As Patricia released her arms from around me, she whispered, ‘Go with your heart, Fern. Paths cross for a reason. Like spotting a shooting star, sometimes you find yourself in the right place at the right time and you get to experience that moment of pure joy. This has been my moment, thanks to you, Kellie and Stefan.’

Turning the handle and entering the studio, Nico turns his head towards me, the brush in his hand poised mere inches from the canvas in front of him. ‘I thought you’d turned in for the night. Can’t sleep?’

I nod. ‘My mind won’t switch off. Bit of an emotional day. I don’t want to stop you, though, so say if you’d rather be alone.’

‘What I’d love is a cup of coffee to keep me going,’ he replies, his eyes pleading as he raises his eyebrows. ‘There’s a kettle through there in the workroom. Everything you need is on the shelf.’

As I step through, it’s more like a big cupboard and it has no windows, just one of those annoyingly bright overhead lights. I switch on the kettle and grab two mugs.

‘Is Kellie okay?’ Nico calls out.

‘She was a little upset, but she spent the evening with Taylor again.’

As I carry the drinks through, Nico turns to look directly at me.

‘You’re worried about them?’

‘She’s eighteen, Nico. He’s old enough to have seen a fair bit of the world already. What if they fall into something and it all goes wrong?’

Nico grabs a cloth to wipe off his brush. ‘Come, let’s take these outside.’

He accepts the mug and concertinas the glass doors back with ease.

Outside, it’s a balmy night and the silence is only broken by the chirping of the cicadas, which never ceases, and a group of bats swooping back and forth, performing one of their elaborate dances in the dark.

Rising up in the distance, blending into the darkening sky as if it’s the work of an artist’s palette, are the mountains which many refer to as Europe’s Grand Canyon. In daylight hours, it’s the bordering forest slopes which stand out. At this time of the night, the eye is taken up towards the lightest part of the sky, and it’s the silhouette on the distant horizon that becomes the focus of attention.

This is a far cry from the view I’m used to seeing and I still find it a little incongruous that this is my temporary home. Even though, for some reason, Provence has a comforting sense of familiarity to it for me. Is it possible to feel you belong somewhere simply because you’ve been uprooted and are desperate to make the best of an uneasy situation?