‘This might be a busy month. Explain that to them.’

‘I’ll say I have to work and maybe that will be the end of it.’

‘But don’t be cheeky or pass remarks against them.’

‘Definitely not.’

‘And where will you stay?’

‘A dormitory for women.’

‘You go then! And we endure.’

The train crawled down the platform at Central Station. Valia stepped off early and walked alongside the slow-moving carriage. The sky was lifting: it had recently rained. First, she’d find a coffee and cigarette. Then the Collins Hotel. The future turned with each tiny decision.

3.

People came early to the hotel, which rose on the street corner in a de Chirico arrangement of open windows. The composition of the Collins audience was entirely civilian. At the entrance Gregor sat with his money bag, collecting entrance fees and turning away servicemen, as per the admittance policy. Civilians only. Nobody made a fuss. Benny waited in a tiny back room, sweat lurching down his back, his performance nerves made worse by the hubbub of people waiting to see him, the sustained barrage of their voices coming closer. Intermittently, Lucky had a powerful urge to abandon his buddy Gregor and leap out the first-storey window then—all being well—run like the devil away. The scoundrels, Harry and Frank, came in and out unpredictably, checking on their man. They’d come to be amused by the sight of Lucky fiddling with his clarinet, and were especially tickled when the club’s manager, party to the fraud, leaned on the doorframe, hands in pockets, and told Benny that a total of four hundred and six people were somehow squeezed inside the venue. The manager said he’d guessed the capacity at about three hundred and fifty, never before getting the chance to factor in significant compression.

Goodman would be playing without accompaniment, sticking to the nicest melodies in his most popular arrangements.

Frank ran a flat hand over his own hair. ‘You better enjoy tonight,’ he told Lucky, ‘because tomorrow you might be back in jail.’

The manager introduced Benny to the crowd.