I didn’t have much option. He shrugged off my questions (of course), when he did come home, late for starting his homework. ‘Oh, I just hung out. I fed the cub, played with the cats, not much.’

‘Did Audrey enjoy her lunch with us?’

‘She thought the food was funny.’

‘I don’t suppose she eats like that very often.’

‘No, she thought it was funny.’

Maybe that’s what they had been laughing at.

I didn’t see Mr Rainbird in the press of children and teachers when I collected Jack and his folder of artwork and other belongings at the end of term. I called him that evening instead. ‘We’re going to France for two weeks’ holiday,’ I explained.

‘I hope you’ll be impressed by Jack’s command of the language, after Cherbourg.’

‘I’m sure I shall be. I wondered if you are still interested in us going out together?’

‘Sadie, I thought I’d made that clear.’

‘So how about the Tuesday evening after we get back?’ I gave him the date.

‘I’ll just consult my diary.’ Our passports and air tickets and the booking confirmation for our apartment were laid out on the table in front of me and I slipped them into a folder while I waited. ‘That looks good to me,’ he said.

‘I’ll look forward to it,’ I told him. And it was true.

We flew to Nice. The airport was being rebuilt and the white light reflecting off raw concrete made us all blink. The air was so heavy I felt we had to wade through it like water and when I tried to catch the ozone sparkle of the turquoise sea all I could smell was dust.

We queued for and finally collected our rental car. Lola did her best to navigate the route towards Grasse while I struggled with the unfamiliar controls of the Renault. We stalled once at a roundabout and the driver of a Dutch pantechnicon shouted soundlessly down at me from behind his high windscreen. Everything seemed to have changed. The coast was ribboned with huge motorways and the sea was only intermittently visible between ziggurats of apartment blocks.

‘You’re in the wrong lane, Mum,’ Lola yelled. ‘Look, there’s the sign for Grasse.’

Jack hunched in the back seat with his face turned towards the hills. They were beige and grey humps rising out of the haze.

This wasn’t the introduction I had wanted them to have. The scent of flowers and the cool, dewy mornings I remembered had nothing to do with this traffic and the vistas of cranes and building sites. ‘We just need to get off the motorway,’ I muttered, hunching over the wheel as the trucks and tourist buses thundered past.

We turned inland, and Cannes and its islands in the shimmering bay lay directly behind us.

‘I remember this,’ I suddenly said.