Philippe and I stood quietly, separately thinking about our separate might-have-been. We were turning away to leave when two boys on Mobylettes came bumping down the track. They were wearing leather jackets and fluorescent trainers. Philippe raised a hand to them in greeting. ‘They are the sons of Michel, who bought the land from me. But I don’t think these two will be stepping into his shoes.’

Neither of us spoke of it, but it seemed unlikely that there would be flowers growing in these fields for another generation. We drove back up the hill together without looking back. Philippe and I said goodbye on the steps of his office. He kissed me and rested his hand for a minute on my arm. ‘Don’t leave it for another forty years, please, Sadie.’

‘I won’t,’ I promised him.

Jack and Lola were both waiting for me back at the apartment.

‘So, Mum, how did it go with the French love interest?’

They were exchanging the look again.

‘It wasn’t like that at all,’ I protested. I kept the truth, which was that it could have been, entirely to myself. It was a fresh, revitalising piece to add to my happy memories.

On the last day Jack and I went for a walk together, up the hillside to his lookout place on the ridge of rock. It was early in the morning, still cool with a hint of mist and the resinous scent of pine in the air. Lola was sleeping off her final night out with the volleyball boys and their friends.

‘Okay,’ Jack said and sighed when I asked if I could accompany him.

I scrambled up the steep ravine in his wake, my progress noisy with the snap of dead twigs and the rustle of undergrowth. Jack had the ability to move as quietly as a shadow between the fibrous tree trunks. I was breathing heavily and sweating in spite of the cool air when we emerged from the trees. A curve of sundried grass rolled upwards to a crown of bare rock, with a backdrop of harebell-blue sky. Jack had his head tilted back as he scanned the horizon. His binoculars swung round his neck.

‘What can you see?’ I asked.

His shoulder twitched. ‘I saw a stonechat. And there were some crested larks.’

‘Are those uncommon?’

The question wasn’t even worth a second shrug.

More scrambling brought us to the rock band and Jack sprang straight up the sloping ledges to the ridge summit. I followed more carefully, testing the outcrops of stone before trusting them with my weight. I am not good at heights and I didn’t look down until I was sitting at the top next to Jack.