It’s time to get up. Julian’s plane will be in Nice by noon and she must help Harry choose a jacket and she must cut some flowers for his buttonhole. She likes Julian, but she knows that his father was very harsh and dismissive with him. Julian is only a year or two younger than Fleur. Estelle dresses in a simple cream silken dress, quite businesslike. She doesn’t want Julian to think that she sees herself as a proxy wife. She’s become tubular in shape over the years: she feels the dress snagging as she uses the flat of her hands to smooth it.

She calls through to the nurse who says that Sir Harry has had a quiet night. The nurse is called Virginie and her husband is out of work: as a consequence she has a pared-down look. Unemployment seems to be high in this part of France. Estelle doesn’t allow the nurses to choose Harry’s clothes: she’s not territorial – it’s just that she knows what he likes. Her life is finely attuned to his, so that in some ways they are one entity. She’s never told anybody about her sense that they have merged in this way.

Sir Harry is excited, also a little confused, by the prospect of Julian’s visit. He seems to think Julian is coming sailing, but in fact Julian needs some documents signed. She helps him to choose his clothes by laying out three of his favourite jackets and trousers. He decides by his own mysterious lights to wear the pale moleskins and the very light cashmere jacket which has a series of faint blue rectangles, the veinous blue colour of a tattoo, just visible in its Golden Virginia richness. He has difficulty pulling on his trousers and she has to help him as he sits on the bed. His legs are painfully thin, the thighs bowed from the pelvis; the skin on his thighs, like his jacket, is tattooed, hieroglyphs rising to the surface in response to some deeper agony. When he’s dressed he pomades his hair vigorously and looks at himself in the mirror with satisfaction. He smells of citrus. Jamaican Limes. She leaves him shaving with explosions of foam, and goes to see if his breakfast is ready. He has elected to have it on the terrace overlooking the sea. She waits for him. In the umbrella pines the turtle doves are calling. She loves their liquid, innocent calls. When they gather to migrate, the French slaughter them in their tens of thousands. At this time of year the doves have already mated and seem to have taken on a domestic frame of mind. She has some seed which she scatters on the grass just beyond the terrace and they land softly and diffidently to feed. Sparrows appear, chipper little Edith Piafs, and dart about to pick up the smaller seeds.