‘I don’t see why I should, do you? I mean do you care? Is this why you were all miserable, and bored the backside off Cuckoo?’

‘Because I hadn’t told you, and you’d have to see in the car with Desmond.’

‘Big deal. I really can’t see what you’re in such a tizzy for. My dad’s name is Jim, Arthur, Pollock; only he calls himself “Jeremy Steerforth”, and my mum is Jessy, Edna, but she called herself “Decca York”. It didn’t make a blind bit of difference; those were their stage names, but underneath they were still just Jim and Jessy. It didn’t alter anything: that was the tragedy. I don’t see what difference a name makes at all. I like you as Leni; that’s how I met you, and I like who you are as Leni If you think I’m about to start calling you Luise or his dotty Gräfin-whatever, you have another think coming. I don’t like change. It muddles me.’

‘I don’t want you to.’

‘Good. Because I won’t anyway.’ He picked up his towel and draped it round his shoulders. ‘See?’

She nodded. He crossed to her on bare feet, took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilted her head gently backwards, bent his head and pressed his lips to hers.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Very nice and sweet. Dayleecious. Are you a rich Countess, or whatever? Is that going to be a drag?

‘No. I’m poor. I ran away, you see.’

‘Yah. I ran away too. Tell you all about it later if you like. I’m going to have my bath, it’ll be overflowing. And I’m going to be really corrupt and listen to Ella Fitzgerald while I do.’ He kissed her again, and went into the bathroom leaving her standing in the middle of the floor with a beating heart. Suddenly he put his head round the door, steam drifted. ‘Leni,’ he said. ‘If I find you wearing a tiara in bed when I come back, I’ll chuck you, and it, over the balcony. So watch it!’

He had got pins and needles in his left arm some time ago. Gently he eased it from beneath her sleeping body: she murmured something, sighed deeply, rolled on to her side as he went from her bed and crossed to the balcony, fumbling for cigarettes and lighter on the dresser. Taking a cushion from the chintz chair, he put it on the balcony floor, sat down, his back against the folded shutters, rubbed his arm to restore circulation.