They drove in silence. Outside, the air shimmered with heat as the rental car clung to the corners of the roads wending through the French countryside. Mark’s eyes passed over hay bales dotted across yellow fields, squat farmhouses that teemed with bougainvillea and climbing roses, their shingled roofs nestled between hedgerows. It was impossibly beautiful – a bucolic scene so steeped in colour, like something Roderic O’Conor might have painted. Mark spoke this thought aloud and Eva said: ‘Yeah, I guess,’ while leaning back in her seat with a sigh.

Ever since her exams had ended Eva had looked strained and thin. He worried about her pushing herself too hard.

‘Thanks for coming with me. It’s nice to have the company,’ he told her.

‘No worries.’

‘I didn’t know you were that interested in cars.’

‘I’m not. Anything to escape Beth and her sidekick.’

Mark laughed. ‘Are they getting on your nerves?’

‘Please. They’re insufferable. All that whispering to each other, the constant in-jokes. That inane giggling.’

She had a point, although for Mark it was something of a relief to see Beth happy, that she had found someone her own age to connect with after all the difficulties she’d had at school.

‘The hair and the nose piercings?’ Eva went on, scorn in her voice. ‘What’s that all about? Can’t they be friends and still maintain their own identities? Why does Beth submit to her like that? It’s so spineless and infantile, not to mention weird. I mean, doesn’t it smack of infatuation to you?’

‘Beth can be a little intense, I know—’

‘Intense? Jesus, Dad, she nearly suffocated Lisa. The poor girl could hardly breathe with Beth attached to her like a limpet. Before their big bust-up, of course.’

He glanced across at her. ‘Is that why they fell out? Because Beth was too attached?’

Briefly, Mark’s mind flitted to an occasion when he had opened Beth’s bedroom door to tell her that dinner was ready, and found Lisa with her back to the wardrobe, a look of mild alarm on her face, Beth fingering the ends of her friend’s hair, touching them with what Mark could only think of as reverence.

‘Fuck knows. I’m just saying that Beth has form,’ Eva said. ‘First Lisa, now Corinne.’

‘Come on, love. I think you’re getting carried away. They’re just experimenting, that’s all. Having a bit of fun.’

‘Beth would do anything Corinne suggested. She’s more like Corinne’s puppy dog than her friend.’

He glanced across at her. He had the feeling that there was more to it than she was letting on.

‘You don’t like Corinne, do you?’

‘She freaks me out. Always staring at me, constantly comparing me to her sister.’

‘I think she means it as a compliment, love.’

‘Please. She’s a fake. And a liar.’

‘That’s a bit strong.’