‘I know what it is to lose someone,’ she said. ‘I lost my mother so long ago, but each day it’s as if she is still here with me, somewhere. And I have lost many others, too… I feel, sometimes, I am surrounded by ghosts. And it is not only the glass game that brings them.’

‘That portrait on the piano? It is very impressive. I think, perhaps, he was your fiancé?’

‘Not exactly, but I did hope to marry him. He was Australian, a wonderful composer. He died at the Somme.’

‘You must have been very young.’

‘Twenty-three.’ Her voice held all the pain of being at your most hopeful and lovely, ready for affection, passion and plans, only to see your friends and potential lovers slaughtered one by one. And losing one great love…

Ulli thought of Ludwig in the trenches and Willy interned at Alexandra Palace, and himself at school, doing his mathematics, practising the piano, battling the great rent in life caused by his father’s death. ‘So my father on the German side was perhaps fighting your Australian fiancé on the British side. They both died. I am German and you, I assume – if you’ll forgive me – may be Jewish if you are Joachim’s great-niece. And now here we are having lunch together in London. Is this not insane, Jelly?’

‘That’s war. That’s the world. What can we do?’ Jelly’s face darkened, then brightened. ‘I am partly Jewish, partly not, and Adi, Alec and I are Catholics – but why should that matter? We must make up for these crazy people. We must live to our fullest in the present, no?’

‘Definitely.’ Any last shred of sense was leaving Ulli. He wanted to lift her out of her plain wooden chair, tuck her under one arm and carry her off somewhere safe and warm where he could feed her the finest cakes, brush her hair, run a bubble bath for her, wrap her in satin, take care of her in every way there was. ‘And since your tragedy, Jelly, there’s no one else in your life? Do you mind that I am asking?’

Jelly seemed to hesitate, tracing a pattern on the tablecloth with one fingertip. ‘Sometimes I have the feeling that everyone I love then dies.’

Ulli absorbed this statement, waiting for her to continue.

‘There was someone, almost. Not quite. Not now. Someone I’ve known for a long time, and we are – well, friends, but close, if at a distance. I hardly ever see him. But now he is very ill. He calls me and tells me he will die sometime quite soon… ’