‘I don’t understand how an Englishman speaks such good French,’ Etienne had said, laughing.

‘But I’m not English,’ Hywel corrected, with a trace of irritation. ‘I’m from Wales; I speak Welsh with all my friends, and my French is good because I teach it in a Welsh language secondary school.’

‘I don’t know much about the languages in England,’ Etienne ventured. ‘This Welsh, it’s a dialect, is it?’

‘No…’ Hywel tried to remain civil. ‘Welsh is a Celtic language. It’s much older than English.’

‘But you do speak English?’

‘Not very often, if I can help it,’ Hywel answered, and tried to explain something of the sometimes bitter relationship between the Welsh and the English. As they walked back to Cécile’s, Etienne asked Hywel if they could meet for dinner the next evening, just the two of them.

Hywel helped Lowri wash up the dinner dishes.

‘What did you say he was, a psychiatrist?’ she asked, rinsing the glasses.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘He works some of the week in a hospital and he teaches at the medical school.’

‘Older than you then, is he?’

‘Only a year or two.’

‘He’s not married, is he?’

‘No, Lowri. He’s not married.’

‘So why does he want you to live together?’

‘It’s not just what he wants; I want it too.’

‘So you are lovers then,’ she said, tentatively.

Hywel remembered their lovemaking; their last time together, hurried, even frenzied, in the hallway of Etienne’s apartment, already late, before they left for the airport… And the first time, at the house in the vineyard, gentle and nervous, taking time to discover and learn what pleased… And all those humid nights in Lyons. He smiled at his sister, ‘Yes, we are… And it’s wonderful.’

She cried and he couldn’t console her.

Etienne found it strange to speak in English with Hywel but Lowri had no French so it was all they had to fall back on when the three of them were together. She’d talked about her painting; how reluctant the British were to spend on an original piece of work; how it wasn’t easy to make a living as an artist and how most of the tourists to the area wanted sentimental landscapes, which she reluctantly stooped to when there was nothing in the bank to pay the bills. Over dinner they had drunk two bottles of the Condrieu from grandfather Chosson’s vineyard and with coffee, Lowri started drinking the Knockando malt that Hywel had brought her, duty-free. Her tongue loosened by the alcohol, Lowri said, ‘After my divorce I don’t know what I’d have done if Hywel hadn’t helped out… Money I mean. I was so down that I couldn’t paint… But you’re a psychiatrist, so I don’t have to explain things like that to you… How long was it, Hywel? Nearly a year? A bit longer? And with Mam and Dad dead and buried I only had Hywel to turn to.’ She gulped some more whisky. ‘God… I’m so thankful that they were both in the grave before all that happened,’ she spat out, venomously. ‘Talk of the village we were… Isn’t that right, Hywel? And beyond too… Talk of the bloody county, everyone knowing our business.’