‘Well, I do think that we over-simplified that situation. Christina too was an outsider, and too much in love with Howard to have considered the built-in hazards to her marrying a Jew. Confronted with his family – well, she said it all in the note she left Howard when she’d had enough, didn’t she? That she couldn’t go on feeling herself the enemy in the camp.’

‘That’s the direct opposite of your soaking-up theory,’ said Martin.

‘It’s nevertheless something we did to her en masse,’ Marianne replied. ‘One way or another I wouldn’t say that marrying into a clan like ours was something anyone of a different persuasion would find immediately comfortable. Your dad didn’t know what had hit him!’

‘But he got used to it, didn’t he? I would say it depends upon the person. How long did it take Lyn to feel herself one of us?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I used to think her something of a chameleon, before she proved herself incapable of playing Lady Klein. Not only does she feel she’s one of us, we feel that way about her. But in the light of more recent experience – Moira is a graphic example – I have to conclude that neither having a family of their own contributed to Lyn and your dad each finding their place in ours.’

‘May we add to that,’ said Martin, ‘the religious factor I still hold responsible, despite what you’ve been saying? Unlike Lyn and Dad, Moira’s background has the strong pull that ours exerts upon us. I was never more conscious of the grip it has on me than on the night I asked you if you’d mind your grandchildren not being Jewish. In a lesser way I am still occasionally prey to it when consuming a ham sandwich. It will be with me till the day I die.

‘The difference between Moira and me, though – between Moira and most people – is that I’m capable of shrugging off my sins and she isn’t. I’d go so far as to say that she’ll never rid herself of her guilt without ridding herself of me. That, however, she is about to do, and with my full compliance.’

Martin reached for an apple and bit into it, as his son had at Marianne’s table so often, while his parents’ marriage dragged on in the private hell it had to have been for both of them.

‘Does A.P. know yet that his mum and dad are splitting up?’

‘It was he who told us that we should.’

‘Adding, no doubt, that he’d had his fill of the pair of you!’