“Yes, a Fifteen,” I said, as casually as I could. “Papa trusts me with it, you know, even in the blackout.” I used to go to the mekaniki with Papa; he sat me on his knee so I could steer his old car out of the repair yard—I must have been eight—with the engine thundering. I felt like a mahout on a war elephant shouldering its way through ranks of beating drums.

“Ready,” Célia said, peering at her watch in the glow from her cigarette. “Go.”

I stamped on the gas and we screeched away from the curb. The needle bounced up to fifty, eighty, ninety. “Now!” I cried, as we reached a hundred kilometers an hour.

“Twenty-seven,” Célia said mournfully.

“Damn this war petrol.” I slowed the car to arrive at the junction with another milder screech of tires. The Citroën was meant to reach a hundred in twenty seconds, but it was ages since I’d done it. I pulled out onto the main street. A tram passed on the seafront road ahead. I glanced at James. His jaw was clenched and one hand was braced against the dashboard.

“Oh, no.” I put my hand to my mouth. “We didn’t warn you.”

“We were trying to beat the clock,” Célia said. “How awful we are.”

“Not at all,” James managed to say, tight-lipped. Which made us both, horrid, silly girls that we were, burst into hysterical laughter.

By way of apology I went along the Corniche at the speed of a hearse. I was overtaken by a gharry, for goodness’ sake, the horse going at a fast-shambling trot, head up, blinkered, the carriage full of Australians who whistled and clapped in derision—lady driver—as they passed us. The promenade cafés lay in shadow under a great big searchlight of a moon that was turning the sea into chain mail. I was glad of the roar of the Citroën. You needed something jarring, otherwise the beauty got ridiculous. On summer dawns when the water seemed weightless, rippling, smeared in golden mist, you needed a bit of a stink of fish.

Out of remorse at my thoughtless behavior and jackass-like mirth at his expense, I made an effort with James Acton.

“The pianist is Edouard Shama,” I said. “One of our oldest friends and the . . . Célia, what is entremetteur?”

“Matchmaker.”

“Matchmaker for Célia and Peter. Not knowingly, of course. But if Peter and Alastair hadn’t gone to the Parisiana that night to hear Edouard play, Peter would never have set eyes on Célia. We hardly ever go to nightclubs, you see. But Edouard invited us, and look what happened! Do you like the piano, James?”

Indeed he did. “I go whenever I can to hear Gina Bachauer play at the Rue Rassafa.”