Had he really slept? With Boudu weighing on his head like a hot-water bottle, Anne occupying three quarters of the bed and the pair of them snoring loudly, he felt as if he had navigated the night on stepping stones, jumping from one absurd dream to another. At the first light of dawn he had emerged, dazed, from the igloo on wheels, hoping for some miracle to bring him back down to earth – earth which was spongy beneath his feet, sticky with dew as if a feverish sweat clung to it. The bell chimed eight times, setting off a commotion that rocked the van as if a mud-flinging contest were going on inside. Anne’s face, still puffy with sleep, appeared in the doorway.

‘You’re up already? If it wasn’t for the fucking bell, I’d still be asleep. Coffee?’

‘I’m going into the village. Need to stretch my legs. Want me to get you anything?’

‘Cigarettes.’

It was a bright, chilly morning. Each little house had a small garden laid out in front of it like a grandmother’s apron filled with flowers and fruits. Energetic octogenarians in blue cotton slacks and rubber clogs were already out digging and pruning their little plots, nodding in response to the jovial greeting Marc called out on his way past. It made you want to be old, to have reached the end of everything, to dig your hole and lie in it happily, telling yourself, ‘It may be little, but it’s home.’ ‘The right hole’ was exactly what he found at the café-tobacconist-grocer-breadstore Au Bon Trou, chez Maurice and Tinette, which he entered, causing a bell to ring and Maurice (it couldn’t be Tinette with that Gallic moustache) and three natives at the bar to shoot stares at him. It was as warm and yellow as egg yolk inside. Marc took a seat at a table and rubbed his hands together.

‘A large coffee, please, and some bread and jam if you’ve got it.’

To entertain himself, he started to read a rag picked up from a neighbouring table. Despite the abundant facial hair, the glimpse Marc caught of a support stocking informed him just in time that the person bringing the coffee and bread was Tinette and not Maurice, saving him from committing a terrible faux pas.

‘Thank you, Madame.’

Judging by the events that filled the news-in-brief pages, this was a sleepy sort of area: car accidents (mostly involving young drivers who had got their licences only months before), the theft of a widow’s bathroom sink, a row over cockerels and church bells. Nothing of any importance. News from paradise, you might say.