He says it to her and we walk away. My entire body is shaking. The music comes back in so loud again now. I hear everything crystal clear. Like I just came up from a submarine. One band spins off the stage. The next one comes on playing even faster and wilder. There are girls on the balcony upstairs, feet on the railings, pretty dresses, smells of perfume. I don’t look back.

– Bathroom.

– Okay.

We make our way around to it, it is our favourite room in the Palais, so decadent and huge. I throw myself down on a chaise, light a cigarette, pull her down onto me, grinding into her until the whole place shudders.

Floor.

Ceiling. Chandeliers.

As we walk out, there is a fuss in the corner as the man falls to the floor.

Other side of the room.

Someone rushes in.

He is put in the recovery position. Pale. Another member of staff looks frantic. Morag is saying something. I am nodding. The man is carried out of the dance hall. He disappears from sight. Dancers reconvene in the space where he collapsed – as if he was never there. We join them. Morag spins me back out and in.

It was as easy as I hoped it would be.

I dance – as if I won’t sit on a tiny, rickety warplane flying out of England tomorrow. The engine so loud as we fly over the French sea. A stranger beside me keeping an eye out for German bombers. Flying low down over an area where I have never been in my life. I dance as if I won’t strap on a parachute. Jump into a blue sky. As if there won’t be utter panic for a second before I pull the rope. As if I won’t be flung back up into the sky, before sailing down into France like a white fluffy dandelion being guided by a warm breeze. I dance as if I won’t utter a word again – unless it is in French.