‘Not mop up. And it’s not gravy. Sauce. You’ll learn.’

‘I have found a man. For you, Giles. A man to help. He’s very nice, old, but nice, I think. He is a friend of my mother at bridge. Yes? He is English, so that is a good thing for you and he has lived near here thirty years. He was an English teacher at a big school in England.’

Giles looked glum, Eugène came to clear.

‘Where in England? Do you know? It doesn’t matter. I mean, if he was a teacher he probably still is one. I assume he would take Giles?’

Florence looked a little uneasy. I had spoken in English and too fast. I repeated it in French and she replied that, when I wanted to, we would have a meeting and arrange things. Times, money. The money, I gathered, was a useful inducement to the agreement her mother had made with Mr Theobald. An impossible name to try in French, so he was known locally simply as ‘Théo’, and he had a wife called Dottie. She had their telephone number, which she found in her purse and gave me as Eugène returned with the cheese board, decorated with fresh vine leaves.

In French I said, as he left to get plates, ‘My wife! My nearly ex-wife! God! It’s so amazing. I feel like an empty refrigerator. Do you know what I mean? All clear, tidy, gleaming, cold, no clutter, very surgical. All ready to take in the next chunk of my life. It is not often that you are allowed two chances at life, is it? It’s a marvellous feeling. There is so much to do!’

Giles suddenly said, ‘Will? I don’t want cheese, all right? I’ll wait for the other thing.’

‘What other thing?’

‘There’s a pudding, isn’t there? You said?’

‘There is. Yes.’

He put his hand on his heart, rolled his eyes. ‘Awesome!’ he said.

After dinner and a pot of lime tea we walked Florence back across the square to 11 rue Émile Zola.

There was a sickle moon, sharp and clean as a curved slit in the sky. A single star was up, the air smelled fresh and cool, and of leaves and new blossom mixed with the drifting scent of wood smoke, probably from the ovens of the boulangerie next door to Le Sporting.

At her gate in the lilac we said goodnight. I was inordinately pleased to see that Giles shook her hand with a slight inclination of his head. Helen’s hard teaching, at times, had caused irritation and also mirth in the children, but was attractive when put into practice. He did it well, without the least degree of self-consciousness.

Florence walked up the white gravel path. With a slight wave she closed her front door, and we started off on our walk again.

‘A little exercise, after that bloating dinner? You overate disgustingly.’