‘Or past us,’ the other American added. His eyes were fixed on Eloïse.

Léon had tried not to look at her too much. Something was wrong with her, something that had not been there when he’d spoken to her in the bar in Serriac this afternoon. She was standing beside her father, too stiff and too hidden under her black felt hat, its brim pulled down low over her eyes, her hair worn long, masking her face. She looked like one of the forest animals that he’d seen her father carve out of wood. She had cast aside her finery and was wearing oak-brown riding trousers and a plain black shirt, but she looked ready to flee.

‘Who’s the girl?’ the taller one asked.

But at that moment two fighter jets streaked across the sky and both Americans tipped their heads back to track them with keen interest.

‘Republic Thunderjets,’ said the tall one.

‘On patrol.’

Léon turned his back and moved away into the crowd. He exchanged a greeting with Father Jerome, who was looking hot and uncomfortable in his long black soutane. Whether from the sun’s rays or from a distinct awkwardness at attending a bull’s funeral was a question Léon found debatable. There was no sign of the vociferous groups of Serriac men who made a habit of hanging around the town’s bars in denim overalls with hands still covered in axle grease. To make a point. They were the workers. The ones forging the trade unions and fighting for workers’ rights, the ones the government feared. The ones who were aggressively anti-American. They didn’t actually wear Communist Party lapel badges, but they might as well have. They had stayed away.

Interesting.

Léon prowled impatiently at the back of the crowd who had now all lined up to drop a snippet of coloured ribbon into Goliath’s open grave, a token to acknowledge the cockades that he had worn so boldly in life. Léon was impatient to talk to André. His friend. Yet he barely seemed a friend anymore. When they were together, it felt like they were two strangers. André Caussade was dutifully positioned at his father’s side, the three of them – father, son and daughter – presenting a wall of Caussade solidarity, but his injured friend was in a wheelchair.

The sight of it had come as a shock. There was even a rug, draped over André’s immobile legs despite the heat, and it was the final straw. The enormity of the sadness was written all over André’s face and Léon noticed the way people’s eyes skittered away from him, the spectre coming too close.