‘It’s so lovely to see you outside, Madame Debord, enjoying the fresh air,’ the woman said. ‘Cooped up indoors is bad for the circulation. I get out for at least an hour every day, even in poor weather.’ She continued to prattle, her voice rising. She spoke further about the benefits of fresh air and demonstrated her point with a story about the ill health of a neighbour, a newspaperman, who was now dying of tuberculosis. ‘Too much time in an office,’ she said. Words cascaded from her mouth and I looked again at Axelle. This time, she looked back, widened her eyes in ridicule towards her aunt. I bit my bottom lip against a smile.

‘Such a thing as excessive fresh air, though,’ reported Madame Debord. Where her fingers rested on the inside of my arm I felt a gentle pinch. ‘We really must be on our way.’

‘Ah,’ the woman said, ‘of course.’ She turned to me and smiled. ‘Take care.’

We said our goodbyes and Madame pulled me away, and, after we’d walked for a minute, I looked back, if I could just see Axelle Paquet again. But they were gone.

That evening, as Madame sipped her brandy in bed, she told me the woman by the river was a cousin of her late husband, and she hadn’t introduced me because she was, officially, no longer speaking to anyone in his family.

‘They tried to send me to an asylum,’ she said, her voice heavy. ‘Once, after Ambrose, then again, after the others. They were all party to it.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ I said.

She looked at me, eyes drowsy from the liquor, slightly defeated. ‘That niece of hers,’ she said, ‘Axelle What-Have-You. Coquette.’

‘I hadn’t noticed,’ I said. Deep inside, somersaults.

The following Friday, though I was already late getting home, I stopped in front of La Samaritaine. My basket was heavy with bread, eggs, a bottle of cream and a head of lettuce, and I pushed with some awkwardness through a crowd that stood gaping at the front windows, gaping as if the mannequins behind the glass were not made of wood and plaster but were instead live actors on a stage. After some tussle, I passed through a heavy set of doors into the magasin. An atrium like a cathedral. Glass and iron railings and level upon level of commerce. An alarming array of pomp and shine. There were pairs of women floating along the aisles, dining together or sitting alone, reading. Chatting. None of it impressed me. I was approached by a young girl in a blue striped smock who offered assistance to my shopping experience, and I asked her the whereabouts of the perfumery. She insisted on walking me there, towards the back of the ground floor.

When I saw Axelle, I wasn’t at first sure if it was her, but then she turned and there was her profile, the slope of her round cheek. She spoke to someone I couldn’t see, then cocked her ear to listen and nodded, then bent low to some task. Shoppers brushed past me as I stood there, a fool, unable to breathe. She stood again and I was about to leave but she saw me, narrowed her eyes, then, recognition. A smile and a wave. I had no choice but to approach the counter. The air was spicy with lavender, rose and the almondy whiff of heliotrope.