After taking his leave from the two of us that day in 1986 at La Coupole, he left for Djibouti; and there, because he loved the Red Sea, wooden sailing boats and the books of his childhood friend, Henry de Monfreid, he cast off. Two months later, they found him dead, still sitting on the bridge of his boat, his body turned towards the sun.

He didn’t commit suicide, he allowed himself to die to the beat of his own drum and at a time that suited him. We understood and we shed no tears.

There was a second bizarre thing that happened to me around that time, and I still can’t get it out of my mind . . . A real-life plot twist of the sort I had been waiting for in vain for years.

It unfolded at Les Eoliades.

Ever since they had moved Monsieur Léger to our floor, he would give a small yelp, calling out to his wife every time she went past his room. It was a super irritating little noise that reminded you of the sound baby llamas make calling after their mothers. A feeble, questioning mmm-mmm. Horrible!

She would stand there looking at her husband, stationed outside his door sometimes for ages, but all the poor man’s frantic efforts to penetrate the thick fog of her memories were in vain, and at some point Madame would suddenly head off with her walker on her path around the floor, forgetting why she had stopped. It was this that would make him weep, round after round, all day long. I’d already told the Léger children many times that it had been a bad idea to put their two parents on the same floor, but they found it more practical when they visited and apparently believed it was beneficial for their father to see his wife.

On 20 January, at around 8 p.m., when the carers were busy getting the whole floor to bed, I heard an unusual noise coming from Monsieur Léger’s room, followed by the infamous mmmmmmmm, only this time it was continuous and he was singing.