Oh, but I do. And it hurts my heart to see him so very much the same. But I have changed. My children have changed me. I can’t just do what I want any more. And what I want is—

‘Roux,’ I said. ‘I’m happy to see you. I’m glad you came. But it’s too late. I’m with Thierry. And he’s really nice when you get to know him. He’s done so much for Anouk and Rosette—’

‘And do you love him?’

‘Roux, please—’

‘I said, do you love him?’

‘Of course I do.’

Again, that shrug of deliberate contempt. ‘Congratulations, Vianne,’ he said.

I let him go. What else could I do? He’ll be back, I thought. He’ll have to come back. But so far he hasn’t; leaving nothing, not an address, not a phone number – though it would surprise me if Roux had a phone. As far as I know, he has never even had a television set, preferring to watch the sky, he says, a spectacle that never bores him, and that never runs repeats.

I wonder where he’s staying now. On a boat, he told Anouk. A barge, I thought, was the most likely, carrying cargo up the Seine. Or perhaps another river-boat, assuming he’d managed to find one cheap. A hulk, perhaps; a derelict; working on it between jobs, patching it up, making it his. Roux has endless patience with boats. With people, however—

‘Will Roux be back today, Maman?’ said Anouk over breakfast.

She’d waited until morning to speak. But then Anouk rarely speaks impulsively; she broods, she reflects, and then she speaks, in that solemn, rather guarded way, like a TV detective just getting to the truth.

‘I don’t know,’ I told her. ‘It’s up to him.’

‘Would you like him to come back?’ Persistence has always been one of Anouk’s most enduring characteristics.

I sighed. ‘It’s difficult.’

‘Why? Don’t you like him any more?’ I heard the challenge in her voice.

‘No, Anouk. That’s not why.’

‘Then why is it?’

I almost laughed. She makes it all sound so very straightforward; as if our lives were not a house of cards, every decision, every choice carefully balanced against a multitude of other choices and decisions, precariously stacked against each other and leaning, tilting with every breath—

‘Listen, Nanou. I know you like Roux. So do I. I like him a lot. But you have to remember—’ I searched for the words. ‘Roux does what he wants, he always has. Never stays in the same place for long. And that’s OK, because he’s alone. But the three of us need more than that.’

‘If we lived with Roux, he wouldn’t be alone,’ said Anouk reasonably.