‘I’m an old maid,’ she said.

‘Wine and women,’ Charles said. ‘Best matured.’

She said she’d think about his proposal.

She hadn’t, of course. What would she do marrying Charles? He was more like a brother than a friend. Never a lover. He and Uncle Otto had met on the train out of Berlin in 1933. Half Otto’s age, and two years older than Dora, Charles was a short man, smiley and tubby, with a round face and crinkly hair. He’d wasted no time in anglicising his name – no longer Karl Rosenberg but Charles Ross – and himself, and didn’t so much speak English, she’d say to him, as articulate it with a careful, exaggerated accent.

Marriage was out of the question, to Charles, or anyone.

Would she have told a sister, if she’d had one, about the war? Sworn her to secrecy? She used to think so, but not now. She was used to her burden, carried it around wherever she went. Her memories were all she had in the world. Sometimes she thought of them crammed into a Gladstone, or a carpet bag, something soft and shapeless that expanded, with secret pockets and compartments.

But she liked Charles. He was fun, and funny. They spent hours these days talking about the old times. She’d open her bag then, rummage through the top layers, leave the false bottom untouched. She’d forgotten sometimes what she’d hidden there.

Charles had had a good war. Had volunteered to fight with the British when he was released from internment. A friendly enemy alien, they called him. Pioneer Corps. Then RAF. He became a pilot. Uncle Otto had told her this.

‘The only German-Jewish pilot, apart from Heinie Adam. Imagine, Doralein. That we should know him.’

‘Just as well I never had to jump,’ Charles said once. ‘I’d have pulled the wrong bloody cord on the parachute.’

Never mind what would have happened if he’d had to bail out. Shot on the spot. They knew that now. He’d been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. Sergeant Charles Ross. DFM. He’d shrugged.

‘Nothing to it. Those Tiffys flew themselves. Clever machines.’

But he was being modest, Dora knew. He’d flown more times than fate permitted. He never talked about the war, but he never missed the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day. How had he felt as he climbed into the cockpit and pulled his goggles over his eyes? She could taste the fear, the adrenalin, the metal tang of bravery. He’d fought, and survived and killed at a distance and, yes, he’d had a good war.

‘Your war?’ he asked.

‘My war? A woman’s war.’ Make do and mend.

‘You’re lucky your hair was fair,’ Charles said. ‘And you could pass for a goy.’