‘Captain Collyer, Mrs Collyer.’ The steward greets them at the door to the dining room, ignoring Tom, who expects to be ignored. They are seated next to Mr and Mrs Forde, Major Rowland, the Reverend and Mrs Woodleigh, as usual. There have been four of these suppers so far, and Tom, who is neither spoken to nor expected to speak, has become minutely acquainted with the details of his fellow diners’ faces, their clothing and hands. Reverend Woodleigh has long, pale, smooth hands on which the heavy dark yellow staining – yellow ochre, Tom decides – from his cigarettes stands out like a wound. His wife’s ears have unusually long lobes. Major Rowland’s moustache partly hides a white scar. Mr Forde has a tic in one eye and a sharp, bobbing Adam’s apple. Tom goes to work on his plate of fish – bony and trapped in a claggy, cheesy sauce – and listens to the grown-ups talk. Reverend Woodleigh has just finished describing, for the third time, his work at a mission for unmarried ladies at Sangor. Mummy and Mrs Forde are discussing bridge. His father is telling Major Rowland about his time in the War. Tom knows about the War from five years of tea parties, of drinks on the verandah, of polo games. He also knows about polo, duck shooting in the Punjab, and pigsticking. He picks a bone out of his fish, and half listens to his father’s clipped voice.

‘Came out to India straight after Sandhurst, in ’10, Major. Stationed in Secunderabad – yes, that’s the one: N Battery. We were in France by the end of ’14. Caught some shrapnel at Loos. That was a business … You were there, of course. I got a Blighty one at La Boisselle. Wanted to go back to the front, but my lords and masters sent me to W Battery instead – India again. We were supposed to be sent to the Middle East but nothing came of it in the end. Meanwhile, I met my dear wife while on leave in Mussoorie; I rather think that I owe my good fortune to the shortage of eligible men in the hill stations that year, rather than my charms …’

‘Nonsense, darling,’ Tom’s mother puts in, automatically, and the major chuckles obligingly.

‘And then to Kerala,’ the major says, blotting claret out of his moustache with his napkin.

‘Yes. Evelyn’s uncle plants rubber down there. After the Armistice I went on the Reserve List, you know … at loose ends. Thought I’d try my hand.’