‘OK, you want to go to a mushroom bar?’ asked Mario. ‘That’s what they’re calling them – they spring up in the night, some of them even have a band. There’s one around here somewhere.’ And they were off again, Vee taking four steps for every two of his so that by the time they got back to the Strand she had a stitch, and had to stop and lean against a lamp-post, like an inebriate, while Mario consulted a passing American sailor for directions.

‘Just up that side alley on the right,’ he said, returning to the circle of dim light in which she was standing. ‘You need me to carry you?’

‘Carry me? No, of course not. It’s just you’re a fast walker.’

‘I’m a fast dancer as well.’ He performed a little hop and a twirl, ridiculous but oddly graceful for someone so large, and she couldn’t help but smile. ‘You like dancing?’ he asked.

‘I used to,’ said Vee. ‘I think I’ve forgotten how.’ She could hear the music, now – the agonized squeal of a trumpet.

‘No one forgets,’ said Mario. ‘It’s like … what do you say over here? Laying an egg?’

‘Riding a bicycle. Everyone there will be half my age.’

‘Except for me, and who cares, anyhow? Aw … come on.’ He held out a hand like a shovel and Vee took it. It was so easy, she thought, as he led her towards the music; he was so easy – a printed postcard, when every other man she’d ever known was a sealed letter filled with blank pages or mystifying codes. And perhaps you didn’t always have to worry about every damned thing, every second of the day; perhaps sometimes you could just dance.

It was after midnight when she arrived home. She let herself in through the back door, and groped along the scullery passage, hesitating when she saw a wavering light on the wall ahead.

‘Hello?’ she called softly.

‘It’s me,’ said Noel. He was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing an old blue dressing-gown over his clothes, a brick of a book open in front of him, and a candle burning. Vee had a sudden memory of coming home late after a dance in St Albans, twenty-odd years before, and her mother bearing much the same rather pursed expression.

‘You didn’t have to stay up,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t tired. How did you get back?’

‘A friend of Mario’s gave us a lift.’ A US Army motor-car, holding at least eight people, a jolting, draughty and hilarious journey, everyone singing, a toothy ATS girl screaming whenever the driver braked.

‘I didn’t hear a vehicle,’ said Noel, sounding like a policeman.

‘The driver wouldn’t come down the lane – he said the ruts would tear the bottom out. The corporal walked me back.’ He had taken her arm on the muddy track, and saved her from a couple of spills – not that she was tiddly, it was just that after two hours of dancing she felt as if her feet had been savagely broken and then carelessly re-set – and when they’d got to Green Shutters Mario had said, ‘Keep a look-out for that turkey!’ and then plunged off into the darkness of the Heath, apparently intent on walking to Camden guided only by moonlight and a failing torch with a bulb like a glow-worm.