In answer, Annette took the parcel from her bag and put it down on the table between them. Hélène didn’t pick it up, simply looked at it.

‘What is it? Does he think he can buy me with presents? Take it back to him, wherever he is, and tell him it’s all too late. I’m not going to marry Simon Barnier, I’m not going to marry anyone and I don’t want to see him. I’ve forgotten him now and there’s no point in opening old wounds and so you can tell him.’

‘Fine,’ said Annette, getting up from her chair. ‘I’ve brought home some chicken legs. I thought I’d fry them for supper. Have we still got onions and garlic?’

Faced with this sudden change of subject, Hélène said, ‘Onions? I don’t know.’

‘Have you finished your sewing?’ asked Annette. ‘If so, I’ll drop it off at the workshop tomorrow on my way to the market.’

Later, when they had eaten their evening meal, taken in almost complete silence, Annette said, ‘I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day, and Benny wants me all day tomorrow.’

Left alone in the living room, Hélène looked at the brown paper parcel that still lay on the small table by the window. Whatever he had sent her, she didn’t want it. But it was there, almost like a magnet, drawing her towards it, and she turned her chair away so that she could no longer see it. She pulled the curtains across the window, shutting out the night, and below in the street someone turned away, as certain as he could be that no one from that apartment was going to go out again that night.

In the apartment Hélène turned down the lamp and went into her bedroom, the one that had belonged to Fleur, Madame Sauze’s sister. Madame Sauze. Madame Sauze had seen Simon Barnier yesterday and been seen by him. What was he doing in Paris? Had he simply come up on business or was he really still looking for her? As she got undressed and climbed into bed, she shuddered at the thought of his touch on her face. She was about to blow out the candle when she changed her mind and went back into the living room. The shadows jumped about the flickering candle as she crept over to the table in the window, picked up the brown paper parcel… and carried it back to bed.

When Annette got up in the morning she noticed that the parcel had disappeared and made no comment. When she left for the market she took with her the blouses complete with their attached collars and cuffs and said she would bring more home that evening.

Once she was alone in the apartment, Hélène retrieved the bundle of letters from under her bed and laid them out on the table. She had read through them last night, squinting at the handwriting by the light of her candle. Now she wanted to study them in closer detail. To the pile she added the ones she had brought with her from Belair. As she read the earliest ones, she found herself listening to Rupert’s voice, once again bringing tears to her eyes. She had long ago promised herself she would cry no more tears for him, no more tears for any man, but despite this, she found them slipping down her cheeks. If she closed her eyes she could see his beloved face, and immediately she snapped them open again. Whatever had happened about the letters, he had allowed himself to be persuaded to marry someone else when he was already promised to her.