We left the hotel early the next morning, going to the market first to get a picnic together, some flowers to stick in jugs about the long room, some beer, soft drinks and teabags.

It was Sunday. An important day for Jericho, an important day for Giles and, indeed, for me. Today Florence and Céleste would arrive. With Thomas, for the afternoon.

One wondered.

‘What are all the flowers for?’

‘To make the house look settled and comfortable. You know? Lived in.’

‘When can we?’

‘Can we what?’

‘Live there?’

‘Giles. Are you perfectly certain that you want to? It’s early days. You’ve only been here since Friday. And, anyway, I’ve paid the hotel for our accommodation in advance.’

There was a silence. Suddenly, from the wincingly dainty garden of a little villa by the road, a dog roared out and ran beside us barking and shrieking, teeth bared, hair standing up like a scrubbing brush. After a moment it fell behind, sniffed around, lifted a leg, trotted back to the garden.

‘Don’t you want to say, really? Will?’

‘Say what?’

‘Well, about living here. For ever. I mean, it’s his house really, isn’t it?’

‘His? James’s, you mean? Yes.’

‘And if you find him?’

‘Let’s just wait and see.’

‘Perhaps he’s dead?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Then it would be all right, wouldn’t it?’

‘Giles, I honestly don’t know, I can’t be certain …’

‘I’m perfectly certain. About staying here. Aren’t you?’

‘Well, yes. In a way. But not for ever. I mean for a holiday. But you’d have to go to school. Someone would have to look after us. You. Buttons. Iron your shirts. My shirts. Not easy, you know.’

Another silence; he fiddled quietly with his seat-belt.

‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘It’ll just be a holiday. For a while. How long?’

‘Well, if I can discover where your uncle is, how he is, that will make a big difference. Otherwise we’ll leave about the end of the month. I paid until the twenty-sixth.’

‘I see. Am I a nuisance? I mean, am I in the way?’

‘Do you feel in the way?’

‘No.’

‘Then shut bloody up.’

Later, when I was filling a couple of pots with water for the bunches of white stocks I’d bought, I heard him calling from the terrace where he was setting cups and glasses on a tin table he had found in the chicken shed.

‘Car coming! It’s them. Florence, I mean.’ I carried a pot out on to the terrace, set it among the glasses. ‘Another car. There are two cars. Did you know there would be two?’

There was a slamming of doors, a roar of fury from Thomas, recognized at once, Céleste’s calming voice, Florence calling out, ‘Don’t park too close, Mama, I’ll never be able to reverse. Move away a little.’