‘So,’ Jackie mused as she watched the pair of them walk away, ‘is she just being tasteless, or is she really ill?’ She turned back to her coterie with eyebrows raised.

‘You don’t think,’ Suzi posited, still smarting from the rebuke about undoing her top button yesterday, ‘she was trying to make the point that you can be a little bit nosy, Jackie?’

Jackie looked as shocked as a nun at a hen do. ‘Me? Nosy? What a completely ridiculous idea. Half the time I’m the last to know about things!’

Janine bit her lip, trying not to giggle, as Mandy kicked Suzi under the table on her bare fake-tanned leg. ‘Time we left, I think.’ Jackie rose with all the hauteur of Elizabeth I on a royal progress and marched out of the restaurant.

Behind them, Meredith and Steph were settling their bill with Jean-Christophe.

‘You do not think, madame,’ commented the slightly husky voice Steph recognized as Philippe’s, ‘that you should not make jokes about being struck down by serious illness?’

Meredith whipped round to find that he was, in fact, roaring with laughter. ‘Congratulations. You have finally turned into a laughing-stock the biggest busybody in Bratenac. By tonight the story will be everywhere.’ He bowed like an eighteenth-century chevalier and blew her a kiss.

‘The cheek of the man!’ Meredith exploded as she dragged Steph swiftly towards the river. ‘I loathe his type. Men who are rude to you, then pretend it’s all a joke! Absolutely bloody outrageous!’

Bratenac market’s indoor area contained three butchers, two fishmongers, a bread shop and three different cheese shops, as well as some fruit and vegetable sellers. It always left Steph in exasperated amusement that you could queue for twenty minutes in the vegetable shop, but when you asked for lettuce the shopkeeper would shrug at the extraordinary ignorance of the foreigner and patiently explain ‘Mais ça, c’est salade, madame!’ – and you would have to queue for another twenty minutes to purchase your lettuce and cucumber from the salad man next door. No wonder some people fell for the lures of the hypermarket.

Despite that, Steph loved French markets. The outdoor market area consisted of about a hundred stalls, selling everything from the enormous knickers beloved of the farmers’ wives to a magnificent array of handbags imported by two Senegalese with megawatt smiles. There were also ‘Persian’ rugs made from suspicious-looking polypropylene, and a glorious selection of herbs tied with ribbon or displayed in baskets, perfuming the air with their fragrance as if preparing for the arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Another stall sold jars of olives and nuts, especially walnuts, one of the proudest products of the region, found in everything from savoury tarts to salads, puddings and stuffing. A couple of local winegrowers were offering samples of the sweet Monbazillac wine Steph had had with her foie gras, which Meredith gaily accepted.