I was puzzled. ‘How strange, Nathan. I had no idea that you would be opposed. I thought you would encourage me.’

The suggestion of any shortfall angered him. ‘I know that plenty of mothers work. I’m not against. Far from it. But should you? We’re talking about us. The older they grow, the more the children will need you.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I snapped. ‘There is a compromise. If you feel so strongly, you look after them.’ He did not reply. Ah. Not so keen to do that, are you?’

‘It’s not you working,’ he repeated, ‘of course not. It’s the children I’m thinking about.’

‘And me?’ But Nathan had shaken me. I had considered every angle of working in a rational manner, and it stung that Nathan assumed I had not thought of the children first.

‘Why do you feel the need? Are you missing something?’

The flat reaches of the Pas de Calais flashed by. ‘Isn’t that rather an odd question? Can you imagine not having your work? Nathan, I’m getting older, too, not just the children, and if I’m not careful it will be too late. Is that so very selfish?’

‘No,’ he answered, the closed look in place. ‘Of course not. It’s just that I thought we were happy as we are.’

‘But we are,’ I cried. ‘Nothing alters that.’

He asked me what I was thinking of doing, and I told him that I had ambitions to be a books editor on a paper. ‘If I work my way up.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘That’s not a job. No, I don’t mean that – I don’t know what I mean.’

I shouted ‘Bloody hell’ back and ordered him to stop the car at the next lay-by, which he did. I wrenched open the door and got out. A family was sitting at one of the benches the French are so good at supplying, eating a midday picnic. A stream skirted the edge of the area, flanked by a sward of grass. I walked down to it and stood looking at the water. Someone had thrown in a child’s disposable nappy and the white plastic eddied dismally in the current.

Nathan came up behind me. ‘I didn’t mean it about it not being a job. Of course it is.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t patronize me.’

‘I’m not,’ he was genuinely bewildered, ‘but you have to consider who is to look after the children and if all the upheaval would be worth it.’

I was icy with rage. ‘I’m so angry with you – I can’t remember when I’ve been so angry. We might as well go home. Now,’ I added.

Nathan ran his hand over his hair and scratched the back of his neck. ‘It’s taken me by surprise, that’s all. I don’t like surprises.’

‘It’s not so surprising.’

‘It’s just that we seemed so settled, and it was working.’ With his hands he mimed the shape of a box. ‘We all fitted in so well.’

I moved away towards a group of poplar trees that soared skywards and shouted at him, furiously, ‘I’m allowed to change. Everyone changes. Even you.’

Nathan threw back his head and roared with laughter. The French family stopped eating to watch the roadside drama. ‘You look so funny’

‘Oh, do I? And what do you suppose you look like?’

He smiled and, as usual, it transformed his face and leached the tension. ‘Just as silly’ He came over and took my hand. ‘Don’t change too much, will you?’

Still angry, I disengaged mine. ‘I’ll see.’

We got back into the car and drove for the next hour, mostly in silence. As we drew nearer to Paris, the traffic intensified and Nathan was forced to concentrate. It was not until we had passed the turning to Senlis that he resumed the discussion. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I could ask around the group. That way I could keep an eye on you.’

Then I understood part of the problem. Nathan was worried that I would push open the door and hop out of the cage. He was frightened that I would spread my wings and soar away.

But I wanted to do no such thing.

Wearing a tightly fitting short-sleeved scarlet jacket and skirt with spiky black heels, Mazarine was waiting at the Gare du Nord, which smelt of French tobacco and heated croissants. My spirits lifted just a fraction. To be back in Paris.

‘You look awful.’ She gave me a kiss, which confirmed the verdict for she did not often demonstrate open affection. ‘And what is that?’ She indicated my linen trouser suit.

I tucked my hand under her sharp, creamed elbow. ‘It’s a very nice suit but, I admit, a bit hot. I’d forgotten how hot Paris can be.’

‘It’s a terrible cut,’ she said. ‘Unflattering.’ However left-bank her intellectual interests, a late, childless marriage to a businessman confirmed Mazarine as a chic Parisienne who favoured silk scarves, monogrammed handbags, slim skirts and high heels.

She bundled me into a taxi, which dropped us outside Mimi’s, a restaurant with a blue and gold striped awning. My heart sank. ‘I can’t eat much at the moment,’ I confessed.

‘I can see that, but part of the point is being here. Just enjoy. Good restaurants are therapy.’

I laughed. ‘Clever Mazarine.’

