Over the following weeks, as October moved into November, Paris lost its colour but I. I was in love. The river roiled brown and, with weeks of rain, gained momentum like a whipped horse. After the rains, the clouds moved on and the temperature plummeted under a sky pale blue. At night, I shivered in my bed, barely able to sleep, and in the mornings, I would go to my window to see the city frosted white. The chimney smoke that hung over the slate rooftops would catch the early sun and the whole world glowed.

Axelle and I took whatever we could. Mostly in the salon, sometimes in my bedroom, always when Madame was having her nap. Once, only an hour into her sleep, Madame called for me while Axelle and I lay face to face on my bed. She was running her finger along my jawline and I was tumbling deep and blind, and then there was Madame’s voice calling me back up to the surface, and I came up for breath and we both, Axelle and I, froze. Fish-eyed and dumb, we stared at one another, her fingers resting on the blood-pulse of my neck, her knee prodding in between my legs. I rose from the bed, shaking, and stumbled to Madame’s dark bedroom, to the smell of flatulence and wine.

‘What is it?’ I asked her.

‘I’m thirsty.’

‘There’s a glass of water next to your bed, Madame. Where it always is.’

‘Well, it’s been knocked over or something else. There is no water here.’ Then, the sound of a drinking glass toppling, rolling, water dripping from the bedside table on to the floor. ‘Oh,’ she said.

I brought her another drink and a cloth to clean the spill, and, in the semi-darkness, mopped the water from the floor. ‘Will you be getting up soon?’

‘Not likely.’

‘Is there anything else you need?’

There was a moment of silence while she considered this, and then a hesitant, ‘No.’ One tiny word loaded with the awareness that something wasn’t right.

And it wasn’t long after that, maybe a few days, that I answered the door to find Axelle flustered, flaring at the nostrils.

‘That toad of a concierge,’ she said, pushing past me. ‘He was watching me strangely just now.’ There was the smell of perfume on her but also wood smoke and leaves.

‘He can’t know anything. You’re a friend who comes calling.’

‘Well. We’ve got his attention. And he’ll gossip. They all get together like hens. It’ll come back to your Madame before we know it.’

‘I’ll tell her I’m teaching you how to sew.’

‘I already know how to sew.’

‘It’s as good a story as any.’

That evening, sitting together in the salon and going over the day’s expenses, I told Madame about Axelle’s visits, and explained that she had been coming during Madame’s naps because those were the hours I had free to give. I told her it had only been a few times, and apologized for having had a visitor without her consent.