The Reunion

motherhood after all. I hope it’s the right thing for her. I suggested that she may find time to write if she’s not working full time, but that didn’t go down very well – I got a short, sharp lecture on how being a mother to twins
is
working full time. But I’m sad for her, because I know that she has been trying to write recently and it’s just not coming. She has had terrible problems with her back lately, so she’s on some quite strong painkillers and finds they affect her concentration. Plus she can’t sit at a desk for any length of time otherwise it seizes up. It breaks my heart, Jen – she’s so strong, she pretty much never complains about it, even when I can tell it’s really bad. And she’s amazing with the girls, she never lets them see that she’s tired or suffering. She’s always ready to run around the garden with them – no matter how hard it is for her.
    I only wish I could make it better somehow.
    Sorry. Rambling on. Otherwise, things are good for me. I’ve finished my teacher training now and will be starting at Greystone Comp in September. Really looking forward to it, actually, although I am vaguely terrified. I’m sure teenage boys are bigger than they used to be. And I know the girls are certainly more formidable.
    How do you feel about coming for a visit? Bring Monsieur Jean-Luc! We don’t have to stay in Reading, I know it’s not terribly exciting. We could spend a few days in London, or go to the Cotswolds or something. I would love to see you, Jen. I do miss you.
    With love,
    Andrew
    P.S. Almost forgot to say – Ronan came over for Charlotte and Grace’s party – he was on fine form. Asked lots of questions about you, he was saying how much he and his mum would love to see you. It was great seeing him: whenever I see him I feel as though I get a tiny glimpse of Conor again. It’s good for my soul.

Chapter Nineteen

    THERE WAS ONLY one room at the inn.
    ‘We have for you the ’oneymoon suite,’ the wonderfully moustachioed Monsieur Caron said to Andrew with a wink. ‘Fireplace,
grand lit
, is perfect.’ He smiled appreciatively at Lilah, who somehow managed to look glamorous even with her hair plastered to her face and mascara smeared across the top of her cheekbones. Lilah left Andrew to complete the formalities while she disappeared upstairs to run herself a bath.
    La Petite Auberge was a typically Alpine structure on Villefranche’s main street, flanked by the boulangerie and the tabac. It may well have been rather dull and unprepossessing in bright sunshine, but laden with snow, warm light streaming from within, it had appeared, to Andrew and Lilah, like a vision, like paradise.
    They’d had to leave the car where it was – jammed up against a tree on the side of the mountain at the entrance to the village. Fortunately, they hadn’t been, as Andrew had feared, quite on the edge of the precipice. At the point where they had crashed, there was a small drop from the road, and beyond that a stretch of ten metres or more of land before the ground fell away to the valley floor hundreds of feet below.
    They’d been lucky, too, that the driver of the vehicle which had rear-ended them, a ruddy-faced man whose breath smelled strongly of brandy, hadn’t been interested in getting the police involved. On the contrary, he’d been hugely apologetic: he’d sworn that it was all his fault and had left them his details, promising in broken English to reimburse them for the cost of the damage to the car.
    Andrew realised, as he signed the form in reception, that he had no credit card and no money with him, but fortunately when he explained that he was staying with Madame de Chassagny, up the hill, Monsieur Caron was more than happy to trust that he would be paid.
    ‘Ah! La belle anglaise! Vous êtes son frère?’ he asked, peering at Andrew, looking for some hint of family resemblance.
    Her brother. ‘Oui,’ Andrew said with a smile. ‘Son frère.’
    Formalities completed, Andrew dragged himself wearily up the stairs to the second floor. He pushed open the door and entered paradise: the honeymoon suite was a large room, with a four-poster bed in its centre, a fireplace flanked by two worn armchairs, and a tiny window under the eaves which looked out onto the road. It was warm and clean and smelled of wood smoke and pine. Standing there in his sodden clothes, shaking with cold, emotionally exhausted, he could have wept with relief.
    While Lilah was in the bath,