I have no idea why I’m being so fanciful. There is neither rhyme nor reason to it. I put it down to the heat.

I pass a side street, at the bottom of which stand two ancient petrol pumps. The kind we used to have in Ireland when there was such a thing as pump attendants. I walk towards them. There is no pump attendant. And there is nobody in the little cabin behind the pumps. Beside the cabin is a brick workshop with a tin roof. The sign over the doors reads, Réparations Autos and from within, the sound of banging. I knock on the doors.

Nothing happens.

I hesitate before knocking again, a little louder this time. The banging stops. The muttering of an oath. The clanging of a tool being dropped. The doors are flung open and now there is a furious slab of a man in front of me, wearing soiled overalls over a used-to-be-white T-shirt that no amount of boiling will ever restore. I have to tilt my head to see his face. He’s holding a wrench, and the muscles in his arms bulge and clench and veins run like ropes down to his hands and his fingernails are blackened with toil. A cigarette hangs from the corner of his scowling mouth and his eyes narrow into slits as he glares at me so there is no way to know what color they are. I would hazard a guess at brown, if pushed, given the glossy black of his hair that hangs in a sort of tangled bob to his shoulders.

I take a step backwards. “Ah,” he says, “je croyais que vous étiez Pierre.” His voice is quieter than I expected.

“Eh, non, je ne suis pas Pierre,” I say and he grunts at this pronouncement, which does, with the benefit of hindsight, seem unnecessary.

“Qui est Pierre?” I ask, perhaps out of relief that I am not he.

“My brother-in-law.” He switches to English with ease and not a shred of the self-consciousness I display when attempting French. “He wants me to fix this heap of junk, and when I do, he will haggle over the price.” He wipes an oily hand down the front of his overalls, which has no discernible effect on his hand, and then offers it to me. I shake it. What else can I do?

He folds his massive arms across his massive chest and inspects me, like I’m a used car he’s thinking about buying for parts. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” I begin. “My car...sort of broke down, and I...”

“Where?”

I show him the piece of paper on which I have scribbled the name of the closed-down factory.

He nods. “My wife has taken my tow truck to work. When she returns, I can go then, to your car.”

“What does your wife do?” I am not usually this nosy.

He does not seem like one half of a couple.

“She is a...” Here he hesitates, taps the side of his head as if trying to dislodge the word he seeks, the way Dad does. He shakes his head. “Sage-femme, on dit,” he says. He looks at me expectantly but while I can make a stab at the literal translation, I am none the wiser. Sage-femme. That means wise woman, I think. Is there such a job? Perhaps in France there is.