Russ was sitting next to me and I could feel the anger crackling around him like static electricity. I didn’t know where to look. I certainly couldn’t look at Rowan. I caught Jennifer’s eye, opposite me at the table, and saw my own expression mirrored there.

Odette slowly returned to the table, slumping back in her chair and folding her arms.

Rowan squirted ketchup onto the side of her daughter’s plate.

‘Thanks, Russ,’ she said quietly, her voice dripping with sarcasm in the silence. ‘But I don’t think that was completely necessary, was it?’

Russ ignored her, pulling his daughter’s chair as close to the table as it would go.

‘Now eat,’ he said to her, his voice low and hard.

Slowly, the murmur of conversation returned to the tables around us as people went back to their meals.

With a tear running down her face, Odette picked up a single chip, dipped it carefully in the ketchup, and began to eat it with tiny bites.

Chapter 10

10

An awkward silence descended on our table, broken only by the clink and tap of cutlery on plates, Odette sniffing back her tears and the bustle of the waiters around us. Russ picked up his own cutlery and began furiously sawing at his steak, the rest of us mutely resuming our meals. The atmosphere was as thick as soup, but no one wanted to be the first to break the impasse.

Eventually, Alistair and Jennifer both spoke up at the same moment.

‘Hey, boys—’

‘Have you—’

Jennifer gave an embarrassed smile and gestured to her husband to continue.

‘Hey, boys?’ Alistair said to his sons, leaning forward over his turkey escalope. ‘Do you know why this square is called Place du 14 Juillet?’

‘Nope,’ Jake said, not looking up from his plate.

‘To mark the fourteenth of July. It’s a big day in France – do you know why?’

‘Nope.’

‘Can you guess?’

Jake studiously avoided eye contact with his dad as he shovelled pommes frites into his mouth.

‘Nah.’

‘From the French Revolution,’ Alistair said, holding his hands up. ‘Bastille Day.’

‘Bastard day?’ Jake said, grinning.

Ethan sniggered through a mouthful of food.

‘Jake!’ Jennifer said sharply. ‘You know what I’ve told you about swearing.’

‘Dad started it.’

‘Bastille Day,’ Alistair repeated. ‘When the revolutionaries stormed the biggest fortress in Paris. It was a great victory for the—’

Jake gave an exaggerated yawn and turned back to his plate.

‘— common man,’ Alistair finished.

Jennifer picked up the baton and the conversation drifted to a couple I knew vaguely through the PTA, Laura and David something, who had been the subject of a maelstrom of school-gate gossip in the last week of term.