The cafe was on the sunny side of the square, with a French flag on a pole above the door. She could dimly see two waiters inside, but nobody else.

‘Left, left here,’ she said.

‘Towards Clémency?’

‘Yes. Then Alex says it’s only six kilometres to Paligny village.’

‘Meaning what? In miles?’

She ignored him. Narrow fields sloped up to trees on the brow of the hill, and then, as they rounded a bend, suddenly they saw enormous country, rolling and rolling into the distance, and the hills were an expanse of pale blue and greens and Bea had the sensation of being in the centre of a huge land, and the luxury of space.

‘Amazing,’ she said. Her heart opened up.

‘Yeah,’ said Dan. ‘That’s where we go, after this. That’s south.’

They went away from the wide country, down, to flatter ground, and more vineyards, patchy and neat. They passed a farmyard and saw some chickens. On a featureless stretch of road, marooned, they saw the sign Paligny. They stopped talking. The village was very small, with no church, and no sign for any hotel. They passed some bungalows and a Parisian-looking town house, boarded up. They were out of the village in moments, accelerating.

‘Stop!’ said Bea, suddenly. ‘Stop here.’

Surprised, Dan pulled over, bumping onto grass.

‘What is it?’

‘I just wanted to stop,’ she said.

They both got out, and left the doors open. The engine gave off heat and the smell of oil. Standing there, out of the car, was strange after the hours and hours of battering noise. They stood with their backs to the road. A big pasture sloped down to a stream. There were tall feathery trees along the water and cream-coloured cows grazing.

‘See?’ said Bea.

They stood and looked.

‘Yeah. Fair enough,’ Dan conceded. ‘This is nice.’

They looked at the pale creamy cows wandering along the bank on the other side of the water at the bottom of the grassy hill. There was a small island in the widest part of the stream; with trees growing on it, and a mother cow with a calf, grazing in the shade. The sun caught the water just right, so that the sky and the white clouds were floating in a mirror. The light moved across the valley, with the smell of the grass and the sound of birds and nothing else, except the faint tinge of hot-oil from the car behind them.

‘That’s beautiful,’ said Dan. ‘It looks like a painting. They told us in college those landscape paintings were idealised.’

One of the cows mooed. Others answered, like distant bassoons. They both smiled at the sound. He took her hand and kissed it.

‘Better now,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s OK. He’s not your brother.’

‘It’s weird – being in France.’

‘Is it?’ France was as close to home as she could imagine.

‘I know it’s stupid.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘In Berlin I was with mates.’

‘You’re with one now.’