Laurence began to scold her husband; László held up his hand. ‘No, my dear. He may be right. But at my age it’s difficult to change the way you see the world. We take on a certain view when we are young then spend the rest of our lives collecting the evidence.’

‘Telephone,’ said Kurt.

‘Let it ring,’ said László.

‘Tell me,’ asked Karol, resting his large hand on László’s bony shoulder, ‘your happiest memory.’

‘So you can steal it and use it in your next book?’

‘Well, I’ll tell you mine,’ drawled Franklin, leaning heavily on the table. ‘Korea, 24 December 1950. A bunch of us dogfaces sitting around a campfire on the beach at Hungnam waiting for the LCVP to take us off. The navy had loudspeakers up playing “White Christmas” and we were heating up cans of tomato soup. A week since any of us had bathed or shaved or changed our clothes. Ollie Warand from Mission Viejo. Dutch Biebal from Baltimore. Sergeant Stauffer, Walt Bateman. Three or four others from Third Infantry. We’d lost a lot of our friends in that shithole country, but we had plenty of smokes and we were going home. I remember just staring into the fire and smelling the soup – the greatest damn smell in the world when you’re hungry. And hearing Crosby crooning down the beach, and all the guys talking in slow voices about what they were going to do when they were back Stateside. The girls and the hooch and the ball games. It was such a cold, still day. Christmas Eve a thousand years ago. I was nineteen. Nineteen years old, for Chrissakes. It wasn’t until I was back in Sioux City and out of uniform, trying to make some kind of life for myself, that it hit me just how happy I’d been sitting there on the beach. So happy that for years afterwards I could open a can of Campbell’s and get a rush. I swear I used to go out and buy the stuff whenever I had the black dog. I guess I was a soup fiend.’

‘And did you ever paint it?’ asked Kurt. ‘The men on the beach?’

‘If I’d painted it I would have changed it, so I left it alone. Anyway,’ he said, grinning, ‘Warhol painted it.’

‘Who’s next?’ asked Laurence.

Karol span a knife on the table. It pointed to Kurt.

‘I like to think,’ said Kurt, his expression composed and serious, an expression László adored, ‘that I have not had my happiest memory. I mean, that my happiest moment is still ahead of me...’

‘The perfect definition of an optimist,’ said Karol.