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sober up, and I'm going to hate myself with a vengeance that might seem disproportionate. I'm already disgusted. So I'll say au revoir while I can still speak to you, and we won't swap numbers.'
    'Me too,' I told her. 'Don't slam the door when you go.'
    She picked up all her things and left without saying anything else. I heard the door slam. It was half past three. I left a message on Derek's voicemail, trying, and definitely failing, to sound sober as I excused myself from work the next day. Then I took two Nurofen with a pint of water, followed them with two sleeping pills, and passed out.

 
     
chapter four
Helen
    Bordeaux
    Papa was waiting for me in the car, his face looking old and strange in the half-light of the underground car park.
    'Bonjour,' he said to me, more formally than a parent ought to speak to their child. He folded his copy of Le Figaro , and pulled his seat forward.
    'Hello, Papa,' I said, tightly, and I put my bags of shopping in the back, and slid into the passenger seat. The car smelt of stale wine and old people. I tried to think of something to say.
    I never had anything to say to Papa. He would only speak to me in French. I spoke English back, because Mother had always insisted that we speak English at home. I had been to English school, and I read books in English and in French, but I had never been to England. In fact, I had never left France. That was how twisted my life was. I once went to Paris on a school trip, and I'd been to the mountains, but that was it. Mother didn't like anyone going anywhere. She liked us all to stay put. 'This is our haven,' she said firmly. 'This is where we belong.' I used to wonder why she didn't want to go away. Now I thought it might be because she was scared. If I had an ex-husband and an abandoned baby, I might want to hide as well.
    Papa never spoke Engish. I often thought how funny his life would look, to a normal person. He was surrounded by people who spoke to him in a foreign language, which he understood, and who understood him when he spoke back in French. Most people would not consider that to be a satisfying family life. There were too many barriers there for it to be normal.
    On the surface, Papa and I understood each other. But I always felt that we were speaking different languages on another level as well. I wanted him to be proud of me. I had never told him that, but if he and Mother had been proud of me, I would have been able to do anything. I knew that it would never occur to him. I was his daughter, but that appeared to mean that I was another item to be managed in his busy life.
    'Did you buy anything nice?' he asked as he started up the car and reversed far too quickly. He always parked in a state-of-the-art underground car park that Tom called the Bat Cave, because it had curving walls at the entrance and rows of colour-coded lights showing you where to park.
    'A few clothes. Some shoes.' While I couldn't see Papa's expression, I imagined that it denoted boredom. I always bought clothes and shoes. Most of the time I never even wore them once. I had no idea why I bothered, but my parents seemed to expect me to spend their money on clothes and shoes, and so, as part of my quest for their approval, I did it.
    'Good,' he said, in his deadpan manner. His hair was all white now, and wild like Einstein's.
    He set off, at some speed, for the exit. It would take us twenty-five minutes to get home. I didn't care if we sat in silence. On the other hand, there were things I needed to know.
    'How old was Mother when you met her?' I said, after a while. I was looking out at the grand façades of Bordeaux's riverfront buildings. I liked the architecture here. For a while, I had wanted to study architecture. If I went to university, that was what I would have done. But I couldn't imagine that it was going to happen.
    The autumn was still freakishly warm. People wandered around in shirt sleeves, even though it was November.
    'How old was your mother?' he