‘Do you think she was always going to turn on us?’ he asked. ‘Do you think it was difficult for her, what she did?’ Victoire didn’t need to ask who he meant. ‘It was like an exercise in hope,’ she said after a pause. ‘Loving her, I mean. Sometimes I’d think she’d come around. Sometimes I’d look her in the eyes and think that I was looking at a true friend. Then she’d say something, make some off-the-cuff comment, and the whole cycle would begin all over again. It was like pouring sand into a sieve. Nothing stuck.’
