During the break, when the players were milling about at the end of the hall, she saw that Feliks was standing by himself, awkwardly alone. She had been talking to one of the brass players, but excused herself and walked over to her protégé. But just before she reached him, one of the violinists, a young woman whom she knew very little about – one of the transient, floating population of wartime – went up to him. La stood quite still. She saw this young woman smiling, sharing a joke with him, and the sight filled her with anxiety.

She pretended to be consulting her notebook, but she was watching. The young woman reached forward and laid a hand on his forearm in a gesture of reassurance, it seemed, or in the way in which one will emphasise a point. He was smiling, she noticed, responding to the young woman; smiling and nodding his head.

La turned away. She felt confused. Why should she be jealous of his conversation with this young woman? He was nothing to her; and yet she had gone to Cambridge to buy him a flute, an expensive present by any standards, and she had found herself strangely excited by the thought of giving the instrument to him. It was as if the gift bound them together in some way, which it should not because she did not want to be bound to anybody, not now.

At the end of the practice, La busied herself with administrative tasks: consulting the conductor about his diary, noting down dates, handing out a musical score. Then suddenly she was aware that Feliks was there, standing close to her, the flute case tucked under his arm. His clothing, she noticed, was poor. He had changed out of his working clothes for the practice, but the collar of his shirt was ill fitting and had been turned inside out to hide its age, she thought.

He looked at her, his gaze fixed on her, serious, almost reproachful.

‘You are cross with me for some reason,’ he said. ‘You pretend not to notice me.’

She looked at him with what was meant to be astonishment. ‘Of course I’m not cross with you.’

He went on. ‘It’s because I was talking to that woman, isn’t it?’

La wanted to turn away. By what right does he imagine that I’m interested in him? she asked herself. Then he said: ‘I was talking about the music we were playing. That’s all.’

She stared at him.

8

He came to her house. It was in the evening, a few days after the practice at which they had had that unsettling conversation. She was in her sitting room, at the back of the house. There were still the last rays of the sun on the trees and the light had that faded, soft quality that one sees, almost feels, on a summer evening. Drowsy – she felt drowsy. The wireless was on, bringing the news from those far-off places, now so familiar, that some people marked on little maps pinned to their walls.