I was standing on a church steeple looking down on the village square, on a narrow walkway around the very top of the spire, trying to find Lucy. She was gone and I had to find her before something bad happened. When I walked one way around the black-pointed spire, she was there again, but she was angry with me. When I walked the other way around, to find the normal Lucy, she was gone. So I would go back to the angry Lucy, back and forth, back and forth, until I had leaned over the stone balustrade, further and further out, looking down to see if she was on the ground far below, and then I was overbalancing, slipping and falling forward –

The bedroom was still dark when I woke, the blackout curtains keeping all but a tiny sliver of light out. I lay there for a moment, Egyptian cotton sheets pulled up to my neck, trying to remember the dream. I turned over and stretched out a leg onto Sean’s side of the bed, but there was nothing there. I reached an arm out, but the sheets were cold. The other side of the bed was empty.

The digital clock on the bedside table read 8.14. I sat up, rubbing my eyes. Our en suite was empty, too, and out in the lounge the day was already dazzling bright, morning sunlight streaming through the big windows at the front of the villa. I shielded my eyes and closed the blinds a little to reduce the glare.

Daniel was perched on the big leather sofa in his pyjamas, eating a bowl of cereal and watching a film on the giant TV. Two Transformers were having a fist fight in the rubble of New York City. I sat down next to him, kissing the side of his head.

‘Morning, Daniel. Sleep all right, love?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Where’s your dad?’

‘He went out.’

‘Where?’

‘Shopping for bread or something. In the village.’

‘When did he go?’

Daniel shrugged.

‘Dunno. Half an hour ago? They were going to get bread and I asked if they could get Chocolate Weetos too, but thingy said they probably wouldn’t be able to find that because they have all different—’

‘They?’

‘What?’

‘He didn’t go on his own? He went with someone else?’

‘Oh, yeah. Jake and Ethan’s mum.’ He slurped milk off his spoon and pulled a face. ‘I don’t really like French milk, Mummy, can we get normal milk?’

‘That is normal for France, love. It just tastes a bit different because it’s ultra-pasteurised to kill any bugs.’ I stood up and peered into the empty kitchen. ‘So just the two of them went? Just your dad and Jennifer?’

‘Yeah. I wanted to go too but they said they were only going for a few bits and anyway, I still had my PJs on.’ He carried on munching his cereal. ‘What are we doing today?’