Or, at least, that was what had been promised. Maurice Archer had heard his fellow seamen talk about the bite of a London winter, the taste of tap water, the way the English deep-fried their fish until it had been sapped of every ounce of flavour, but in his mind London was a city of golden boulevards and royal parks, where his darling Noelle might take tea with the Duchess of Kent, or be invited to the weddings at Westminster Cathedral – or where, when he wasn’t being fanciful, his sons and daughter might work hard and grow up to be wealthy, secure individuals, with houses and families and prospects of their own.

Living in London day in and day out was a different matter. That first winter, when he was working on the railway and the Spanish flu – which had already laid waste to so many – returned for a valedictory tour of the city, first Noelle, and then all three of their children, were taken to their beds. Maurice looked in on them after his shifts had ended each night and the thought preyed on him: is this it? Is this what I brought my children to England for?

Even after they were recovered, the fear that this had all been a dreadful mistake remained. He might have returned, then. There were ships taking families like his back to the islands from which they came. People couldn’t stand the weather, or they couldn’t stand the dreary, smog-soaked city – or they couldn’t stand the way some Englishmen crossed the road so they wouldn’t have to brush shoulders as they passed, asked for their glasses to be changed at the free house on Brixton Hill, in case a black man had touched it. But his youngest son, Joseph, had barely been three when they took to the oceans together; was it right to uproot him again? And his daughter, Samantha, beautiful Samantha . . . At nine years old, she was his princess. She’d seen snow for the first time that winter and never was there a more magical thing.

And then there was Sidney. Sidney who, thirteen years old in the year they set sail, had taught them that the cold and dark did not matter, that there were things to love about this new world of theirs. Sidney who, in spite of the scornful looks from some of the other boys along Brixton Hill, had woken every morning with a grin on his face, dressed eagerly for school and made friends. And all because of that battered old trumpet of his . . .

Maurice Archer was laying the trumpet back in its case, the same case with which Sidney had trotted off to lessons every Saturday morning, when Noelle brought Hélène into the room. Sternly, he wagged his finger. ‘Hélène Marchmont, I thought you’d vanished off the face of this planet.’