His voice was a little clipped but in perfect tune. For the first couple of lines, the bar staff in the background were talking, but they fell silent very quickly. Everyone stared at him, including me – I couldn’t believe how good his voice was. He could really sing. ‘… I’ll wait for you, the whole term through …’ The young woman came back into the room with another oval foil platter on which she had fanned out pieces of cake, each in its own individual napkin. Arrested by Matthew’s singing, she stopped just inside the door.

Jamie began an accompaniment, blowing through pressed lips to mimic a low brass instrument sound. Adrian’s wife, standing next to him, started to sing along in a querulous treble, murmuring when she couldn’t get the words right. ‘Lili Marlene’ is one of those old tunes lots of people seem able to hum along to even if they don’t know it. If you had parents or grandparents who grew up in this country during the war, it’s in the collective subconscious, somehow, from old films on television at the weekends, perhaps: the romance of wartime in black and white. Lamplight. Lost love. Barricades.

Several of the others were humming along now. Gillian had stopped trying to touch Jamie’s arm and was staring at Matty. Jasmine was too, her mouth agape, and she looked to the people either side of her with wide eyes, as if for confirmation. Only I knew Matty had done it to rescue me from being the centre of attention. See, I thought.

As he finished the final line, staring at me the whole while, his voice rose, quavering, ‘My Lisa of the staff room, My on-ly, Mar-lene!’ ‘Lene’ was a whole octave higher – he hit the final note clean. By now, he had both elbows raised and his hands pressed to his chest. He froze in that position.

There was a moment’s pause, then everyone went berserk. A young man behind the bar cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, ‘Bravo, mate, bravo!’ My friends whooped and applauded. Rosaria, on my left, shoved her shoulder into mine, knocking me sideways. Everyone looked at me as if they were expecting me to cry. Matty looked down at me, and bowed.