Fortunately, his service in the RAF had given him a support network of ex-military pilots, one of the strongest in the world. He was now an aircraft dealer, selling French two-seater helicopters to pop stars and style-conscious business tycoons. But his real passion was saloon-car racing at Brand’s Hatch. He had twice been banned for dangerous track manoeuvres, the same dangerous driving to which he treated every suburban dual carriageway. He drove in a deliberately careless way, as if trying to express a casual nothingness. Cut off from his past in China, which both of us had begun to forget, and with no roots in England, he watched the few real elements in his life abandon him as his parents died and wartime friends retired to Australia and South Africa.

Concerned for David, I wanted to help him, just as I wanted to steer Sally away from her needles, but I was too busy with the children. When they strolled arm in arm towards the flying-club bar I began to follow them, and felt Henry tug at my arm. He had the sense to know that we should leave them alone and was far more interested in the lines of vintage flying machines drawn up on the grass, each a conjuring trick to trump the wind. Glad to be together, we spent the afternoon roaming the air show.

At the end of the day, when we returned to the car park, David’s Jaguar and Sally had gone. I assumed that David had given her a lift to her flat in Bayswater. The scent of her body still filled the interior of our car, imprinted on the seat beside me like an almost visible photograph of affection and desire. I thought of her as we pushed through the traffic returning to London. Tailbacks blocked both lanes, and warning beacons flashed from the roof of a police cruiser parked on the grass verge.

Two cars had collided in the approaches to Chertsey Bridge, and windscreen glass speckled the road. We moved forward, waved on in a theatrical way by a police patrolman, as if we were film extras late for the day’s shooting. Through the oncoming traffic I could see the first of the damaged cars, a London taxi carrying two Japanese air stewardesses and their suitcases. Watched by a police sergeant, the cabdriver was examining his crushed headlights and radiator grille. The young Japanese women stood beside him, squinting at the English sunlight in an almost guilty way.