Mindful of his mother’s presence at the table, Abraham Patrick did not reply until he had swallowed the food in his mouth. ‘All you said was he was Grandma Marianne’s cousin who was killed in the war.’

‘In an accident during the war,’ Martin corrected the inaccuracy. ‘When he was in the RAF and your granny an ATS girl.’

‘So your mother said,’ Moira interceded. ‘And if you keep chatting to Abraham Patrick he will be late for school.’

‘I’ve never been late yet,’ the boy said.

And Moira knew he had more than enough time to catch the bus this morning.

But something comes over her when I talk to Abraham Patrick about my family, thought Martin. And the kid is right. He can’t be expected to go through life addressed as the living symbol of a mixed marriage that hadn’t worked.

‘All right. A.P. it is from now on,’ he said to his son’s delight.

‘You give in to his every whim!’ Moira exclaimed. ‘But I don’t intend to.’ She saw them exchange a wink. ‘And I am not having you and him in cahoots against me, Martin! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an editorial meeting to get to and I still have to take my shower.’

Her exit in her bright blue dressing gown could be likened, thought Martin, to lightning steaking across the room.

‘If I’d known wanting to be called by my initials would cause trouble, I wouldn’t have suggested it,’ the boy said, eyeing his mother’s unfinished breakfast. He glanced at the clock. ‘And it’s only half past seven. Mum would have to have a flat tyre to be late for her meeting.’

‘Hampstead Village can be chock-a-block in the mornings,’ Martin said in Moira’s defence.

‘Why doesn’t Mum go by tube?’

‘She doesn’t like using public transport, A.P.’

‘Thanks for remembering to call me that, Dad.’

‘And don’t worry, your pals and your relations will soon get used to it,’ Martin assured him. ‘It will probably be a welcome relief to them,’ he added with a smile.

‘But I’ll bet you a week’s pocket money that Mum will go on calling me Abraham Patrick.’

After his son had left for school, Martin recalled the day he was baptized and how unreal it had seemed. But it had been the price of Martin’s marrying the girl he loved. A precondition of their marriage.

He had had to steel himself to attend the christening, but not to do so would have been letting down his wife, and her afterwards agreeing that their son be circumcised had seemed a portent for the future. As if she was telling him that she knew how he felt.