20
Paris, May 31st, 1950
On the day of the preview exhibition for the prize-giving, Jasmine was leaving the Lutèce, when the concierge told her she had a letter.
It was from Mary. Shorter than her usual detailed epistles, as though written in a hurry. She read as she walked, smiling at the mentions of Frances and Amir, and the enclosed photograph of Amir giving his little sister a piggyback. Mary had signed the letter and then added a postscript:
Reggie’s just received some news this afternoon via the Guthrie’s bush telegraph. Howard Baxter has lost his father. Heart attack. Poor chap heard just after he got engaged to be married to an Australian nurse. I know you haven’t been in touch since you went to Paris but I did get the sense before you left Penang that you’d become pals, so I t
