we go for a walk, except I’ve just been for one with our doggie, and – ’

‘No, no, Jelly: what can I give you?’ Ulli smiled over the piano at her, and for a second he reminded her so much of Sep that she wanted to weep. ‘May I take you out to lunch?’ he was saying, and she, eyes watering, gave a mute smile and nod.

The closest restaurant to the house was the family-run place on the Fulham Road, opposite the Forum Theatre cinema. Here Jelly often used to have lunch or an early supper, with Anna or sometimes on her own; it offered fare such as toad-in-the-hole, roast chicken and Ravel’s favourite steak and kidney pudding. ‘I was actually thinking of the Savoy, or the Regent’s Palace Hotel,’ Ulli suggested.

‘I don’t mind where we go, unless you are especially eager to try them,’ she said, carefree. ‘But I often eat here. It’s very nice. Friendly.’ On the door, Ulli spotted a handwritten notice in smudged ink declaring: ‘No shellfish, no tinned food, no foreign produce.’

‘Most soloists would think it is not smart enough for them.’

‘If it’s not smart enough for you then we take a cab to the Savoy!’ Jelly gave a grin. Like a little girl, she was teasing him, laughing, with the assumption he would laugh with her.

He cursed his own tactlessness. ‘That wasn’t at all what I meant. For you, the best should be obligatory.’