I pointed out, ‘Those things are only on loan.’

‘Come on, Yanne,’ said Zozie. ‘You have to stop being so suspicious about everything. You have to give people a chance—’

Rosette pointed at the box. Baby, she signed.

‘All right. Just for tonight.’

Rosette gave a silent crow.

Zozie smiled. ‘See? It’s not so hard.’

All the same I can’t help feeling uneasy. Rarely does anything ever come free – there’s not a gift or a kindness that doesn’t have to be paid for in full in the end. Life has taught me that, at least. That’s why I am more cautious now. That’s why I keep the wind-chimes over my door, to warn me of the Kindly Ones, those messengers of credit due—

Tonight Anouk came in from school as usual, with no indication of her presence but the scampering sound of her feet on the wooden stairs as she went to her room. I tried to remember the last time it was that she greeted me as she used to do, coming to find me in the kitchen with a hug and a kiss and a barrage of chatter. I tell myself that I’m being too sensitive. But there was a time when she could no more have forgotten my kiss than she could have forgotten Pantoufle—

Yes, right now I’d welcome even that. A glimpse of Pantoufle; a casual word. Some sign that the summer child I knew has not entirely disappeared. But for days now I have not seen him, and she has hardly spoken to me – not about Jean-Loup Rimbault, not about her friends from school, not about Roux, Thierry or even about the party any more; though I know how hard she has worked on it, writing invitations on pieces of card, each one decorated with a sprig of holly and a picture of a monkey, copying out menus, planning games.

And now I find myself watching her across the dinner-table and wondering at how adult she looks, and how suddenly, troublingly beautiful, with her dark hair and her stormy eyes and the promise of cheekbones in her vivid face.

I find myself watching her with Rosette, seeing the graceful, studious way she bends her head over the yellow-iced birthday cake and the oddly touching smallness of Rosette’s hands in her bigger ones. Blow the candles, Rosette, she says. No, don’t dribble. Blow. Like this.

I find myself watching her with Zozie—

And oh, Anouk – it happens so fast – that sudden switch from light to shade, from being the centre of someone’s world to being nothing but a detail in the border, a figure in the shadows, seldom studied, barely seen—