They took out a loan to buy the business.

At first, it was the land of Cockaigne. Whole shelves of food and drink, tinned pâté and packets of biscuits. They were surprised to be earning money so easily, by expending so little energy: just ordering the goods, unpacking them, weighing them and keeping the accounts. ‘Thank you. Good afternoon.’ The first few days, as soon as the bell rang, they both rushed into the shop, firing the usual questions, ‘Can I get you anything else?’ They enjoyed it, they were the boss and the boss’s wife.

Doubt set in when one of the customers, after filling her shopping bag, said in a low voice: ‘I’m a bit hard up at the moment, do you think I could pay you on Saturday?’ 30The scene was repeated with another woman, and then another. It was a matter of either giving them credit or else going back to the factory. Credit seemed to be the lesser of the two evils.

Facing up to the situation meant that luxuries were out. No aperitifs or tinned delicacies except on Sundays. It also meant being on bad terms with the family, whom they had treated liberally at first, to show they had the means. They were always afraid they would eat into their capital.

In those days, especially in winter, I would come home from school breathless, dying for something to eat. None of the lights were on in the house. They would both be in the kitchen. He would be sitting at the table, staring out of the window, she, standing by the gas cooker. I was greeted by a wall of stony silence. Occasionally he or she would say: ‘We’ll have to sell.’ It wasn’t even worth starting on my homework. People did their shopping elsewhere, at the Co-op, the Familistère or wherever. At that point any innocent customer who walked through the door was received like a slap in the face. They’d be treated like a dog and made to pay for those who never came. The world was leaving us behind.

Running a café and shop in the Valley was barely more profitable than working in a factory. My father had to get a job on a building site in the Basse-Seine. He worked in big rubber boots because of the water. You didn’t have to know how to swim. During the day my 31mother ran the business on her own.

He was both worker and shopkeeper and, as such, was doomed to a life of solitude and distrust. He didn’t belong to a union. He was afraid of the right-wing Croix-de-Feu partisans, who marched through L—, and of the Reds, who were after his business. He kept his ideas to himself. You don’t want ideas when you’re in trade.

They gradually carved a niche for themselves over the years, hovering above the poverty line, but only just. Because they granted credit, they had kept the large, working-class families, the ones who were down to their last penny. They realized that it was the needy who supported them and were understanding, seldom refusing to ‘chalk it up’. At the same time, they felt they had the right to give a good talking-to to those who turned up penniless, and to scold the child who had been sent to the shop empty-handed by his mother because it was the end of the week. ‘Tell your mother she’d better pay, or else I’ll stop serving her.’ They were no longer on the side of the humiliated.