Myself, I leapt from the bed and issued an ultimatum to my wife. ‘Not another word Sharon, I warn you.’

But she rose on her pillows, a pink circle of recklessness glowing on each cheek. Her breasts were uncovered again and the nipples also seemed to flush and start, as if alive to her temerity. She addressed Fitzpiers. ‘Oh, well beyond his childhood,’ she confided. ‘He went back a hundred years.’

‘A hundred years!’ All the disparate elements of Fitzpiers’s face expressed astonishment. I’d never seen him so unified. ‘And who did Barney discover that he’d been?’ he asked. ‘A footsoldier in Her Majesty’s expeditionary forces or a private secretary to Disraeli?’

‘Somebody more notable than either,’ said Sharon. It was odd that she should be so vindictive towards me as I was and yet so proud of who I’d been. ‘Why don’t you try and guess?’ she dared Fitzpiers.

That was enough for me. I was already well into my clothes when Fitz started rattling off names. ‘Florence Nightingale? Holman Hunt? The Mahdi? Cardinal Newman? Prince Albert? Mrs Trollope? Lord Balfour? Friedrich Nietzsche? Christina Rossetti?’ And I didn’t stay to hear Sharon saying, ‘Warmer, warmer, no, now you’re cold again.’

I was at the foot of the stairs by the time Fitzpiers had been given enough clues and exhausted enough notables to be able to announce, ‘Of course – him!’ And I was at the front door, buttoning up my overcoat, when I heard Sharon explaining how extraordinary were the coincidences she’d unearthed and how exact were the details she’d confirmed and how everything was amazing and pointed in only one direction.

Before I had to listen to a single further infraction of confidence and good form – not that there was anything much left of either for either to infract – I opened the door and let myself out on to the deserted Christmas streets.

[3]

Which is where, for respite and the recovery of some little dignity, I would leave myself – were it not that I have promised to sacrifice truth to nothing, not even cadence. Life, as must already have been observed, is not so discreet as the reticent spaces between chapters sometimes pretend. It was all very well my getting myself out on to those deserted Christmas streets but once out on them I had to do something. It was cold and I was big with sorrow and I had nowhere to go. And don’t think that any ironies were lost on me, either.

If there had been a single hamburger or kebab joint open in Finchley I would have gone and sat in it. If I’d known where the nearest Salvation Army soup kitchen was I’d have gone and sat in that. As it was, the only places with any lights on were the pubs, and from those there issued the impossible sounds of festive couples. I walked around for hours in the hope of seeing something that would lighten my burden – a meteorite crashing on Hampstead or a rascal beadle lashing a whore or a Russian peasant maltreating a mare. But I was out of luck. Then, as I happened to be close, I stumbled round to my parents’ house and discovered that they were throwing a party. They hadn’t told me. I don’t think I need to explain how I felt.