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apologize. It was me being typically curious and rude. I was asking what was wrong with you, why you can’t, well …’A blush touches the edges of her cheeks, the colour instantly making her eyes seem even brighter, her teeth even whiter.
    I know what she wants to ask and point to my leg. ‘I had polio as a child. It seems silly of course, but then the pain, and my knee joints … well they won’t …’
    She touches my arm, cutting me off. ‘As I said, it was rude to ask.’
    Our eyes meet. I shrug. ‘Understandable.’
    We settle ourselves on a bench in a patch of green dotted with clumps of clover. I feel over-dressed in my woollen coat and polished office shoes. On the other side of the park, an old man on a bicycle clatters down the pathway, causing startled pigeons to make way, his shopping jigging up and down in the basket on the front. A couple, lost in conversation, look behind them as he passes.
    ‘Any news of Paul?’
    She shakes her head, a blonde ringlet comes loose. ‘Nothing new. Poor Mama.’
    I nod, picturing my own mother in our apartment, a light hand squeezing my shoulder in passing.
    A woman nearby is handing out lavender posies from a basket, their faint aroma mingling with the smell of sweet chestnuts. Passers-by are shuffling past either avoiding her eyes or seeing her off with a few centimes, promises of luck in their ears as she thanks them. Her ageing eyes light up as the money changes hands and she bids them good day.
    Isabelle gets up from the bench and walks towards her. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ she calls behind her.
    I watch her as she greets the woman, both of them glance over at me. The woman reaches into her basket for another posy. The little purple bunches are tied with thin, coloured ribbons, and Isabelle selects one, handing over some coins in return. The woman says something that makes Isabelle’s light laugh ring across the park as she pockets the coins. Isabelle returns, even brighter now against the background of the park, the trees stripped of their leaves, the sky a threatening grey. She sits by my side on the bench and presents the posy with a flourish.
    ‘She said it will bring the young gentleman some good luck.’
    ‘Thank you.’ I accept it. ‘How nice of her.’
    ‘It’s not nice, it’s fact. You can’t question magic,’ she says, watching the woman accost someone else a little further off.
    I clutch the posy in my hand, looking sideways at her, and hope that she’s right.

PAUL
    Dear Isabelle,
    I know you will probably think my letters flat and too brief. I don’t claim to have your talent for writing and how I love getting your letters. You give me a glimpse into the village, the shop with its dusty floorboards, no matter how much Maman sweeps, all the customers clucking about. Madame Garande lecturing Maman about the stock. I feel I am back there with you all hearing the little bell greeting an arrival. How I suddenly miss the moments of quiet, those long walks beyond the river and into the woods with no route planned, drinking cider on the picnic rug as I fish. It seems I can never be alone here. The lads are in good heart, it is not what we’d thought at all, there seem to be so many men from so many villages. I’ve never known the hum and buzz of so many bodies together and yet everyone has his own history.
    We have travelled some distance since I last wrote and my feet seempermanently blistered. I am glad to have had some experience of work in the fields because carrying this backpack around can be hard going for some. The ground islike iron. I have struck up a friendship with Rémi, a lad the same age from Saint-Junien who spends a large part of the day telling me about his old job in a paper mill. I had never known there is so much to know about paper. Fortunately, whenhe is not talking about paper, we have a great deal in common. Whenever thereis a free moment we manage to rope the others in to some kind of ball game. You would roll your