BOOK 4

'Nice to have somebody to make them for,' Betty said. 'Marie eats hardly anything, and the men would demand sausage rolls.'

'Paul too?' Amy asked, reflecting again how little she knew of these small details of his everyday life.

'They're ready in the kitchen for when he comes back,' Betty answered.

The talk continued at that level, comfortable, undemanding, leaving Amy's mind free to wrestle with what she had just heard and try to make sense of it.

Carol. Somewhere in Paul's life was a woman named Carol.

Yet Grand'mere's absolutely positive that he likes me, she reflected. It was difficult not to draw hope and strength from the old lady's certainty, but she must be mistaken. Surely if it were true Paul would by now have shown his . . . his liking . . . one way or another?

Whereas he avoids touching me, she thought, except for that one time when he was sorry for me . . .

'. . .in zose days,' Grand'mere was saying, l Le Mali was French Ouest Africa. Zey were terrible, colonial times, bu