It was Paula who broke it. ‘What Rachel has said cannot be easy for those who do not live here to understand. We and our friends do not want the responsibility laid upon us by our families’ return. Those prepared to shoulder it are welcome to it.

‘Speaking for myself, as for every person I have only one life and shall make the most of it in my own way. If you encounter sufficient German Jews, young or old, you will find that there are two kinds and must draw from that your own conclusions.’

Rachel turned the car into a parking space and pulled up. ‘From here we shall continue our night out on foot.’

Though Berlin by night, the cosmopolitan atmosphere throbbing with life, could not but be exciting to the sheltered youngsters A.P. and Jeremy were, there were moments in this noisy venue, or that, when they found themselves exchanging an uneasy glance.

The four were consuming nothing stronger than Pepsi, but there was about the girls a false intoxication. Something that didn’t ring true, as if they were determined to enjoy themselves.

Like those people Jeremy and I saw sitting in deckchairs wearing raincoats and sou’westers, on the beach at St Ives, thought A.P., as if they weren’t going to let a wet day ruin their holiday. But what sort of pleasure was that?

Rachel and Paula too had resolved not to let something get the better of them, and it wasn’t the weather. It had to be connected to the choice both had made. To the feelings they had expressed in the car.

After a while, even Rachel’s engaging laughter began to sound to A.P. artificial, and suddenly the girl he had thought might initiate him to the rites of physical love seemed to him pathetic, if nonetheless attractive.

When at the end of the hectic round she parked the car on the tree-lined avenue leading to the Schulmanns’ mansion and wound her arms around his neck, her proximity and her perfume again overwhelmed him.

‘My godparents have a summer-house,’ she whispered. ‘Shall you and I go there and leave the car to our friends?’

Why was A.P. having last minute scruples, with her breasts thrusting against him and her hand wandering to his thigh?

They weren’t scruples, they were second thoughts. A girl who’d let you lay her when you were little more than strangers wasn’t the one he wanted to remember as his first lay.

It was she who broke away from their embrace.

Since her hand had reached its destination, A.P. wasn’t surprised. His erection was no more, as if dismissed by those second thoughts.

‘Our visitors have had an exhausting day,’ she said to Paula, breaking up the action on the back seat. ‘I suggest that we now allow them to retire to their solitary beds and rest.’