The day had started: sun not yet up, but time for me to start adjusting to the idea of speaking to Helen again after so many weeks. Well, it seemed to me like many weeks. I had, after all, rather altered tack since arriving in the village. I had written, not frequently, but often enough to show a vague interest, which I frankly did not feel, and she had replied. Usually. Brief notes or letters on those blue air-mail things. She never had much to say: the house (she had moved back since the holiday with Mummy) was all right, the children were well, she had been to see this film, that play, and someone was ‘amazing’ on television. The name Eric Rhys-Evans arrived one day. He had been, before we married, a young and promising executive in television. He was now a Vice-President, Europe, for some American firm of commercial television people. He had sought her out in my absence, or perhaps it was more likely that she had sought him out – she was ever sparing with details like that – and they had spent various evenings here and there. Married and divorced in the fourteen years in which she had been, as she put it, ‘out to lunch’, he was edging back again, or she was edging towards him. One was never absolutely certain. It didn’t really matter much to me. The children did; I was a little uneasy about their position there. But it would hardly be the children who would cause her to telephone me at eight in the morning.

It would be the first time.

Supposing it was the children? Annie ill, Giles hit by a car? Unease instantly swamped me. I telephoned down – it was not yet six, and I was a little surprised to get Eugène. He said that he would bring me some coffee, but the croissants were not in yet from the baker. Half an hour? Half an hour was fine. So I shaved, showered, and by the time I had finished my ablutions Eugène had a tray of scalding coffee ready.

I apologized for being so early, asked him if I could make a call to London at half past seven. He said he’d leave a message for Madame Mazine, who would be at the desk shortly.

So I had my coffee, watched the sun rise beyond the tumbled red roofs, and the light flood into my room, probing into every corner, glittering on the varnish of the wardrobe. For the first time I realized that the wallpaper was the negative colour of mashed turnips bordered with a heavy frieze of Cape gooseberries and honesty. Not altogether House and Garden. But clean.

Helen sounded, and probably was, asleep. She was flustered by being awakened a bit earlier than planned.

‘What time is it with you?’ Her voice was husky with irritation.

‘It’s seven-thirty.’

‘Six-thirty here.’