The only other break to routine came when we drove in the 2CV up the steep road to Grasse. Madame liked to go to the market for the few items of food that she didn’t produce herself, and she would walk around the stalls with a wide wicker basket, frowning and testing the lemons in her capable fingers or sniffing the saucisson that the stall-holder held out for her approval. Philippe showed me round the old stone ramparts of the town and we leaned shoulder-to-shoulder and gazed southwards at the distant blue arc of the sea, or peeped into the dim interior of cafés where old men hid from the sun with cloudy glasses of pastis lined up in front of them. When I became more confident about the pattern of the ancient, narrow streets I liked to wander about on my own, making chance discoveries. The best was the flower market, in a tiny sunken stone square in the very centre of the town. The tiers of blooms scorched my eyes with their brilliance and their scent seemed even stronger through being contained in this austere, shaded space. After the market Philippe drove us home again, with me crunched up among the shopping in the space behind the two canvas seats. Madame kept up a disparaging commentary about the price of her purchases and the acquaintances she had bumped into.

In the evenings after dinner, which was eaten early because we were such early risers, she would sew or frown over the newspaper for an hour and then, by nine o’clock, she would be getting ready to go up to bed. Sometimes Philippe used to comb his black hair back from his handsome face, slip his pack of Gitanes into his shirt pocket and disappear with a wink at me. I knew he would be going to meet a girl but even so I couldn’t be jealous. For the first time in my life I felt an utterly benign and selfless love: if Philippe was happy, it was enough to make me happy too. That, and the mere fact of his existence in the first place. A special smile from him, a teasing joke, a goodnight kiss on one cheek and then the other, that was all I looked for.