The noise of an engine suddenly drowns out the news and a car slowly drives into the compound, an unfamiliar car. Here, everybody knows everybody else’s car, the make and production date, even the stickers on the back, the Baby on Board and the Go On, Overtake Me, You Bastard. No one’s ever seen this one, a new Audi A3, black as ink, that slows down and stops outside the house. Dark windows, so impossible to see the driver. The drinkers fall silent. Jo’s legs emerge from the passenger seat. She jumps out of the car, her hair still wet, a childlike expression in her smile, and shuts the door behind her. To greet her parents and the others she resumes a joyless mask, and plants kisses on their cheeks as though it’s an ordeal. The four adults are still quiet. And yet everyone wants to know.

The car starts again and slowly goes to park fifty yards further down the street. Around the table, the silence persists, heavy with questions. The wall is low enough for everybody to spy on their neighbours; the four of them twist their necks to see the car and its occupant. Saïd gets out. He locks the car with his key; it makes a noise like a light sabre and the headlights blink before going out. He goes into his house.

“What’s that car?” Manuel finally grumbles.

“The little shit has money,” Patrick hisses.

Jo shakes her head. “Well, he works.”

“To afford a car like that with a job as a seasonal worker…”

Manuel doesn’t say anything. He stares, his blind man’s eyes turned inwards.

“Pour me some more pastis,” he tells Séverine, and she complies without whining.

There are moments like this when she understands. Quite often, in fact, though she doesn’t let on. Sometimes, she just pretends she doesn’t get it. She looks at her daughter standing in the falling darkness, hesitating between sitting down and going upstairs to her sister.

“What did you do today?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I saw a play in Avignon, then went for a swim in the Sorgue.”

“Was it nice?”

“All right.” Jo shrugs and grabs a handful of peanuts.

“Is it monkeys you feed peanuts?” Patrick asks.

“You’re the monkey!” Patrick gives her a slap on the thigh; she pulls away and gives him an icy look. He doesn’t give a damn and starts mimicking a chimpanzee, emitting stupid cries. She suddenly smiles, despite herself.

“Bye, oldies,” she says before going into the house.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Make a little effort.”

The frozen pizza Jo has cooked in the microwave gives off a smell of fat and Herbes de Provence.

“It’s too hot to eat stuff like that.”

“Come on…”

“It makes me want to puke.”

“I thought you were feeling better.”

“Yeah, but if you stick that under my nose I might throw up again.”