On 20 December 2011 – Edgar would remember the date for the rest of his days – at around six o’clock in the evening, when Isadora was still in her bath, Edgar received a phone call. La Timone Hospital. Madeleine had become unwell in the middle of a dance lesson. The ambulance had taken her to the hospital and they were going to run some tests. Probably exhaustion, they’d said at the time. Edgar hurriedly dried Isadora and hurtled through Marseille’s crowded streets at the wheel of his old grey Clio. His head was telling him that everything would be fine, ordered him to slow down and stop panicking, but his heart told him otherwise. His heart was pounding in his ribcage. It was always one step in front of his head.

The diagnosis fell like a ton of bricks, incomprehensible and yet perfectly clear. Edgar cursed his heart for having understood too much. Cancer of the intrahepatic bile ducts. Rare. Terrifying. Devastating. ‘Metastasized, the chances of survival are around five per cent. We are very sorry, monsieur.’

For three months, Madeleine fought. She didn’t give up. Three months is a long time. Three months is no time at all. A few hours before she died, Madeleine was still joking with her daughter. Her last thoughts were for her. She must never see me cry. She must remember me as a fighter. Women are able to fight if they are taught to when they are still little girls. I will teach her to fight, until my last breath.

*

Edgar broke off. I had listened to him fervently, without interrupting. As he unspooled the fragile thread of his life, Edgar was at the same time preoccupied and grave, while maintaining a salutary emotional distance. Keeping well away from deep waters so as not to drown. He had such tremendous dignity.

I, on the other hand, was in a terrible state. A tear-stained face, sniffing loudly, soggy tissue. Edgar held out a fresh box. I asked him why he was telling me all this. He replied that it was necessary. That I couldn’t really know him if I didn’t know this about him. It was part of him, and always would be. I almost told him that it was a little presumptuous to think that I wanted to know him so intimately, but I refrained. That would have been very rude, but, most of all, completely untrue, because I absolutely did want to get close to him.

I took a deep breath and poured myself another glass of wine. So did he. Huddled on the sofa, under a patchwork quilt that Isadora had made with Charlotte, I was silent. He went on, smiling openly – this guy was incredible – saying that the rest of the story would be a lot less sad.

*