He looked at the spoon, as if he’d never seen one before. ‘Did you?’ he asked.

‘Cheek. Anyway, it’s you she really wants to see.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the front hall. ‘Go on.’

He dropped the spoon and walked off in a single movement. Slowly, keeping an ear out for voices, Vee dusted the sugar off the table and into a bowl. He was back before she’d finished sweeping the floor.

‘We’re going for a walk,’ he said.

‘All right.’

‘She’s only here until tonight.’

‘I know.’

He turned to go and then swung round again, took a step towards her and landed a clumsy kiss next to her ear. ‘See you later, Mar,’ he said.

Mild anarchy was in the air, the Heath full of aimless, grinning people. Someone had launched a makeshift raft on the mixed bathing pond, and a man with a clarinet was sitting on it cross-legged, playing ‘Begin the Beguine’, while another man played bongos on the bank. Two nurses were paddling in the shallows and a Dalmatian with a Union Jack tucked into its collar was running in wild circles.

They walked slowly, taking no particular route, talking in spurts, subjects approached randomly, dabbed at, pushed aside, like someone searching through an overstuffed drawer for a lost item.

‘Did you see dolphins on the crossing?’

‘I didn’t, but I saw flying fish, though they don’t really fly.’

‘No, it’s a misnomer, but I suppose “gliding fish” doesn’t have the same alliterative ring. Why are you smiling?’

‘Because you sound like Dr Simpkin.’

Two Spitfires and a Wellington crossed above them, keeping pace with each other, leaving the sky looking as if it had been scored with a fork.

‘What was he like when you first met him?’ asked Noel.

‘Charming. He made me laugh on an awful day. And he was still charming in Gibraltar. Was he kind to you?’

Noel thought about the answer for a second or two. ‘He made me want to see him again.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think he was a bad person?’

‘I think …’ Ida slowed. ‘I think he was someone who expected life to be easy, and had no resources when it turned out to be hard. It’s as my aunt says: you can’t eat charm.’

‘And do you think I look like him at all?’

She’d been waiting for the chance to study him properly, rather than snatching sideways glances; he was still an inch or so shorter than her, but with the gangling promise of greater height, and he had her own father’s ears and colouring, and her mother’s straight nose, and eyes like Dr Simpkin – though that clearly wasn’t genetically possible – and he looked likeable and interesting and at this moment rather hopeful.

‘A little, yes,’ she said. ‘And you have the same build – you’re definitely going to be tall.’

‘And you?’ he asked, pleased by this. ‘Do I look like you?’ He’d been relieved to see that her appearance was less like a drooping pre-Raphaelite and more like an auburn Jeanne d’Arc.