‘No, by chance. She was a dressmaker and had a shop – very fashionable – and she always said that my mother had been one of her customers. It might be true. But I was all alone on the waterfront in amongst thousands of other people, and she heard me singing a song. She said it reminded her of her sister, who had died. I don’t know if that was really true. I think it was just her kind heart. She had a beautiful soul.’

‘So do you.’

‘No. Not really. I worry about myself. Am I good? Am I happy? Do I have enough money? Mama didn’t think like that. She didn’t think about herself.’

‘You risked your life for me last night,’ Tom says. ‘I know about selfish people – I would say I’m a bit of an expert – and you are not one of them.’

‘Why such an expert?’

‘Because I’m my father’s son. My dear father is a monster of selfishness.’

‘A monster? Really?’

‘Well, perhaps that’s overdoing it. He isn’t Doctor Crippen or anything.’

‘Crippen?’

‘Someone who murdered his wife. My father didn’t kill Mum, he just left her for another woman.’ Zoë’s face tells him that this is not so unusual. ‘Ah, but though he went off with this atrocious person, set up house with her in London and everything, he refused and still refuses to give my mother a divorce. My mother has the money, you see. Daddy had a small inheritance that he spent years ago and he doesn’t have a penny of his own. So he’s still married to Mum and bleeds her dry. The horrible thing is, he is absolutely shameless about it, as though it’s nothing more than what he’s owed. The last time I saw my father, after he told me he’d got me into the Horse Artillery, he spent the rest of the time complaining about how the war had stopped him and the ghastly Mrs Leeds from enjoying themselves in Monte Carlo.’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘I know, it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through. The trials of the English upper middle class … You’re meant to pat my wrist now and say “you poor thing”.’

‘You poor thing!’

‘Thanks.’ He kisses her, and they lie like that for a while, under the sheet, limbs tangled, drifting.

‘Do you think we should get up?’ Time, in his gun troop, had been a torturer’s rack. His body has learnt that drifting is not allowed. Right at the edge of sleep, it has propelled him into quivering, almost painful alertness. ‘What time is it?’

‘It is … How strange. I don’t know,’ says Zoë, stirring beside him. ‘It is Tuesday, isn’t it?’

‘I have no idea,’ says Tom.