The manager sniffed. Her cheeks were flushed, which I’d put down to the heat in the blanchisserie. Working people couldn’t afford luxuries, she informed me. But there were those who threw out money as they threw out fine words. I realised then that she was pink with emotion. She was addressing me from 1789: the Bastille was fresh rubble and duchesses were quaking in broom cupboards. ‘Things are different now,’ the manager proclaimed. ‘The rich will have to watch out.’ Declarations that the world had been turned upside down were everywhere in those giddy weeks after the elections. ‘Tout a changé.’ ‘Rien n’est pareil.’ The tone – gleeful, menacing, doom-laden – varied with the speaker. I left the laundry in my new role as an enemy of the people. The manager followed me to the door and stood there with her arms folded. She was watching me ascend the scaffold, wrapped in a monogrammed sheet.

Nick and I slept on a bare mattress on Friday night, my sleeping-bag at hand to cover us when we grew cold. He went away early the next day. I packed up my last two boxes and took them to the post office. They held winter clothes, novels, a flowered tin for twice-cookeds and a lapel pin that said, ‘Nucléaire? Non, merci,’ with a picture of a smiling sun. One of those boxes never arrived in Sydney. I lost my warm coat, the Ronis postcard and the arty dress that Minna had made for me.

Nick came back on Saturday night – of course he came back. Very early on Sunday I woke and heard him muttering in his sleep. In the kitchen I drank a glass of water, watching the first scrapings of light in the sky. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. The American Library had brought me that, too, a final gift. Minna was a sparkler, I thought. There was no reason why Nick and I couldn’t go to Sète without her to visit Valéry’s grave. Hindsight shows me a small-minded wish to mark out my difference from Minna – me, the one at home in French literature, like Nick.

We were slow getting out of bed that morning, slow to get dressed. But the day was as bright as tin, and Sète wasn’t far away. I shouldered my pack, and we headed down the stairs. There was a commotion in Rinaldi’s apartment – men’s voices, thumping, and what could have been doors or drawers slammed shut. It sounded as if noisy burglars were searching the place. I hoped so – but perhaps Rinaldi was moving out at last and had people in to help.

In the foyer, I dropped my key in the Bertys’ letterbox as instructed by Monsieur Laval. Their silence was disappointing. Didn’t they realise that it was their last chance to laugh? Vous avez raté l’occasion, I informed them smugly.