He left immediately as soon as the first of my regulars arrived. Guillaume greeted him politely and Narcisse gave his brief nod of welcome, but I could not persuade Roux to stay to talk with them. Instead he crammed what remained of his pain au chocolat into his mouth and walked out of the shop with that look of insolence and aloofness he feels he has to affect with strangers.

As he reached the door he turned abruptly.

“Don’t forget your invitation,” he told me, as if on an afterthought. “Saturday night, seven o’clock. Bring the little stranger.”

Then he was gone, before I could thank him.

Guillaume lingered longer than usual over his chocolate. Narcisse gave his place to Georges, then Arnauld came over to buy three champagne truffles – always the same, three champagne truffles and a look of guilty anticipation – and Guillaume was still sitting in his usual place, a troubled look on his small-featured face. Several times I tried to draw him out, but he responded in polite monosyllables, his thoughts elsewhere. Beneath his seat Charly was limp and immobile.

“I spoke to Cure Reynaud yesterday,” he said at last, so abruptly that I gave a start. “I asked him what I ought to do about Charly.”

I looked at him enquiringly.

“It’s hard to explain to him,” continued Guillaume in his soft, precise voice. “He thinks I’m being stubborn, refusing to hear what the vet has to say. Worse still, he thinks I’m being foolish. It isn’t as if Charly were a person, after all.”

A pause during which I could hear the effort he was making to retain his control.

“Is it really that bad?”

I already knew the answer. Guillaume looked at me with sad eyes.

“I think so.”

“I see.”

Automatically he stooped to scratch Charly’s ear. The dog’s tail thumped in a perfunctory way, and he whined softly.

“There’s a good dog.” Guillaume gave me his small, bewildered smile. “Cure Reynaud isn’t a bad man. He doesn’t mean to sound cruel. But to say that – in such way – ”

“What did he say?”

Guillaume shrugged.

“He told me I’d been making a fool of myself over that dog for years now. That it was all the same to him what I did, but that it was ridiculous to coddle the animal as if it were a human being, or to waste my money on useless treatments for it.”

I felt a prick of anger.

“That was a spiteful thing to say.”

Guillaume shook his head.

“He doesn’t understand,” he said again. “He doesn’t really care for animals. But Charly and I have been together for so long – ” Tears stood in his eyes and he moved his head sharply to hide them.“I’m on my way to the vet’s now, just as soon as I’ve finished my drink.” His glass had been standing empty on the counter for over twenty minutes. “It might not be today, might it?” There was a note almost of desperation in his voice. “He’s still cheerful. He’s been eating better recently, I know he has. No-one can make me do it.” Now he sounded like a fractious child. “I’ll know when the time really comes. I’ll know.”

There was nothing I could say that would make him feel better. I tried, though. I bent to stroke Charly, feeling the closeness of bone to skin beneath my moving fingers. Some things can be healed. I made my fingers warm, probing gently, trying to see. The burr already seemed larger. I knew it was hopeless.

“He’s your dog, Guillaume,” I said. “You know best.”

“That’s right.” He seemed to brighten for a moment. “His medicine keeps the pain away. He doesn’t whine any more in the night.”

I thought of my mother in those last months. Her pallor, the way the flesh melted from her, revealing a delicate beauty of stripped bone, bleached skin. Her bright and feverish eyes – Florida sweetheart, New York, Chicago, the Grand Canyon, so much to see! – and her furtive cries in the night. “After a while you just have to stop,” I said. “It’s pointless. Hiding behind justifications, setting short-term goals to see out the week. After a while it’s the lack of dignity that hurts more than anything else. You need to rest.”