‘That couldn’t have been pleasant for them.’

‘He does not do that sort of thing any more, and we are now quite civilized with each other and he has remarried.’

‘You haven’t?’

She shook her head. ‘I have time only for my children and my work.’

‘Which I gather takes you away from home. Who looks after them when you’re away?’ Howard inquired.

‘I am blessed with a wonderful mother. It is with my parents that I and my children live. Their father he sees them as often as his new wife will allow.’

Howard found himself telling her that his divorce was not yet finalized, and of his father’s illness that was making it increasingly difficult for him to visit Ben.

‘I am truly sorry for you,’ she said when he had finished speaking.

‘I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself! But I oughtn’t to be boring a total stranger with my problems—’

‘I am not in the least bored,’ she answered, ‘and we must complete our eating, or the trays will shortly be snatched from us.’

‘You’re obviously a more experienced traveller than me,’ Howard remarked, while they ate.

‘Our family business is to manufacture optical lenses and that is worldwide trade. May I ask what you do?’

‘The same as you. Work in our family business. It’s a retail store.’

‘You do not go abroad for the buying?’

Howard’s wanting to do so had always been a bone of contention between him and his father. ‘No, we buy from the sales reps who come to us.’

‘And what are the goods that you sell?’

Was she a Nosey Parker? Or interested in Howard?

She dabbed a blob of chocolate mousse from her lips and gave him a smile that encouraged him to believe the latter.

‘Curtains and bed linen, tablecloths and towels,’ he replied. ‘That sort of thing has been big business since the British discovered decor and the duvet, though we’re still suffering the effects of unemployment, like everyone else. When the recession was at its worst, I recalled my late grandfather telling me when I was a kid that before the war he’d sold men’s socks for twopence-ha’penny a pair, and wished we could cut our prices down to the bone. In my granddad’s time they sold clothing, as well.’

It was as a cut-price store that the business was established, its profits accrued via turnover. Begun by Ben Klein in the thirties on a shoestring, Howard reflected. And later carried forward by Harry to the substantial concern it now was.

‘Our business too was founded by my grandfather,’ the girl told him, ‘but when Hitler came to power…’

She paused while the stewardess poured their coffee and said after sipping hers, ‘You are Jewish, like me, are you not?’

But it hadn’t occurred to Howard that she was.