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joints in her back. She ached. Her back was always worse after a journey. Finally, she got to her feet, grabbing one of Andrew’s sweatshirts from the suitcase (she’d refused to let him unpack – there was no point as they were
definitely
going to leave the next morning) and crept out onto the landing. The doors to Jen’s and Lilah’s bedrooms were closed, the lights out. She padded along to the top of the stairs and peered down: there was a warm glow coming from somewhere. The fire still burning, presumably. Running her hand along the wall for guidance, she tiptoed down the stairs, the stone floor cold underfoot.
    The fire was burning in the living-room hearth, but the lights were out. Mercifully, there was no one in the kitchen either, so she raided the fridge, helping herself to a wedge of Brie and some crackers which she found in a cupboard. The house was perfectly silent, save for the occasional crackle from the dying fire next door. She ate hurriedly, standing at the kitchen counter, in the dark. She ate a second biscuit, a third, a fourth. She breathed deeply, exhaled.
    She felt comforted. She had an emotional relationship with food, that’s what her mother told her. Had done for years and years, ever since she spent all that time in hospital. When she came out, she ate. Nat argued that it was better than drink, or an addiction to painkillers. Her mother always smiled at that, said, ‘Of course it is, darling,’ then went back to her green salad. Her mother was a size eight and liked to talk about the fact that she could still fit into the suit she’d worn as her going-away outfit at her wedding.
    The corrosive feeling in her gut subsided; she could almost feel her blood sugar rising, the tension ebbing out of her neck and shoulders. She piled a few more biscuits onto her plate and took her bounty through to the living room, still dimly lit by a few hot coals in the grate. She sat down in one of the battered leather armchairs, her plate balanced on her knees, and ate.
    They used to cook on the fire, the summer they spent here. There wasn’t a stove back then, just a hotplate they bought from Leclerc, so they either barbecued out back or cooked on the fire, in here. They toasted bread and baked potatoes, cooked fish wrapped in foil. This was the room they lived in. They even used to sleep here, sometimes, when it rained. They couldn’t go upstairs because the roof was leaking and, in any case, it wasn’t entirely safe upstairs in the early days. Natalie and Lilah always had to be closest to the fire, because they were always coldest. Andrew would lie at Lilah’s back, his arms around her. Jen and Conor used to curl up in the corner underneath the window; Dan liked to lie against the opposite wall. He was paranoid about sparks from the fire setting his sleeping bag alight.
    The memory of it brought a lump to her throat. She remembered waking in the grey dawn light, opening her eyes, and the first thing she would see in the morning would be Lilah’s face, long lashes against her skin, her blonde hair falling over her shoulders. And if Natalie raised herself up a little, to rest on one elbow, the next thing she would see would be Andrew, his face half hidden in Lilah’s neck. Sometimes, he’d be awake too, and he’d look up at her and smile, mouth ‘morning’, silently.
    The bitter and the sweet. Spending all summer with her best friend, falling hopelessly for her best friend’s boyfriend, trying with everything she had not to want him. Failing. Trying again. Andrew didn’t have complicated memories of this place: when he thought of the French house, he thought of Conor, long summer days, the two of them working side by side, up on the rafters, fixing the roof or drinking ice-cold beers on the front lawn, beautiful girlfriends in bikinis at their sides. Natalie had been just a friend to him then. She was Lilah’s sidekick, quiet and bookish, sitting under the oak trees in the shade in case she got