But the hospital dance, now, that was another thing. A charity event. She slipped the invitation in an envelope, cut the stamp on the diagonal, posted it. She waited for the mail next day, but nothing came, nor by second post either. Nor the next day. He wasn’t coming. He didn’t mean it when he’d said, come again. Well. Forget him. That’s it. She’d go alone. Besides, it wasn’t professional to go out with a man whose daughter had been a patient. The last thing she wanted was to be struck off. Trapped. No work. Who’d protect her then?

She heard the band before she even rounded the corner. Band? Just a trumpet and a bass from the sound of it, but enough for her to sway and tap with the life of the rhythm. Nurses weren’t obliged to be there, Matron had said, but it would be a gesture of goodwill to attend, for our benefactors, once the war is over.

Dora had put on a yellow summer dress, let her hair down so it fell in coils around her face, best foot forward in an elegant patent pump that she’d had from before the war. She drew a seam up the back of her bare leg. Managed to scratch out a dab of colour from the empty lipstick and squeeze the last of the perfume from her bottle of Chanel, a present from Uncle Otto.

The dance was in the dining room, the tables stacked at one end, the orchestra on a raised dais opposite. Charles Janvrin and his All Star Band. They used to play at the Pomme d’Or before the Germans came, and then there had been seven of them. Now they were two. The nurses stood along one side of the hall. The men hung around on the other wall. One or two were even smoking, a sliver of smoke unfurling from their cupped palms.

Dora smiled at her colleagues, walked closer to the podium. A woman had appeared on stage now, nodded to the trumpeter. Dora recognised her from the Pomme d’Or. Her voice was mellow and she swayed with the rhythm. Rita. Dora wrapped her arms around herself and swung her hips left, right, left. Rita Fitzroy, that was her name. Dora turned to smile at the others and came face to face with Mr Laurent.

‘I didn’t see you,’ she said, a livid heat reddening her cheeks.

‘May I have the pleasure?’