‘Because Hamburg is near to here, that’s why. I had to have an excuse to come and so I said that my Granny was ill and alone, and asking for me. I cannot dazzle you with originality, Horst my dear, that I can see! But that is the sort of girl he thinks I am, and there are a great many of them about in this brave Germany of today. Relics of the Great Fraternization Period, you remember? After the Cold War time. It all fits in well for Leni Minx. I have been very thorough.’

‘That awful name. Why?’

‘I think it is so good. Simple.’

‘It is unbelievable.’

‘Not when you hear my English accent. Fantastic!’

‘And this boy, this man, whoever he is, is quite happy with the clichécreature which you have invented?’

‘Yes, quite. What you don’t understand is that I have only invented the background, not the creature. She is just as I always have been underneath my correct Mecklenburger surface, only none of you ever knew that … not even you who were the closest.’

Horst lay back in the wicker chair, ran his hands over his face, and when he looked down at her again he was smiling. ‘I don’t suppose that I shall ever understand you. Or what you are doing, or even why, properly. The guilt … that, yes, I suppose that I can understand that, but so many people of your generation have overcome that perfectly comfortably without going to such extremes. I can’t believe that your life here was so restricted, so Victorian, so unhappy … perhaps it was. I cannot tell. But one thing does reassure me and that is your determination to succeed in whatever idiotic life you have selected for yourself. That determination is in your blood, the despised heritage, it is the family strength. You will survive at all costs, and one day, as I have said, I am certain that you will come back to us. Certain. But as you said, my generation is closer to the last and we believe still in a future, however obscure.’

He leant forward and took her hand between his large ones. ‘But don’t lose me altogether. Sometimes just a postcard, a note … nothing too demanding. I shall not pry. I love you too well for that; only keep in touch now and again. That’s fair, isn’t it?’

She nodded. ‘That’s fair.’ She bent and kissed his hands, holding them against her cheek for a moment.

‘Just one thing more,’ he said. ‘Promise me that you are truly happy?’

She nodded firmly. ‘I am truly happy. Thank you.’