The other tables held groups of housewives, maids who’d saved their pennies for a weekly lunch date, and a travelling salesman, his case of samples on the floor beside him as he scanned the racing form in the paper. Benny flipped through a copy of The Tatler, making a mental calculation. It was April now, getting really hot and summery. Everybody was talking about holding dances, and whether or not one should offer favours to guests, and if looping the loop in a flying machine clutching two piglets was infra dig or not. The papers had scarcely a thought for matters further abroad than Ireland, where the Liberals’ plans to give the whole island home rule had the Unionists threatening civil war.

The magazine in Benny’s hands complimented the Kaiser’s daughter on her grasp of English as demonstrated at various English social events that month.

Benny shook her head and sighed. She put it out of her mind and tipped the waitress generously as she handed her her cake.

‘Excuse me,’ a voice asked. ‘Could I please sit down? There isn’t anywhere else.’

‘Of course.’ Bernice glanced up. An elegantly dressed, painfully thin young woman in a very ornate lace collar was standing there. She could only have been seventeen or so, but her face, as well as being gaunt, was lined with experience. The odd thing was that, a minute before, Benny had been sure that there were lots of places free, on tables across the cafe. But now all the seats had bags on them. Even the travelling salesman had propped his case on the seat opposite him. A great many people suddenly seemed to be watching Bernice’s table.

Oh no, she thought. It’s one of those people.

So Benny did what she did whenever she encountered somebody who was generally despised. She said: ‘Please sit down here, there’s plenty of room,’ in a rather loud voice.

The woman did so. The German waitress, obviously not understanding whatever cultural malaise afflicted the newcomer, came over at once.

‘Could I please have three slices of cake, and a plate of scones, with quite a lot of cream?’ the woman asked.

‘Hungry?’ Bernice asked when the waitress had left.

‘I’ll say. I’m on the Cat, you see. Got to build myself up’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The Cat and Mouse Act. I’m on a hunger strike in Holloway. Every now and then, they release me, let me get my strength back. Then they arrest me again, and I go on hunger strike again. I’ve been in and out three times now. It’s getting to be a matter of routine.’

‘What did you, erm, do?’

‘Stuck a pole through the wheels of the King’s pony and trap. He nearly went flying. I suppose that God saved him. I’m a bit of an Emily Davison, you see, only not so brave.’