I walked up the path, stepped over the ambling toad, who froze as my shadow crossed her and then, when I had passed, continued on her determined way.

The terrace, with its two little rusty chairs, lay in the freckled shadow of the unpruned vine, whose plump little fans of leaf looked more like green hands reaching up towards the sun and the brilliant sky, speckled with scudding white clouds. There would be no pruning this year – far too late, the vine would bleed away – so summer would mean a heavy canopy of green and no grapes. Next year I’d do it.

The big oak door groaned on its hinges when I pushed it open rather as if I had awakened it from a comfortable sleep. I opened all the shutters, light streamed into the room, dust danced like platinum confetti in the sun, shadows fell crookedly across the tiled floor, the old newspapers covering the furniture flapped idly in the sudden draught, lifting and fluttering like the wings of a cruising skate, silently, rhythmically. I opened up all the rooms, throwing wide the winter-sealed windows, cobwebs trembled and bellied, a dead butterfly, dry as a corn husk, spun about on a window sill.

I’d get rid of everything this house contained. The atmos phere of James, the walnut bed, the caged cot, the bottles of cucumbers and yellow gooseberries. I’d repaint everything, every wall, every piece of wood. I’d change the bath and the lavatory. Nothing which had once been familiar to Florence, apart from the walls and the ceilings, would remain to remind her that once upon a time, in the haze of memory perhaps, she had known this little house before.

The only room I didn’t go into was the studio: that would have to stay as it was until such time as I could get Aronovich to come and remove his canvases. I wanted them out of the house as much, even more so, as I wanted the walnut bed to go.

Coming down the stone-flagged staircase, I heard the sudden urgent sound of a car horn summonsing me. My car. From the terrace I looked down the length of the garden to the track, where I had parked the Simca. Standing beside it, an arm thrust through the window jamming angrily at the steering-wheel, was Madame Prideaux.

I waved, hurried down to meet her. ‘Good afternoon! How did you find me?’

‘It was a lovely day, I thought I’d come out to the house, to see if there are any narcissi I could pick. It’s the time I always come.’ She looked very slightly flushed, a length of her hair had started to fall in a loop, as it had done when she was cleaning the brasses.

‘Yes. There are plenty. A mass. Come along.’ I led her up the path.