He came back from the bar with a lemonade, a gin and French, two beers and a whisky.

‘I’m not much of a drinker,’ said Vee, when she realized that the gin was for her.

‘Why’s that?’ He’d already downed the whisky.

‘It was the way I was brought up, I suppose. Methodist.’

‘That like a Baptist?’

‘Like a Baptist but … without the baptizing.’

‘And they think drinking liquor’s a sin?’

‘No, not a sin, exactly. Frowned upon.’ Regarded, even by those Methodists who hadn’t actually signed the pledge, as an activity dangerously close to enjoyment.

‘I’m not frowning,’ said Mario, pushing up his cap so she could see his forehead, broad and pock-marked. ‘You see me frowning? If you take a sip, I won’t even peek.’

She wet her lips, just to be polite. It wasn’t as unpleasant as she remembered.

‘I’m a Catholic,’ he said. She nodded. When he’d paid for the Tube tickets she’d seen a picture of Jesus Christ in his wallet, one of those illustrations in which the Saviour was exposing His pierced heart with an oddly simpering expression. The corporal took the wallet out again now, paused momentarily over the painting, and then thumbed through and took out a couple of photographs. One showed a crowd of people standing in front of a shop, smiling at the camera.

‘This is our bakery, it’s called Bernardi’s – Bernardi was my grandfather’s name – but they call it Fat Pat’s because you put on ten pounds just looking in the window, and that’s my ma and pa’ – he hovered his forefinger above the photo – ‘those are my brothers, Michael, Pat junior, Iggy, Paul, Francesco, and their wives, and my sister, Carmen.’ Great cheerful slabs of men with the same large features as Mario, and buxom, shining women.

‘And this is my godson’s First Communion – those are cousins, mostly.’ A scrubbed small boy stood in a room full of yet more people with Mario’s chin.

‘Goodness – how many of you are there?’

‘A million. Maybe two.’ He grinned, drained one of his beers and reached for the second. ‘You got a big family?’

‘No.’ Only a mother and a grown son that she never saw; she felt the usual twist of the heart at the thought of Donald, that rosy, roaring baby who had patted her face and gurgled and grown into a young man who’d had no further need for her, who had brushed her off like lint from a coat. ‘Just my nephew,’ she added. Who wasn’t really her nephew, of course. She took another tiny sip of gin as the pub door opened yet again, admitting a ribbon of cold air and at least a dozen sailors. The noise level rose, so that she could hardly catch what Mario was talking about. Behind her, two girls were having a shouted conversation about someone called Dolly, while over Mario’s shoulder she could see a fair-haired GI nibbling the neck of a brunette, while the latter placidly checked her lipstick in a compact mirror.