He helped himself to a chair at her table. ‘I could, and I could probably order a cognac, but I should eat as well. I know that if you’re not careful you can end up with entrails all over your lettuce. What are those?’ He peered suspiciously at Thea’s salad, which arrived at that moment. ‘They put gizzards on salad here, you know.’

‘Anchovies. It’s a salade niçoise. Have it, it’s delicious.’

‘Pour moi aussi,’ he said to the waiter, pointing at Thea’s plate and glass. ‘S’il vous plaît.’

‘You see, you can manage perfectly well.’ Thea was beginning to enjoy herself. There were worse fates than sitting in the sun with an attractive man, eating and drinking.

‘I can, but when I saw you sitting here, I thought, “Why walk past an attractive woman and eat on my own, when I at least recognise her and could inflict my company on her.”’ He held out his hand. ‘Rory Devlin.’

Thea gave him hers, hoping he would put her blush down to Provengal sunshine. ‘Thea Orville.’

‘So what is a lovely young woman like you doing on a Tiger Tour?’

‘Lapping up the culture and listening to lovely young men tell me about Cézanne.’

‘I was shite, wasn’t I? I’ve forgotten more about Cézanne than most of these people have ever known and I can’t make him sound interesting.’

‘And what most of the people listening knew about Cézanne could be written on the back of a postage stamp …’

He gave her a rueful smile. ‘You’re a wicked, heartless woman, telling me the truth like that. Have another beer.’

‘Well –’

She was about to say that beer, sunshine and lunchtime were a dangerous combination when he broke in, ‘Don’t tell me, if you have another beer you’ll need the lavatory. That Gerald, you’d think he was potty training this lot, with his obsession with toilets.’

‘I think you’ll find his obsession is shared.’ She smiled at him. ‘It’s a policy of mine to always travel with people who need the loo slightly more often than I do.’

‘Well, you were right to pick Tiger Tours, then. What else do you have in common with this bunch?’

‘I came with Molly – the tall, handsome woman?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘But actually, the others are dears. You wouldn’t come on a tour like this if you were too stuffy or set in your ways.’

‘I wouldn’t say that. I gave a lecture last week to a bunch from another company. There was a woman there who was so damn bossy the others tried to bribe the coach driver to leave her behind.’

‘You do these talks quite often, then?’ She was surprised, since he was so bad at it.