‘I made a bargain with the Fascists,’ Lloyd said. ‘I said we’d refrain from marching if they would promise to do the same.’

‘I’m surprised they agreed,’ said Ethel. ‘Fascists love marching.’

‘They were reluctant. But I told the university authorities and the police what I was proposing, and the Fascists pretty much had to go along with it.’

‘That was clever.’

‘But Mam, guess who is their local leader? Viscount Aberowen, otherwise known as Boy Fitzherbert, the son of your former employer Earl Fitzherbert!’ Boy was twenty-one, the same age as Lloyd. He was at Trinity, the aristocratic college.

‘What? My God!’

She seemed more shaken than he had expected, and he glanced at her. She had gone pale. ‘Are you shocked?’

‘Yes!’ She seemed to recover her composure. ‘His father is a junior minister in the Foreign Office.’ The government was a Conservative-dominated coalition. ‘Fitz must be embarrassed.’

‘Most Conservatives are soft on Fascism, I imagine. They see little wrong with killing Communists and persecuting Jews.’

‘Some of them, perhaps, but you exaggerate.’ She gave Lloyd a sideways look. ‘So you went to see Boy?’

‘Yes.’ Lloyd thought this seemed to have special significance for Ethel, but he could not imagine why. ‘I thought him perfectly frightful. In his room at Trinity he had a whole case of Scotch – twelve bottles!’

‘You met him once before – do you remember?’

‘No, when was that?’

‘You were nine years old. I took you to the Palace of Westminster, shortly after I was elected. We met Fitz and Boy on the stairs.’

Lloyd did vaguely remember. Then, as now, the incident seemed to be mysteriously important to his mother. ‘That was him? How funny.’

Ruby put in: ‘I know him. He’s a pig. He paws maids.’

Lloyd was shocked, but his mother seemed unsurprised. ‘Very unpleasant, but it happens all the time.’ Her grim acceptance made it more horrifying to him.

They reached the chapel and went in through the back door. There, in a kind of vestry, was Robert von Ulrich, looking startlingly British in a bold green-and-brown check suit and a striped tie. He stood up and Ethel hugged him. In faultless English, Robert said: ‘My dear Ethel, what a perfectly charming hat.’

Lloyd introduced his mother to the local Labour Party women, who were preparing urns of tea and plates of biscuits to be served after the meeting. Having heard Ethel complain, many times, that people who organized political events seemed to think that an MP never needed to go to the toilet, he said: ‘Ruby, before we start, would you show my mother where the ladies’ facilities are?’ The two women went off.

Lloyd sat down next to Robert and said conversationally: ‘How’s business?’

Robert was now the proprietor of a restaurant much favoured by the homosexuals about whom Ruby had been complaining. Somehow he had known that Cambridge in the 1930s was congenial to such men, just as Berlin had been in the 1920s. His new place had the same name as the old, Bistro Robert. ‘Business is good,’ he answered. A shadow crossed his face, a brief but intense look of real fear. ‘This time, I hope I can keep what I’ve built up.’