Bertie continued to kick, but then he arrived and proved to be a very good-natured baby. He seldom cried, even if he had a slightly puzzled expression from an early age, his eyes following his mother around the room as if he was in some way wary of her. Irene was thrilled with him; every day was a new challenge in which Bertie could be taught something new – the Italian word for something, or the composer of the opera he was being played, or the name, and Köchel number, of the piece of Mozart to which they were listening.

And then, a short while after Bertie’s sixth birthday, Irene’s second son arrived. Ulysses was not planned; in some respects, in fact, he was extremely unplanned, but once his existence was established, Irene put a brave face on it.

‘Did we mean to get pregnant?’ asked Stuart, mildly. ‘I thought that …’

‘These things happen,’ said Irene briskly.

‘But …’

Irene cut him short. ‘There is one thing we must never do, Stuart,’ she warned. ‘And that is to do so much as breathe a word that this child is unwanted. It is so easy to communicate that to a child inadvertently, even if one actually says nothing – one has to be really, really careful. Capisce?’

‘Si,’ said Stuart. ‘Però …’

‘Allora,’ said Irene. ‘Enough. Silenzio.’

6. The Ways of Ulysses

It was Bertie who first noticed that Ulysses bore a striking resemblance to Dr Hugo Fairbairn, the noted child psychotherapist and author of Shattered to Pieces: Ego Dissolution in a Three-Year-Old Tyrant. Initially he had not been able to make much of Ulysses’s face, and could detect no similarities to anybody, such was the formlessness – fluidity, even – of his brother’s physiognomy. This impression was shared by Tofu. A few days after he had paid a visit to the Pollock flat in Scotland Street and seen Ulysses for the first time, Bertie’s friend had passed him a note in the classroom, saying: Your little brother is really ugly, Bertie, don’t you think? You know what his face reminds me of? A bottom! Bertie had torn the note up and pointedly ignored Tofu for the rest of the lesson. But at the end of the class, Tofu had approached him and asked, ‘Did you read my note, Bertie? Did you?’

‘It was very rude,’ said Bertie. ‘You should never say that anybody else looks like a bottom. It’s rude.’

‘Even if he does?’ asked Tofu.