"Only Trixie is at the gate when he pulls up. She is sitting on her haunches staring at something across the road, her forelegs planted in front of her, solid as tree-stumps. Probably an iguana, Clyde thinks, or an agouti, judging by the look on her face. He glances in that direction as he yanks the handbrake up but can’t see what she might be looking at."
"When I was seven, my family went on holiday to the south of France. My father, Stéphane Moreau, was from Berdillac, a village near Montpellier. One thousand eight hundred inhabitants, a baker’s, a brasserie, two wineries, a carpentry workshop and a football team. We were visiting our grandmother, who in the past few years had not left the village."
"Mangoes come in many varieties with many names, but generally speaking they are all beautiful and desirable and people look forward to them with longing. In our house there’s more to mangoes than just that. During her first pregnancy my mother had a craving for hindi mangoes. That was in the middle of January, when the mangoes are like salty stones stuck to the branches of the trees."
