When my shoe is back on, I move to stand beside him and rest my own arms on the bridge. Even though we’re not touching, our forearms are so close I can feel the heat of his skin striking through the thin material of our coats.

‘Luc,’ I begin, but suddenly and almost without warning he turns, and then his lips are warm on mine and I feel a rush of desire so strong it almost blindsides me, a liquid heat, low in my belly.

For a moment I do nothing, just stand there with my fingers splayed against his ribs, and his mouth hot against mine, and my heart beating like a drum in my chest. And then the realisation of what I’m doing breaks over me like a cold wave.

‘Luc, no!’

‘I’m sorry.’ His face is stricken. ‘I’m so sorry – I don’t know what I was –’

He breaks off, and we stand, facing each other, our breath coming quick and shallow, and I know the confusion and distress that’s in his face must be mirrored in my own.

‘Merde,’ he spits, suddenly, hitting his fist against the railing. ‘Why do I always fuck things up?’

‘Luc, you didn’t – you don’t –’

The pain in my throat is back, hurting when I swallow.

‘I’m married,’ I say, although it’s not true, but it is in all the ways that matter. Whatever troubles we’re having, Owen is the father of my child, and he and I are together – that’s it. I’m not going to play around.

‘I know,’ he says, his voice very low, and he doesn’t look at me as he turns and begins to walk across the bridge, towards the Mill.

He is a few paces ahead when he speaks again, so softly that I’m not sure if I heard what he said right.

‘I made such a mistake … I should have chosen you.’

I SHOULD HAVE chosen you.

What does it mean? I want to bring it up, as we walk slowly along the rutted path beside the Reach, but Luc’s silence is unapproachable.

What did he mean? What happened with him and Kate?

But I can’t find a way of asking, and besides, I am afraid. Afraid of what he might ask me in return. I can’t demand the truth when I’m hiding so many lies of my own.

Instead I concentrate on wheeling Freya’s pram around puddles and trenches in the rutted path. It has rained heavily while I was in the pub, and away from the tarmac, the track is soft.

I’m painfully aware of Luc beside me, measuring his pace to mine, and at last I make a half-hearted attempt at disengaging, letting him make his own way back.

‘You don’t have to walk me the whole way, you know, if you want to cut off here, save yourself the walk …’

But he shakes his head.

‘You’ll need a hand.’

It’s only when we get to the Mill that I realise what he means.

The tide is high – higher than I’ve ever seen it. The wooden walkway is invisible – fully submerged – and beyond the tract of sluggish dark water, the black silhouette of the Mill is cut off from the shore completely. The bridge can’t be more than a few inches beneath the surface, but I can barely see where the shore ends and the water begins, let alone the dissolving shape of the dark planks in the water.

If it were just me, I might risk it, but with the pram? It’s heavy, and if one of the wheels edges off the walkway, I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to stop the whole thing from toppling into the water.

I can feel the dismay in my face as I turn to Luc.

‘Shit, what do I do?’

He glances up at the darkened windows.

‘Looks like Kate’s out. She could have left a light on.’ His voice is bitter.

‘There was a power cut,’ I say. Luc shrugs, an inexpressibly Gallic gesture that is halfway between resignation and contempt, and I feel like I should defend Kate, but there is nothing I can say to Luc’s silent disapproval, especially when a little voice at the back of my head is whispering my own resentment. How could Kate have just gone out and left me to deal with this alone? She had no way of knowing I’d have Luc to help.

‘Take your baby,’ he says, gesturing to the pram, and I pick Freya up. She is sleeping, and when I lift her she curls with compact heaviness against my shoulder like an ammonite made flesh.

‘What are you –’

But I stop, as Luc pulls off his shoes, picks up the pram and splashes into the dark water. It closes above his ankles, halfway up his calf.

‘Luc, be careful! You don’t know –’

But he knows. He knows exactly where the bridge is. He wades unerringly across the gap, me holding my breath with every step in case he misses and stumbles off the edge into the deep water, but he doesn’t. He reaches the other side, now a narrow slip of bank barely wide enough to rest the pram on, and tries the door.

It’s unlocked, and it swings wide to show an empty blackness. Luc wheels the pram inside.

‘Kate?’ His voice echoes through the silent house. I hear a click as he tries the light switch, flicking it back and forth. Nothing happens. ‘Kate?’

He re-emerges back on the bank, shrugs, and hitching up his jeans he begins to wade empty-handed to the shore.

‘This is like one of those logic puzzles,’ I say, trying for a laugh ‘You’ve got a duck, a fox and a boat …’

He smiles, the tanned skin at the side of his eyes and mouth crinkling, and I realise with a shock how alien the expression looks on his face. How little I’ve seen him smile since I returned.

‘So how do we do this?’ he asks. ‘Do you trust me to take Freya?’

I hesitate, and the smile drops from his eyes as he sees.

‘I – I do trust you,’ I say quickly, though it’s not completely true. ‘It’s not that. But she doesn’t know you – I’m worried if she wakes up and starts trying to get free – she’s surprisingly strong when she doesn’t want to be held on to.’

‘OK,’ he says. ‘So … what do you think? I could carry you, but I’m not sure the bridge would take the weight of us both.’

I laugh properly at that.

‘I’m not letting you carry me, Luc. Bridge or no bridge.’

He shrugs.

‘I’ve done it before.’

And I realise with a flicker of shock that he’s right. I had completely forgotten, but now he says it, the picture is sharp in my mind – a sun-baked beach, high tide, my shoe got swept away. There was no way back except over the barnacled rocks, and after quarter of an hour watching me hobble on bleeding feet, Kate and Thea and Fatima wincing in sympathy, offering me shoes I wouldn’t accept and couldn’t fit into, Luc had picked me up without a word and carried me, piggyback, the rest of the way to the Tide Mill.

I remember it so well – his hands on my thighs, the muscles in his back moving against my chest, the scent of his neck – warm skin and soap.

I feel myself flush.

‘I was fifteen. I’m a bit heavier now.’

‘Take off your shoes,’ he says, and I hobble on one foot, trying to hold Freya with one hand while prising off my sandals with the other – and then, before I can protest, he’s on his knees, his fingers working the straps. I step out of one shoe, blushing scarlet now, grateful for the darkness, and let him undo the other, before he straightens.

‘Take my hand,’ he says, stepping into the water. ‘Follow me. Stay very close behind me, as close as you can.’

I take his hand with my free one, the arm that’s not holding Freya, and I step into the sea.

It’s so cold it makes me gasp, but then my bare toes feel something warm – my feet are touching his in the water.

We stand for a moment, steadying each other, and then Luc says, ‘I’m going to take a big step – you follow me. This is where the rotten board is, we have to step over it.’

I nod, remembering the gaps in the bridge, the way I edged the pram over the worst of them. But thank God Luc is here – I would not have had any idea which boards were sound and where they fell. I watch as he takes a wide stride and then imitate him, but it’s a bigger stretch for me than for him, and the boards beneath the waves are slippery. My foot slides on a piece of weed, and I feel myself start to lose balance.