Howard, for his part, was obliged to hide his own feelings, to accept silently the daily recrimination meted out to him, lest a heated exchange ensue and his father have another seizure.

‘You’re not seeing enough of your boy,’ Harry would tell him repeatedly, though he must be aware that Howard’s increased business responsibilities kept him from visiting Ben more often. A tirade invariably followed, its theme by now engraved upon Howard’s mind: ‘When Ben grows up you’ll be like a stranger to him, and what he could turn into thanks to those Germans will be on your own head!’

Since his mother considered it inadvisable to reply that the Schmidts were good people – Howard had never thought otherwise – he refrained from doing so. Instead he would try to keep a smile on his face, and afterwards leave Harry’s sickroom feeling as if he had been hit on the head.

Thankfully, though, his mother’s attitude towards him had softened, he thought, while she served his dinner one evening. Initially, despite his now living alone in a house that echoed with emptiness, she had not invited him to eat with her at the end of his working day.

‘It’s a comfort to chat to you, Mum,’ he said when she sat down opposite him in the kitchen where he and his sister had eaten before they left home.

The wallpaper was different, but the simple, cream-painted units that reflected his mother’s taste were still there. And the collection of Poole pottery, accumulated on trips to Bournemouth, in one of the glass-fronted cupboards. Only the atmosphere had changed, Howard thought, glancing at the chair his father had once occupied and would no more.

Though Kate was gone from here before she was twenty, Howard had stayed put until he married. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to get myself a bachelor pad, as most of my friends did, he reflected. Staid was the word for me.

It struck Howard now that if his cousin Martin had fallen for a German girl, the family, though they would have liked it no less, might not have been quite so astonished. People in the arts were not expected to conform. But when suburban Howard Klein stepped out of line—

His mother interrupted his thoughts. ‘I’m glad to have you here, Howard. These days I can use some comfort, myself.’

He watched her take away their soup plates and bring a platter of fried fish to the table, noting her weary demeanour. ‘Are you still taking tranquillizers, Mum?’