Later, she and Adrian had made their own list: they would cross America from west to east in a Cadillac; live for six months in the heart of Venice, next to the fish market and amid the pungent beauty and decay; go white-water rafting; see the midnight sun and the northern lights; go to Iceland where the sand is black and the air smells of sulphur and, so they say, you feel like you’re on the very rim of the world. Of course, they’d never done any of these things. She had become a primary school teacher – just for the time being they said to each other; just till Adrian had his break, although she found she liked the work. Then she got pregnant. They’d put a deposit down on a poky little house in Hackney and struggled to make the monthly payments. The kitchen filled up with damp Babygros and rattles, pop-up books, bottles and beakers and strange, floppy-eared creatures with stitched, stubborn mouths.

Givors, Vienne, Roussillon, and from the road occasional glimpses of the Rhône flashed upon her, sometimes blue-brown and sometimes catching the sun so it looked like a river of light. She took a road off towards Serrières and stopped the car by the rise of a steep, vine-clad hillside. She opened the car and got out, stretching her limbs, balancing on the balls of her feet, breathing in deeply while the slight breeze cooled the sweat on her skin. The sun was low down and yellow as an egg yolk. The smell was of thyme, rosemary, friable leaves, things that were dry and fragrant. The air was full of the high thin melody of cicadas; it rustled with insects and the sudden movements of hidden animals among the prickly bushes and parched vegetation. A lizard flicked along the rock beside her, freezing for a moment then disappearing down a crevice. Irene drank the last of her warm water. It was past seven-thirty; she wasn’t sleepy at all, but charged with a restless exhaustion that stung her eyes and cramped her shoulders and made her heart beat erratically. She would never get to Montpellier this evening, but in an hour or so would have to find somewhere to sleep the night. Then she could arrive early tomorrow.