At the restaurant, they were shown to a table in the corner of a large courtyard. Leafy potted plants gave the space a jungle feel, the heat of the day cooling between the brick walls and the tiled floors, a glass ceiling overhead – hard surfaces that trapped the din of conversation and intensified it into a storm of words.

When Guy suggested champagne, she was thrown, and when he raised his glass and announced: ‘To your great success,’ she’d had to blink away her confusion, the memory of her promotion obscured now by the sense of crisis inside her.

The champagne slid coolly down her throat.

‘This dinner is on us,’ Abi said, her voice sounding shaky to her, so she leaned forward, making an effort now to regain control of her emotions. ‘You have been so kind in organizing everything for us. This is our way of saying thank you.’

Guy, who was sitting next to her, said: ‘As you wish,’ then shook his napkin free of its fastidious bunching and spread it across his lap.

Valentina explained: ‘We discovered this place not long after we first moved to this part of France. Oh, but it has been so long since we last came here.’

‘There was no point,’ Guy declared, his eyes fixed on the menu. ‘Why bring an anorexic to a restaurant?’

A shadow crossed Valentina’s face. ‘Please, Guy,’ she said, her voice tight and cool in a way that Abi had not heard before.

‘It’s not as if it’s a surprise to them,’ Guy went on. ‘You knew this, right?’

His eyes flicked to Abi.

‘Corinne is skinny, certainly. But I didn’t think she was anorexic.’

‘She is skin and bone. No meat at all.’

‘All the young girls are thin nowadays. Am I right?’ she asked the table.

Her tone was light and amused. She allowed herself a glance across the table at Mark, hoping to draw him into the conversation. But his eyes were fixed on the placemat in front of him, his face inscrutable, and she felt a further push of resentment at his lack of engagement, leaving it to her to carry the conversation.

‘She doesn’t eat – she picks,’ Guy pressed on. ‘A small pick at this, a tiny pinch of that.’ Little mincing gestures accompanied his description.

‘But she seems interested in food,’ Abi persisted. ‘When she was with us, there were several occasions where she cooked for us. She went out of her way to prepare us a meal. We were really impressed, weren’t we, Mark?’

‘Oh yes. I’m sure it was quite the performance,’ Guy said drily. ‘But it’s just a ruse. A smoke-screen to disguise her illness.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Abi remarked. ‘It’s an illness that’s just so hard to understand, isn’t it? How to treat it, what caused it in the first place—’

Mark said: ‘It is always the fault of the mother.’