“You haven’t?” This was clearly a serious omission, one I should have rectified before signing the film contract or, more sensibly still, before writing a line of the book. She shook her head, as if I were still the odd little boy who had cycled all over Shanghai in search of a war. “Anyway, it’s a big help for your career. You were always telling stories. Your poor mother didn’t know what was coming next…”

“This is the only book I’ve written about Shanghai—for some reason, it took a long time.”

“Too much to forget, people don’t realise … the things I could tell about Shanghai. You and I should write a book, James, a real bestseller. My ideas and your—”

“One is enough, Olga. I might write a sequel about my life in England.”

“England?” Doubtfully, Olga sniffed her Scotch. “Is it so interesting? I read about your wife—that’s sad for you.”

“That was a long time ago. I’ll treat you to lunch, Olga, and you can bring me up to date.”

“Listen, it’s never long enough. When my mother passed away…” As an afterthought, she added: “My second husband died. An English dentist in Hong Kong, so I understand.”

On our way to the rooftop restaurant she held my arm in a genuine show of sympathy, evoked almost entirely by her feelings of pity for herself. Responding to the attentions of the restaurant, she was soon as animated as a teenager, showing off her smooth cheeks and trimmed nose. The young Olga I remembered, whose body I had tried to glimpse as she undressed in the bathroom, seemed to beckon across the years from this ageing but still glamorous woman. She spoke with scarcely a pause for breath about her years in Hong Kong and Manila, battling her way to the top of the social hill as husbands died under her like horses under a cavalryman at Austerlitz.

When we returned to the suite she said: “James, your book made a lot of interest in San Francisco—many people from Shanghai are living there. Perhaps you could give a talk to us. You could say I was your family’s friend. Maybe in the diplomatic service…”

“Olga, I’d like to, but even writing about Shanghai was difficult enough.”

“Of course. I know your feelings. We were always close, James. You never told your mother about those things I took—the silver and the jade horses … I always wanted to thank you for that.”

“Olga, I never knew.”

“Maybe you forgot. They had so much, and my parents were hungry every day. My father lost all his hope, sitting in that little room. It’s lucky he died before the war came. My mother forgave me—women understand—but a father? Never…”