It’s natural, of course, for a child of her age to want a little more independence than she had. But there’s a kind of watchfulness in Anouk – a coldness of which even she may be unaware – that makes me uneasy. It’s as if some pivot has shifted between us, some relentless mechanism that has begun to move us slowly apart. She used to tell me everything. Now everything she says seems oddly guarded; her smiles too bright, too forced for comfort.

Is this because of Jean-Loup Rimbault? Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way she hardly mentions him now; the cautious look when I speak of him; the careful way she dresses for school when once she hardly brushed her hair . . .

Is it because of Thierry, perhaps? Is she anxious because of Roux?

I’ve tried asking her outright if there’s something wrong; something at school, perhaps, some trouble I don’t know about. But she always says no, Maman, in that clipped little good-girl voice, and trots off upstairs to do her homework.

But from the kitchen later that night, I hear laughter coming from Zozie’s room, and I creep to the bottom of the stairs to listen, and I hear Anouk’s voice, like a memory. And I know that if I open the door – to ask, perhaps, if she wants a drink – then the laughter will stop, and her eyes turn cool, and the Anouk I heard from far away will be gone like something in a fairytale . . .

Zozie was rearranging the Advent window, where a new door has opened today. A Christmas tree, cleverly made from sprigs of pine, now stands in the hallway of the little house. The mother stands at the door of the house, looking out into the garden, where a choir of carol-singers (she has used chocolate mice) are gathered in a semicircle, looking in.

As it happens, we put up our tree today. It’s only a small one, from the florist’s down the road, but it smells wonderfully of needles and sap, like a story of children lost in the woods, and there are silver stars to hang on the branches, and white fairy-lights to drape all around. Anouk likes to dress the tree herself, and so I have deliberately left it bare so that when she gets home from school, we’ll be able to decorate it together.

‘So, what’s Anouk up to these days?’ The lightness in my tone is forced. ‘Seems like she’s always running off somewhere.’

Zozie smiled. ‘It’s nearly Christmas,’ she said. ‘Kids are bound to get excited around Christmas.’

‘She hasn’t said anything to you? She’s not upset about Thierry and me?’

‘Not that I know of,’ Zozie said. ‘If anything, she seems relieved.’

‘So there’s nothing on her mind?’

‘Just the party,’ Zozie said.