‘Oh yes, Dora. It’s just I’ve so much to tell you. Well, then, all of a sudden, there was this crowd in front of us. In the middle of the street they were, yelling. Pierre stopped and I stood up on the driving seat to look. I heard, quite distinctly, a woman’s screams in all the kerfuffle. It was her, you see,’ Joe said. ‘Dora Simon. And after the soldiers got her away, I went to the Red Cross and asked for her address. I said I was a priest and I wanted to write to her. They gave it to me.’

‘And did you write?’

‘I meant to,’ Joe said. ‘But then there was all the business in Ireland when I went back home and I never got round to it. But you wouldn’t know about that, how would you? I’ll tell you some other time. I kept her address, though God knows why.’

A gob of rain splattered on Joe’s head.

‘You just said, you’ve so much to tell me. What did you mean?’

‘Did I now?’ Joe said. He could feel a blush firing up. ‘Well, you know, if we are–’ He paused, searching for the words. He never imagined he’d have to talk about this and wasn’t sure how to start.

‘We are what?’ Barbara said. She had been smiling, but her face went solemn. ‘Oh Joe, you don’t think–’

‘Will you come inside now,’ he said. ‘Or we’ll all be soaked and catch our death.’

He turned and walked towards the path. He couldn’t remember happiness, but this seemed close to it. But Barbara’s face, now. Was it puzzlement to be read there, or anguish?

Chapter Seventeen: Dora

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DORA

Hotel Maison Victor Hugo, Jersey: June 1985

Dora was throwing out the contents of the boxes, so the tinsel and the paper chains spewed out across the floor. Make a mess. Derange the place, jumble up the tendrils of memory in a cat’s cradle of madness. She took a long drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out on the dusty floor. She lit a new one and threw the match down. Her neck had tensed and the tendons in her arms and legs were stiff and tight. The match caught the tinsel, began to flicker. She threw the cigarette on the floor, watched the snake of smoke rise and curl. She fished for her matches again, lit the paper chains, saw the black, waving fumes as the flames slithered along their quarry.