Harry had by now progressed to the wheelchair included in the consultant’s prognosis and had ordered that all the doors in the house be widened. It was no longer possible for Ann to have a moment’s peace, since he was able to follow her while she went about her household tasks downstairs, and positioned himself in the hall to shout to and at her when she went upstairs.

It was Howard’s daily task to carry his father from his bedroom to his chair, a reminder of how frail in all but spirit Harry now was, and the latter concentrated in his tongue. Frank, who performed that task when Howard went to Munich, had found himself being castigated no less than was Howard.

Only the family would put up with it – and Uncle Nat hadn’t – Howard was thinking when the girl seated beside him plucked his sleeve.

‘Excuse me, but the stewardess has put on your table your lunch.’

He mustered a smile and thanked her for telling him. ‘I was immersed in my thoughts.’

‘And I hesitating before disturbing you. I saw that your eyes were closed and thought perhaps that you preferred the nap to the food. Like the man sitting beside me on a flight from Berlin to London, who was not pleased when I wakened him!’

Howard turned to look at her and could not but be charmed by what he saw. Grey-green eyes with a humorous glint in them, a retroussé nose enhancing her pert appearance, milky skin made to seem the more so by her sleek black hair. Nothing wrong with her shape, either, he noted before giving his attention to his meal.

Did the thoughts he’d just had mean he was getting over Christina? No. The ache was still there. At first it had been like a knife cutting into him, but gradually its edge had dulled. His senses too, because this was the first time since Christina left him that he’d looked twice at another woman.

You only looked once, Howard! But that was enough to tell him he was still alive. Emerging from the despondency that had entombed him.

He buttered a bread roll and looked at the girl again. ‘Do you live in Munich?’

‘I am at present spending some time there,’ she replied, ‘but my home is in Berlin. You are going to Munich on business?’

‘No. I’m visiting my little boy.’

‘I see.’

‘I married a German girl and – well, things went wrong,’ he felt constrained to add.

A pause followed, then she gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘When a marriage breaks down and there are children, it is more hard for the man. Usually he is separated from them, too.’

‘I didn’t try to get my child’s custody,’ Howard told her. ‘Living with his mother is best for him.’

‘That was not my ex-husband’s attitude,’ the girl revealed. ‘Once, he kidnapped from me my son and my daughter.’