Raymond pictured those places. It had been so long since he’d danced in a club. Being back here made him long for it. He would have loved to have been able to visit them one more time with old Stanley Cohen.

‘No’ his mother went on, ‘that isn’t the betrayal.’ She paused. ‘But you? Up there, with your Lord Edgertons and the lot of them? Who’s been in your ballroom this summer, Ray? Danced with Unity Mitford again, have you? Taken dinner with the Londonderrys, have you? Oh, it isn’t that they’re rich and it isn’t that they’re snobs, looking down on all of us. If you wasted time hating because of money, why, you’d hate every bastard out there. No, it’s . . .’ For a moment, she paused. ‘We never took you boys to the synagogue, Ray. Didn’t seem the thing for your father and me to do, though we were both of us dragged along when we were small. And I’ve no love lost for some of my people. But when my own son clasps hands with those who’d wipe us off the face of this earth? When he presses his body up against those who’ll be in Germany the very next night, pressing those same bodies up against murderers? That’s what breaks a mother’s heart, Ray.’

‘It’s dance, Ma. You leave the rest of the world outside the ballroom. You put your dancing shoes on, and nothing else matters.’

‘It matters, boy. It always matters.’

Raymond reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Ma . . .’

‘Do you know, when you turned up on this doorstep, I thought you might have been coming home to make amends. Dance all you like, Ray. Dance here and dance there. Travel the world going to your competitions. Do whatever makes you happy. But to throw your lot in with the sort of people who’d round your family up and drive them out? To dance with those taking champagne with Oswald Mosley and his union? Those fascist bastards . . .’ Mrs Cohen shook off Ray’s hand and marched back across the yard. In the light of the doorway, she looked back. ‘You know a fancy thing or two, Ray, but you don’t know a thing about family,’ she spat.

Yes I do, thought Raymond as he watched her go. He thought of Hélène Marchmont and Sofía LaPegna, Sebastian Grise and Stefan Sylvester, before they stepped out onto the ballroom floor. Billy Brogan the hotel page, Michel Cotton from the ballroom’s bar, Mrs Moffatt. The new girl Nancy Nettleton came into his mind, lingering after the other images had faded behind. I know the meaning of family. But it isn’t here. It hasn’t been here ever since my father died . . .

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve