Chapters (40)
- Cover
- About the Author
- PENGUIN BOOKS
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- THE BEGINNING
The A32 turned into the A6. Mountains in the distance; field after field of vines; stretches of purple lavender; chateaux high above the road; buzzards wheeling in the air. There was a signpost saying it was 185 kilometres to Lyon. Irene felt hot and sweaty in her jeans and trainers, and gritty with travel fatigue. Her head throbbed and her skin felt dirty. She took the first exit and, as soon as she was able, stopped the car, opening the passenger window so a hot breeze blew in. The sun was like a blow torch; she could feel it sizzling on her pale skin. She took off her trainers and socks, wriggled out of her jeans and into her shorts. She looked at the map and worked out that it was just over 300 kilometres from Lyon to Montpellier. About 500 kilometres to go and it was a quarter to four in the afternoon.
At five it started to rain: rods of water spearing the rocky, parched land, bouncing off her windscreen so she had to slow down and peer out through the downpour to see the road. She filled up with petrol and ate a croque monsieur standing at the counter, feeling the glue of melted cheese settle heavily in her stomach, then drank another cup of coffee. The rain eased and a pale turquoise broke through. She passed the lovely, steep-sided city of Lyon and imagined the people who lived there, cool behind the thick stone walls. High mountains and deep valleys; parched fields; dark green leaves hanging limply from the trees. The sun sliding down her window. Her hands slipped on the steering wheel.
When she was young she thought she would be an archaeologist, or a marine biologist or an explorer – something that would take her to far-off places. She had imagined herself on lumpy camels and tough ponies, jumping out of jeeps in her khaki shorts with pockets full of implements, lying on the bow of a small deep-keeled boat, watching the swell of the sea and looking for land, standing on snowy plateaux. In a notebook that she probably still had somewhere, she had written down all the places she would go to and all the things she would see. The Sahara desert, the Amazonian rain forests, the great Pyramids, the Dead Sea, the Great Wall of China, the Barrier Reef where – she glared ahead at the road which trembled like liquid in the heat – Adrian was taking the girls in just a few days from now.