And the Toast to Horst. Touching, idiotic, solemn, as it should be: with the searchlight sweeping beyond the hill. And after, on the terrace, coffee and cognac, midges spiralling upwards, the air soft, bats swooping, soft rustle of silk, Agnes, Isobel and Annie laughing together, the wavering blue flame under the coffee pot. Mamma’s strong arm, pouring. The scent of cigars from the men still talking in the saloon, the rumble of their conversation blurring the wist fulness of ‘Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss,’ from the record-player as Horst started the ‘Concert’. Sentimentality, nostalgia, sticky sweetness seeping out into the stillness of the evening. Time coming in like a tide, and I trapped in their cave of harmony. The searchlight flicking rhythmically across the far skyline, the diffused beam of a lighthouse, the water of hated-familiarity lapping at my feet, swirling about my ankles, mounting to my shins, higher and higher, colder and colder, to my waist, my chest. Panic growing. I would suffocate there, I would drown.

‘Luise!’ Elisabeth’s voice, crisp as a rip through calico. ‘You look so bored. Or tired? Tired perhaps after yesterday. A long trip. London-Hamburg …’ she turned to the women ‘… and then that frightful drive on to Lübeck. It takes hours. Agnes dear? More coffee? Sugar? The brown or the little coloured kind?’

And walking away from them to the far end of the terrace under the lime trees, leaving the relics of the Last Supper. A Judas. Above me, a moth in the trembling leaves, the music far away, diffused. Breathing again, the tide ebbing but the red glimmer of a cigar and Dr Langerdorf coming towards me, a glass in his hand.

‘Luise? Hiding away? Elisabeth says that you are tired from the journey yesterday. Flying is most distasteful, I find. One travels steerage now.’

‘No. Not tired really. Too much to eat. I forget how much we Germans eat.’

‘And in England they do not eat well?’

‘Yes, well … lighter.’

‘Roast beef, I think?’

‘I think that I am not quite adjusted; my stomach is not adjusted. Is that brandy you have there? May I?’

‘Please!’ He offered her the balloon. ‘The flying does that, of course. It upsets one’s balance: I try to avoid it when I can, but …‘A helpless spread of thick fingers. ‘In business one must be quick, isn’t that so? And when I was a young man, oh so many years ago now alas, when I was young I loved it. It was my passion. But that was then, a different time, of course: now it is like a trip on a filthy bus, nothing more.’

‘You were a pilot? In the war? Horst said …’

‘So long ago. Yes. With your Papa indeed. He was very brave, very daring, we all admired him greatly.’

‘He never spoke of it. Mamma does, sometimes.’