He was very surprised. “Really?” he asked eagerly. “That’s wonderful! But how come a girl … well, you know…”

“Because of my brother,” I told him. “My film-mad, motor-car mad brother.”

Aidan was interested. He sat down on the floor in the narrow space, braced his feet against the house wall and lit a cigarette. “So he had a motorcycle, did he?”

“No!” I tried not to sound scornful of the idea. “He had a bicycle. But one day during the war, when he was about twelve, a soldier stopped at the Lamb and Flag for a drink of water. All the boys wanted a ride on his motorcycle, of course. The poor soldier had to fight them off. And ever since that day, Frank went on and on about getting a motorcycle.”

“And he never did?”

I shook my head. “But he did rent one. He said Bobby Pritchard’s father let him borrow his motorcycle, but I knew money had changed hands.” I paused, remembering. “It was an ex-army 1915 Triumph Model H.”

Aidan laughed. “Not many girls know things like that! So did you ride it too?”

“Of course. I told Frank if he didn’t let me, I’d tell Mam and Da that he was paying Mr Pritchard out of the money he got from Da for doing farm chores and was supposed to be saving.”

“And how did it feel to ride a motorcycle?”

Vivid memories arose. After repeated attempts to start the motorcycle and hot-faced frustration, the machine had begun to respond under my hands and feet. I’d flown down the hill with Frank running after me, screeching. “Marvellous,” I said.

“What happened then?” asked Aidan, reaching up to tip ash over the balcony. “Did you get goggles and a scarf, and roar round the village like a lion on two wheels?”

“Well, I rode the motorcycle enough times to understand what to do and what not to do. But the following year Mr Pritchard’s business hit a bad patch and he sold the Triumph, and that was that. I hadn’t even thought about it for years.”

Aidan was still looking amused. In that moment he seemed more carefree than I had ever seen him. His longed-for opportunity to atone for his mother’s unhappiness was near. The plan hatched that day on a bench in Hyde Park was at last underway. Now David had arrived, there was no turning back.

I got to my feet. “The clapperboard’s come down, Aidan, hasn’t it?”