He speaks tonelessly, his shoulders slumped. We reach the entrance to the building and I pull open the heavy door. He gathers himself. “Thank you for encouraging her to eat, James. How come you couldn’t, by the way? Eat, I mean.”

“I was a POW in Germany. We were permanently hungry. It was quite overwhelming. In one of the compounds the men mobbed the soup cauldron, so the sergeant turned it over in front of them. Bang went their supper, all across the floor.”

Philip winced. “I’ve heard the guards could be terribly savage.”

“No, he was their own sergeant. A British airman. He had to do it, you see, to keep them in line henceforward. Anyway, I used to imagine all the enormous meals I’d have when it was all over—we all did. But when I went back to Alexandria straight after the war, I literally couldn’t stomach a proper plateful. So my wife’s mother made me little dishes to nibble at in my own time. She was very kind.”

He looks utterly blank, as if a wash of gray has passed over his face. “I didn’t know that,” he says slowly.

“There’s no reason why you should.”

He blinks a few times, nods.

“I’ll see you soon,” I say, stepping out into the air.

Without a word he closes the door.

When I get home I find Tom upstairs. He has brought the table and chair from his room out onto the landing, placed the chair on the table, and is now standing on the chair directly underneath the hatch to the attic.

“What on earth’s going on?”

“The roof’s been creaking.”

I listen.

“I can’t hear anything.”

“Obviously it’s not doing it right now.” He pushes up the hatch, and the chair teeters on the table.

I make a grab for the chair legs. “You could have fetched the attic ladder.”

“No way. I’m not going up on that roof again.” Grunting, he hauls himself into the attic. “Can’t see anything wrong,” he reports, his voice muffled. Then comes a shifting, bumping sound. “I’m bringing these boxes out. The ones with all your papers in. Everything will get ruined up here.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

So we manhandle several dirty, dusty boxes out of the attic and onto the landing, and he scrambles down. His face is sweaty, drawn, his eyes flat. I’ve seen this look many times in my life. It’s that of a young man who has just been thoroughly frightened.

“That creak must have been pretty impressive, Tom.”

“There were two separate creaks. They both went, UH-UH-UH. Really loud. Like in a Hammer horror. I thought the house was going to fall down.”

“Well, if it does, the creaks will warn us. Hopefully. Do you think they’ll be loud enough to wake us up?”

“Ah, seriously, Dad.”