The Reunion

man to go to. His English is not bad at all and he’s an absolute sweetheart, plus he knows all the local tradesmen and will negotiate good deals for you if you need anything done. Don’t try to organise anything directly, they can smell a naïve Englishman a mile off.
    And so for the big news: the baby arrived on Wednesday. A girl, her name is Isabelle, she weighed six pounds and four ounces. Ten fingers, ten toes, brown eyes and a surprisingly thick head of dark hair. I will email you a picture soon.
    Andrew and Nat came to visit me at the hospital and Nat is staying with me for a few days while I get used to the whole motherhood thing. Because obviously in a few days’ time, I’ll have it licked. It’s quite shocking how exhausted I am. I know everyone always says you’ll be knackered, but I didn’t expect this. Still. It’s wondrous, too. No matter how many times everyone tells you what you’ll feel, you’re still not quite prepared for it. And I know everyone always says that, too, but it’s true. Which is why they all say it, I suppose. It’s indescribable.
    I hope being up there in the mountains is giving you what you need. It is so beautiful, so peaceful, but also pretty lonely. I do hope you’re all right.
    With lots of love,
    Jen

Chapter Forty-four

    LILAH HAD ‘ THE Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ stuck in her head, had done for days, couldn’t stop humming it – she wanted desperately to sing it but she couldn’t quite remember the words. Something about driving through Paris in a sports car, about getting old, about missing out on the things you always thought you were going to do.
    She couldn’t remember where she’d heard it last but it was making her more melancholy than it ought. Of all the things she’d missed out on, driving around Paris wasn’t one of them. All right, it was the back of a motor bike, not a sports car, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to be nineteen, racing along the Quai des Célestins with the sun setting, or rising, or whatever, with a handsome man wearing a leather jacket. That she’d done. It was all the other stuff she was going to miss out on.
    They were driving back from the beach. Dan had lent them his Audi, they had the top down. It was a beautiful hot day; when she closed her eyes the world was orange. A soft, warm breeze rushed over her, her skin felt tight from the sand and the salt – she could be anywhere, at any time. She could be seventeen, with everything still ahead, including the guy with the motorbike and the leather jacket on the Quai des Célestins.
    She would keep that. She’d just do everything else differently, everything since. ‘You all right, babe?’ Zac reached over and squeezed her thigh. She opened her eyes for a second and smiled at him, as reassuringly as she could. Well, maybe not everything. If she had her time over, she’d still want Zac. ‘You warm enough?’ he asked her. ‘I can get the blanket from the back if you want.’
    ‘I’m fine,’ she said, covering his hand with hers. ‘Sleepy.’
    ‘You sleep, baby. Couple of hours yet.’
    They’d been to the beach at Menton. They’d left early the previous morning, spent all afternoon lying in the sun and all this morning too. She’d even swum in the sea for a while. The Med was colder than she’d remembered, colder and clearer; diving in was a shock. She gasped and gulped air and kicked her weak legs, flailed in surprise, but after a while she relaxed and floated on her back, eyes closed, Zac circling her like a friendly shark. When she’d had enough she found she no longer had the strength to walk up the beach and he’d had to carry her.
    She’d never been to Menton before, but she’d go again if she had the time. It lacked the glamour of Cap Ferrat, but God knows she wasn’t feeling all that glamorous. Menton was a proper seaside resort, bustling and busy and about as Italian as France gets, just a mile or two from the border – friendlier, somehow, than most of the Côte d’Azur, although Lilah suspected she just thought that because she was feeling more sentimental than usual.
    They stayed in a B&B, a listing terracotta terrace with a balcony overlooking the Place St-Michel and a view of the sea. She would have stayed another day, two or three, but she hadn’t brought all her pills, and she feared one of the bad headaches.
    ‘We’ll come again,’ Zac said to her. ‘We can stay longer next time.’
    She opened her eyes and looked over at