‘We can light a fire here,’ he said, already hunting for sticks. ‘The Hampstead Boy Scouts use it quite often.’

‘Are you a Scout?’

‘No,’ said Noel, with disdain.

‘I was, once. I had a fight with the Scoutmaster’s son, and was thrown out. Do you need some help with that? It’s just that every time I lean over, I start coughing …’

‘No, it’s all right, I’ll do it.’

Quickly and neatly, conscious of having an audience, Noel laid and lit a fire. The sticks were dry and the flames almost smokeless.

‘That’s the ticket,’ said Sim, taking off his mittens and holding his palms to the warmth. ‘Very slick indeed. You’re quite the woodsman.’

Noel carried on gathering fuel until he had a decent pile, and then he gathered some more, since the alternative was to sit down and engage in a conversation that was too enormous to contemplate. ‘The fine young woman who gave birth to you,’ Mattie had said, ‘was not in a position to raise a child, and she decided that the best place for you to grow up would be here, with me, and there is not a minute of the day, young Noel – not even a second – when her decision fails to bring me joy, and I daily mouth an encomium to the soundness of her judgement. Encomium? Latin for “speech of praise”, though the word is originally derived from the Greek – think of those two tongues as jigsaw pieces from which we construct the broad and colourful picture of the English language. With odd gaps for Celtic words, of course.’ She had never said anything about his father, and Noel had never thought to ask.

‘Well, this is a feast!’ said Sim, laying the contents of the string bag along the log, and unscrewing the lid of the pickled beetroot.

‘Why haven’t you come to see me before?’ asked Noel.

‘Didn’t know you existed.’ He extracted a piece of beetroot with his fingers, and swallowed it whole, like an oyster. ‘Do you know, when I was a little boy, I once drank a whole cup of vinegar.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I never could resist a dare.’ He grinned and patted the seat next to him, and Noel, instead, sat on the next log, so that he could see the whole of Sim’s face. There was a brightness to it that drew the eye.

‘I’ll tell you the story,’ said Sim, between bites of chicken. ‘We were docked in Gibraltar for repairs. I came down with the lurgy and the ship’s doctor had me transferred to the hospital – lucky me, half-decent food and nurses flitting round, I was in clover if only I’d known it, only I was off my head half the time. When I was starting to feel better they moved me to another ward and while they were tucking me in, up came the Sister – tall, striking redhead, like Queen Elizabeth processing along the Mall, patients springing to attention, junior nurses practically salaaming—’