She sent Pierre packing, and he ended up sleeping with Malika, the careers advisor. Valérie was disgusted that everyone knew about their fling; she would have hated being the subject of such seedy gossip. She imagined those two sad bodies joined in various positions for a few weeks, a few months at most. There was no chance that Pierre and Malika would suddenly be overcome by an all-consuming passion. No, nothing like that could happen. Their story had already been written and its ending was entirely predictable. However, there had been one surprising development: Pierre’s wife had found out about her husband’s affair. That, at least, might have led to a marital drama … but no, even that was apparently too much to expect. To Valérie, this seemed the ultimate proof of weariness: not even to react when your spouse rejects your body in favour of another. With all the folly of human complexity, Pierre had been wounded by this. He’d wanted his wife to react, at least to say something, but she never did.

Valérie felt sure that her husband wouldn’t have been like that. He might not touch her any more, but he would have been devastated by the idea that his wife could cheat on him. It made her feel good to think that. Well, that was what she imagined anyway; sometimes she worried that the opposite was true, that he wouldn’t really care. But she preferred to think that he would be jealous. It was perhaps all that remained to them, the feeling that they still belonged to each other a little bit.

22

After lunch, I decided to go and see Madeleine. She opened the door to me with a wide smile, then immediately disappeared into the kitchen to make some tea. It was like a replay of the previous day’s scene. Once again, sitting in the living room, I thought about my grandmothers. I had wondered so many times how they filled their days. It was the same with Madeleine. What did she do to get through all the empty hours? She went shopping, went for walks, saw her daughter and sometimes her grandchildren, and I imagined that she also watched television (one of my grandmothers would spend her entire day in front of TF1). Could you fill up a life that way? How did your relationship with time change once your days were numbered? I am obsessed by these questions.

When she reappeared, I asked her if she’d had a good morning. She replied instantly: ‘Oh, I haven’t stopped!’ I still didn’t know what exactly she had been doing with her time, but at least I had my answer. She didn’t feel bored. In fact, it is surprising how seldom elderly people experience boredom. Unlike children, who complain about every minute not packed with activity. You probably have a different relationship with time once you reach a certain age, a relationship no longer characterised by submission to an occupation. I remembered how one day I had looked through my grandmother’s window (she lived on the ground floor) and seen her sitting on the sofa doing nothing. She almost looked like she was meditating, but in fact she was just taking a brief holiday from herself. And I could read all sorts of emotions on her face, but boredom wasn’t one of them.