Foie gras d’oie, bitter young greens dressed with walnut oil and salt, petites fritures of bony trout, potato galettes with cèpes hunted from under the pines behind the house, tourin of onions and garden tomatoes and young garlic, petit pois stewed with a few of their own velvety pods, tarte aux pêches, wines from the terraced vineyards of Bergerac. Snifters of Monbazillac and armagnac by the limestone fireplace while the bats sweep blacker than the black night out of the eaves. Desperately polite retreats upstairs at the earliest hour decent, candles blown out, whispers dismayed or righteous in the dark bedrooms, stars showering down upon the shadows of the trees. Ted’s presence required always: standing by while Sylvia sketches, carrying the typewriter case outside, seated at the table, by the fire, on the terrace next to Sylvia. Ted tempting the fates to follow Bill into the grassy orchard of gnarled plums, goldfinches launching themselves out of the blackberry cane, the rough walls buried in eglantine, lined by mossy walnut trees and bird cherries, the two men hacking stumps and boulders from the scanty soil, clearing ivy and burning brush with the valley opening wide down the hillside, the thin skin of the river winding and glinting far below, Ted within earshot, always, of Sylvia’s fortified encampment on the terrace.

One day, a delicately negotiated drive into the Dordogne Valley, four uneasy adults folded into the Hugheses’ compact Morris to tour a small, vibrant cave nearby. Down the shelved galleries the animals ran by in silence, red horses, mastodons, sulphur-colored bulls, chased across the centuries by arrows, muscles tensed, nostrils flaring. Queasy from the humidity, the clammy walls, the faint winey updraft, Sylvia, three months pregnant, sulked by the concession stand, addressing a postcard to her mother back in London.

This is what the Hugheses take back from their visit to Lacan. The pacificatory meals, the stalled conversations. Sylvia’s tan. Presents for Frieda, who has this week bestowed on her harried but delighted grandmother her first genuine toddle across a room. Notes for a couple of poems. A basket furnished with a picnic of robust proportions, even by the standards of Sylvia’s current appetite.

Ted is packing the car. Sylvia stands behind him on the grass inside the slumping garden gate, passing things over, offering urgent instructions. Dido emerges through the stone-silled doorway out of the cool, late morning shadows of the house, carrying a sweater Sylvia left behind and the picnic she’s packed in wicker.

“Next time we come we’ll leave both of the children with my mother, and we’ll all go off to explore,” Sylvia announces. “I know Ted would like that.”

Nodding, forbearing comment, Dido thrusts the picnic basket forward. “Meanwhile,” she says, “you may as well have a leisurely drive back. Here are some provisions for the journey.”