Daisy fought back tears. ‘You promised me you would give them up!’ she said. She wanted to be coldly angry, like the avenging angel, but she could hear that her voice was just wounded and sad.

Boy reddened and looked panicked. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

The older woman said: ‘Oh, fuck, it’s his wife.’

Her name was Pearl, Daisy recalled, and the daughter was Joanie. How dreadful that she should know the names of such women.

The maid came to the door of the room and said: ‘I didn’t let the bitch in, she just shoved past me!’

Daisy said to Boy: ‘I tried so hard to make our home beautiful and welcoming for you – and yet you prefer this!’

He started to say something, but had trouble finding his words. He sputtered incoherently for a moment or two. Then a big explosion nearby shook the floor and rattled the windows.

The maid said: ‘Are you all deaf? There’s a fucking air raid on!’ No one looked at her. ‘I’m going down the basement,’ she said, and she disappeared.

They all needed to seek shelter. But Daisy had something to say to Boy before she left. ‘Don’t come to my bed again, ever, please. I refuse to be contaminated.’

The girl on the couch – Joanie – said: ‘It’s only a bit of fun, love. Why don’t you join in? You might like it.’

Pearl, the older one, looked Daisy up and down. ‘She’s got a nice little figure.’

Daisy realized they would humiliate her further if she gave them the chance. Ignoring them, she spoke to Boy. ‘You’ve made your choice,’ she said. ‘And I’ve made my decision.’ She left the room, holding her head high even though she felt debased and spurned.

She heard Boy said: ‘Oh, damn, what a mess.’

A mess? she thought. Is that all?

She went out of the front door.

Then she looked up.

The sky was full of planes.

The sight made her shake with fear. They were high, about ten thousand feet, but all the same they seemed to block the sun. There were hundreds of them, fat bombers and waspish fighters, a fleet that seemed twenty miles wide. To the east, in the direction of the docks and Woolwich Arsenal, palls of smoke rose from the ground where the bombs were landing. The explosions ran together into a continuous tidal roar like an angry sea.

Daisy recalled that Hitler had made a speech in the German parliament, just last Wednesday, ranting about the wickedness of RAF bombing raids on Berlin, and threatening to erase British cities in retaliation. Apparently he had meant it. They were intending to flatten London.

This was already the worst day of Daisy’s life. Now she realized it might be the last.

But she could not bring herself to go back into that house and share their basement shelter. She had to get away. She needed to be at home where she could cry in private.