They travelled in silence for a mile or so. The roads were empty and the evening sun was beginning to dip behind the darkening trees.
‘Who’s Agnes?’ Pascal said.
A cold, crawling sensation spread over Lucy’s scalp: it’s a fact, he’s never even heard of her. Proudly vehemently, she said, ‘My grandmother.’
‘And the child?’
‘Her son.’
‘The father?’ He’d guessed the answer: his own history, the redactor’s script, had been torn in two.
Lucy checked her mirror and pulled into a lay-by near a farm gate. The sun slipped further down, a dying blaze. She said, ‘Jacques Fougeres, your great-uncle:
‘What happened to the boy?’
Lucy couldn’t read his expression. Resentment and despair choked the words.
The whole story would now tumble forth. Pascal wound down his window, pulling in a slap of cold fresh air, and Lucy broke her promise to Agnes.
The late evening sky had acquired a faint glamour, like the surface of the sea, deep but impenetrable. Lucy drove into the advancing night, the obstacles that had lain between her and Pascal floating all around – broken words on a rising wave, a swell made of two rivers suddenly joined.