‘At least four hours, Mrs Simmonds,’ slurped Dovidl, winking at me over the wicked rim of his Wedgwood-blue teacup.

‘You see, Mortimer?’ exclaimed my mother, expertly wound up. ‘You’re driving the boy to a breakdown.’

‘My dear Violet,’ said my father, spreading marmalade equably on brown-bread toast, ‘you may rest assured that I have David’s best interests at heart. Like you, I stand towards him in loco parentis and I shall take every care to shield him from overwork.

‘However, you must remember, Violet, that the boy is an artist and I am his manager. I have put all my resources and experience at his disposal, and I am happy to say that he is following my advice attentively – and still finding enough time, I hear, for a certain amount of recreation. Miss Winter told me she saw him queuing at the Everyman Cinema earlier this week with what she described as “a rather forward young lady”.’

Dovidl gave a self-satisfied grin, murmuring for my mother’s benefit, ‘A college friend, impeccably respectable family.’

‘So you see, Violet,’ Father continued, ‘this is no longer first and foremost our domestic concern. It’s business. The boy is in good hands, about to become a man. And a man’s got to do what his manager tells him to. David, may I remind you of the photo-session tomorrow morning? Be ready at nine thirty. Dark suit and white shirt, please. Violet, will you make sure they have been freshly pressed?’

The fruits of that photo-shoot appeared across pages four and five of the News Chronicle, captioned ‘Playing on Heart Strings’. Daringly open-necked in a gleaming white shirt, Eli Rapoport sat on the arm of a park bench, gazing over the barren slopes of Hampstead Heath, growing daily into his new public identity and away from the Dovidl I knew.

In March, my father told The Times that Eli Rapoport would play, in addition to Bach, the world première of a new ‘Peace Concerto’ by the modern, though melodic, composer, Vladimir Kuznetsov. New music was usually a box-office frost, but Kuznetsov had just been chosen by Laurence Olivier, ahead of the declining William Walton, to work on the soundtrack of a projected Paradise Lost; and interest in Rapoport was now so high that his début had been extended to a week-long series at the Royal Albert Hall. On 31 March, I was sent to paste ‘Returns Only’ sashes across gigantic placards, taking care to avoid the level stare of Dovidl’s deep-set eyes, which hypnotised Kensington passers-by.