‘Isn’t she?’ he asked. ‘How come?’

Noel felt his face grow cold. ‘No. That isn’t … I didn’t mean that. Of course she is.’ A box of secrets, locked for four years, and idly, carelessly, he’d let it fall; even without opening the lid, he could hear the pieces rattling. ‘It was just an erroneous interjection,’ he said, panicking. ‘A semantic error. Axiomatic of fatigue.’

‘However tired I was, I don’t think I’d say my aunt wasn’t my aunt,’ said Sim, and for the first time that morning, his attention seemed fully fixed on Noel. ‘So if she’s not actually your aunt—’

The canteen doors swung open and a group of Highlanders walked out in a miasma of sweat and bacon. His father waited until they’d gone past.

‘—so if she’s not actually your aunt, then who is she? What’s her name again?’

And because Noel had momentarily been back in the world of dodge-and-run, he hesitated for just a tiny instant, to stop his lips from pursing to form the word ‘Vee’.

‘Margery Overs,’ he said, slightly too loudly.

There was a pause.

‘Are you absolutely sure?’ asked his father, and although he was smiling, Noel could almost hear the clink of handcuffs because the smile was a little too interested, and his own hesitation had felt as much a confession as a signed statement and a mug-shot. No longer trusting himself, he nipped his tongue between his teeth, and nodded, just as a cheer came from the canteen. Chairs scraped, there was a scramble of footsteps, and the corridor was suddenly filled with jubilant Poles.

‘Varsaw liberated!’ said an airman in answer to Sim’s question, and Noel said ‘Gratulacje. To jest dobre,’ and was immediately kissed on both cheeks by a succession of officers, one of whom gave him an unopened bar of chocolate and two packets of cigarettes.

‘Good God,’ said Sim, as the Poles disappeared up the stairs. ‘I can see you’re a useful chap to know. So, shall we go to the Serpentine?’

‘But I thought you had to leave.’

‘Well, perhaps I could stay for a little longer. After all, I’ve missed fourteen years of being your father.’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Fifteen, sorry. Now tell me, this … this “aunt” of yours, does she take care of you properly?’

‘Yes.’ Involuntarily, Noel raised a hand to his handknitted scarf, the colour of verdigris. ‘Yes, she does. And I’m afraid I really do have to go. You’re right about playing truant. I mustn’t. She’ll be angry.’ Even to his own ears, the excuses sounded false, the short sentences like a series of coded telegrams which, given more time, his father couldn’t fail to decipher. And Noel knew, now, that he couldn’t have both Simeon and Vee, and that the choice between them really wasn’t a choice at all.

‘Take these,’ he added, thrusting the chocolate and cigarettes at Sim, and then he turned and ran – actually ran – because he couldn’t stand the prospect of hearing Sim calling after him, as Vee had done that morning. Or, even worse, perhaps, not calling after him.