They sat across the table from one another, their half-eaten steaks, pushed around the plates and played with, not enjoyed, as good food should be. Marc drew heavily on his cigarette, ‘So, go to France then, if that’s what you want.’

Hywel wondered what Marc would need to do to make him hate him enough to feel that he could leave. He looked into those eyes which had so often teased and invited, saying, ‘But I still love you, so I’m not free to go.’ Marc stubbed out his cigarette with such brutality that his glass of wine spilled, bleeding into the tablecloth. He swore loudly, drawing the unwanted attention of others. The waiter fussed, and as he cleared away some of the clutter that was between them he suggested that if they had finished their meal they might like to move into the bar. Marc, believing that the waiter wanted them out, felt his anger rising, ‘Just bring us the bill and we’ll go!’

Hywel, pouring salt on to the wine stain, said, ‘Lowri really hates you; that’s why she’s been able to pick herself up and move on. It’s not like that for me. I came home one day and you’d gone, and I still don’t know why. You still haven’t told me why.’

Lighting another cigarette, Marc said, ‘She hates me because I started fucking her little brother; it’s a good enough reason and the divorce court thought so too.’

‘Is that all I was for you, Marc; just someone to fuck? And all that time I thought you loved me.’

‘Love? Oh Hywel, you’re such a bloody romantic; you’ve had your head too long in those French novels. Do you know what? I don’t think I know what love is.’ Then he smiled, and through a puff of smoke he said, ‘But I know what good sex is. I know what I like and with you it just stopped being fun.’

‘For God’s sake, Marc, stop it,’ Hywel said, shaking his head. ‘You’re not that empty. We had nearly three years and I know that it wasn’t just about sex.’

Marc leaned across the table, stabbing at the space between them with the cigarette between two fingers, he said, ‘You lived in your own fantasy, Hywel; you only ever saw what you wanted to see. Do you want me to tell you how many men I had during those three years? Shall I tell you?’

‘You’re going to tell me whether I want you to or not, Marc, so just say it.’

And in the moments that they waited for the waiter to return with the bill Hywel listened and felt a knot tighten and strangle him inside. Driving back to Llan-Aber, he wondered if the scream inside him was the same scream that had freed his sister.

Lowri passed him the salad and asked, ‘How did you meet him then?’ Hywel’s face softened as he remembered… He was one of Cécile’s friends, someone she worked with at the hospital. He’d come round for dinner on the second night after Hywel had arrived in Lyons; Cécile had thought Etienne might take him to the bars and introduce him to a few people. After dinner they’d walked from Cécile’s flat near Place Sathonay, crossed the Saône by the Passerelle Saint-Georges, and wandered through the narrow streets of the old city. They’d sat in a café on the Rue Juiverie, smoked Camels and drunk a bottle of wine from Condrieu; Etienne explained that he had a house there, in his grandfather’s vineyard on the slopes of the Rhône.