I had to laugh, though my heart was aching. Roux and Anouk are so strangely alike. Both of them think in absolutes. Both stubborn, secretive and frighteningly resentful.

I tried to explain. ‘He likes being alone. He lives on the river all year round, he sleeps outside, he’s not even comfortable in a house. We couldn’t live like that, Nanou. He knows that. And so do you.’

She gave me a dark, appraising look. ‘Thierry hates him. I can tell.’

Well, after last night, I don’t suppose anyone could fail to see that. His booming, trollish cheeriness; his open contempt; his jealousy. But that’s not Thierry, I told myself. Something must have upset him. The little scene at La Maison Rose?

‘Thierry doesn’t know him, Nou.’

‘Thierry doesn’t know any of us.’

She went back upstairs with a croissant in each hand and a look that promised further discussion at a later time. I went into the kitchen; made chocolate; sat down and watched it go cold. Thought of February in Lansquenet, with the mimosa in bloom on the banks of the Tannes and the river-gypsies with their long narrow boats, so many and so closely packed that you could almost have walked to the other side—

And one man sitting there on his own, watching the river from the roof of his boat. Not so different from the rest of them, and yet somehow I’d known almost straight away. Some people shine. He’s one of them. And even now, after all this time, I can feel myself drawn to that flame again. If it hadn’t been for Anouk and Rosette I might have followed him last night. After all, there are worse things than poverty. But I owe my children something more. That’s why I’m here. And I can’t go back to being Vianne Rocher, to Lansquenet. Not even for Roux. Not even for me.

I was still sitting there when Thierry came in. It was nine o’clock and still quite dark; outside I could hear the distant, dampened sounds of traffic and the chiming of the bells from the little church on Place du Tertre.

He sat down in silence opposite me; from his overcoat I could smell cigar-smoke and Paris fog. He sat there for thirty seconds in silence, then reached out a hand to cover mine.

‘I’m sorry about last night,’ he said.

I picked up my cup and looked inside. I must have let the milk boil; there was a puckered skin over the cold chocolate. Careless of me, I thought to myself.

‘Yanne,’ said Thierry.

I looked at him.