I knew that she would not ask for intimate details about Nathan and his departure. She would stick to the overview, and to the elegant theories that made her strong. No ifs, buts and messy reminiscences, certainly not for Xavier, her dead husband, who had been several years older.

‘So… are you going to kill him?’ Mazarine arranged her napkin on her scarlet lap.

I concentrated on my stuffed chicory, and its thin, bitter taste. ‘No. I could do more damage by killing myself.’

‘If you are thinking of doing so, tell me, and I won’t take you shopping as it would be a waste.’

I told Mazarine about the minister’s wife. Mazarine sighed. ‘What did she expect? All pleasure and no pain?’

‘She got too much pain, and probably too little pleasure.’

She considered. ‘Do you think there is any sign of Nathan coming to his senses?’

‘He’s been gone a while. Since February.’ I looked up at Mazarine. ‘Since February. A lifetime. And that makes it more difficult to repair, should he want to do so. He wanted a change. He wanted a fantasy before it was too late. He didn’t believe in me any more. Also, and this is strange, I think Hal came into it.’

‘That old story. How peculiar.’

‘Anyway…’ I remembered how Nathan leapt to his feet when Minty called to him, and the soft, sleek gleam ‘… Nathan is besotted with Minty.’

Mazarine cut me short. ‘The young and pretty can be pretty wicked, and Minty will get away with it – for the time being.’

The bright cosmopolitan setting seemed to go dark. ‘It’s what you feel after a death… you would know. But there is no body to mourn.’

Mazarine adjusted her earring, and it struck me that she looked uncharacteristically hesitant and uncertain. ‘I hope you made endless big scenes.’

‘Not really. Now, of course, I rather wish I had.’

‘Of course. The English take not only their pleasures but their sorrows sadly’ I let this one pass. Mazarine poked at her shellfish, and her lipsticked mouth was drawn into a cynical expression. ‘We never do know, do we, what our so-called loved ones plan to surprise us with?’ The pause was a fraction overlong. ‘When Xavier died, I had to go through the papers. Of course. And I found something I would never, ever have expected.’ Another pause. ‘Going through a dead person’s effects gives you an advantage you don’t necessarily want…’

A waiter came with the plates on which halibut had been exquisitely arranged with green beans. Mazarine regarded it without her usual critical sharpness.

‘When Xavier died two years ago, he had numerous business interests, the bakery, property and everything. And, it seems, a house – as it happens a beautiful house in the sixteenth.’

I was puzzled. A beautiful house in the sixteenth must qualify as one of the better surprises. I put my hand on hers, which was trembling. ‘Mazarine?’

‘It turns out that this is a house for poules de luxes. Very expensive and exclusive. Now do you see?’

The halibut had grown cold. The clatter of expensive lunch being expensively served continued around us. The heat, the stiff napery, the casually chic clothes of the other diners, the sun spilling over the blue and gold awning reminded me of the art-house films Mazarine and I had gone to see in Oxford and, as often as not, failed to understand.

She said again, ‘It’s a beautiful house, full of beautiful things, and I’m told that Xavier took immense pains over the furnishings and arrangements. And the women are beautiful. Apparently quite a few make good marriages and go on to have good careers. Cancer specialists and television producers.’ She looked at me bleakly. ‘The old fool. He could have told me… I would have made a big scene, I tell you, but we would have shared it.’

‘Are you going to live there?’

‘Live there? No, I shall sell it and get a good price.’

I did my best. ‘Xavier didn’t expect to die, Mazarine. He wouldn’t have done this to you willingly. He would have told you some time.’

Mazarine looked everywhere but at me. The waiter slid tiny coffee cups on to the table and left a pot of coffee between us. I poured it and gave her a cup. It was all too complicated and painful.

Mazarine shaded her eyes. ‘How silly I am. Nearly as silly as you.’

I gave her a shaky smile. ‘OK. Let’s tot up the loyalty bonuses. Your reward for being a good and lovely wife is a brothel which, I must point out, is infinitely more exciting than being replaced with a younger woman.’

After lunch, Mazarine took me shopping. ‘This trip is to get you sorted out,’ she said. ‘I think you must face facts and pay attention to your appearance.’

‘Do I look so bad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shopping will sort me out?’

She shrugged. ‘It is a duty’

Our first stop was La Belle Dame Sans Merci, a boutique specializing in underwear. There was a poster advertising Mazarine’s exhibition in the window. ‘No jokes, Rose.’ Once inside, she submitted me to the attentions of an exquisite-looking youth. ‘Not interested in women,’ she murmured.