‘Darling, I should be making you one.’

‘You should not! Thank God, you look better. Have you slept at all?’

Fleur smiled. ‘Yes, I did. What about you?’

‘Mum, it’s five o’clock. I slept for nearly six hours!’

‘Wonderful! Do you feel better?’

‘I’m fine. I’m like Doctor Janus, far more worried about you…’

They stared at each other.

Here we are exchanging pleasantries to put off the moment of talking, of going back, of understanding what our lives really were then.

‘Can I get my tea and join you in bed, Mum?’ Nikki’s voice was small and childlike.

‘I’d love that,’ Fleur said, hearing her voice tremble with hope.

Singapore, 1976

Fleur and David had been to a dinner night and the taxi dropped them off at the entrance to the army quarters as the driver had to take another couple on to the RAF base at Serengoon. They were making their way unsteadily back to their own quarters, singing and giggling as they walked. It had been a good night and David was particularly happy as he had had a hint of early promotion. He skipped ahead of her, walking backwards serenading her.

‘Ssh, you idiot! You’ll wake everyone up.’

‘Can’t I sing to my beautiful wife?’

‘No, you can’t!’

He grinned, walking back towards her and scooping her up and twirling her round. ‘Did I tell you that you looked amazing tonight?’

‘No, actually!’

He looked down at her. ‘You always look amazing, Fleury. I have to spend all my evenings watching you being ogled…’

‘Ogled?’

‘Yes, definitely ogled…I watched you dancing all evening with the leery new doctor…and the colonel, and…’

‘Watched me all evening? I don’t think so, Captain Montrose. You, as usual, were propping up the bar with your cronies swapping flying stories, while your poor old wife had to be rescued from sitting like a droopy wallflower…’

‘Droopy wallflower!’ David gave a shriek of laughter. ‘The biggest little flirt on the army patch…’

‘I AM not!’

‘You are!’

‘Not!’

‘Are.’

They were running down the wide road beside the monsoon drain full of dried leaves which would soon be swollen and overflowing when the rains came. A huge moon kept appearing from behind clouds driven by a wind from the sea which brought the scent of oil and seaweed from the naval base below them.

Fleur lifted her long, pale dress and ran behind David in his tight dress uniform, the spurs on his boots making little clinking sounds as he moved. The colonel’s car drew level and he wound the window down to the amusement of his driver and waved his finger at them, his voice slightly slurred.

‘Time you children were in bed and not causing a disturbance in the gardens of the officers’ quarters. Be gone! To bed!’

‘Sir! At once!’ David picked Fleur up and began running towards their quarters singing the bandolier song.

They heard the colonel laugh behind them and the car purred away. Fleur twined her arms round David’s neck and said happily, ‘Put me down! You’re drunk and you’ll fall and break your nose.’