Lyn, who had so far said little, remarked to Carla and Tricia that she had often wondered how clergymen’s wives found time to raise their children.

‘It’s a daunting thought!’ Tricia replied. ‘But somehow we’ll cope. Right, Carla?’

‘You bet!’

Leona surveyed her daughter. Where had the pert little girl gone to? In her place was a calm and contented young woman. Nor did Leona doubt that Carla was capable of sharing with Alan the responsibilities of his calling.

Tricia’s appearance was of a blonde fragility, emphasized by her pretty pink dress. But the way she had responded to Lyn’s remark implied her strength of character. Her husband, a bearded young Berliner, was now conversing earnestly with Howard. What were they discussing?

Marianne too had noticed. Also Howard’s strained demeanour, though he had done his best to join in the celebrating. His little boy, no longer the youngest of the clan, was now six. And no one was under the illusion that Howard had learned to live with the separation.

Howard’s rarely mentioning Ben was but his method of dealing with his inner feelings. Nor had he yet brought the boy to England, a further disappointment for his parents. When Marianne tackled him about it, all he was prepared to say was that Christina would rather he didn’t. Why hadn’t he asserted his paternal right? – a question Marianne had stopped herself from asking. What went on between her nephew and his ex-wife wasn’t her business.

The welfare of her great-nephew, though, was, and each time a neo-Nazi incident in Germany was reported in the press her skin prickled with apprehension.

Christina was now remarried, and Ben the half-brother of twin toddlers, a boy and a girl. Marianne was happy that he would now grow up with the sibling companionship she’d had from Harry and Arnold. But what was the twins’ father like? There was too the doubt that Ben could fit into that German Gentile family. A child whose looks would not for a moment allow those raising him to forget he was fathered by a Jew.

Did Christina want to forget it? Given that she had finally fled, Marianne thought the answer had to be yes. Christina had suffered the ongoing effects of past events in which she herself had played no part. And when would a Jew stop being for a German a reminder of what he or she preferred not to think about?

Christina, though, was a kindly girl and would surely not have refused Howard’s request that their son be allowed to visit his British grandparents.

She was also, Marianne reflected, of that ilk of markedly feminine women who allow their men to make the decisions. Before her remarriage her father would have done so for her. And now – well, it had to be her new husband exerting his influence.