‘No,’ there’s a pang in my heart, ‘what ants?’ (I caress his drawn face with my eyes.) ‘Where,’ I say, ‘what ants?’

We look at each other and suddenly we see each other, him kneeling on the ground, pressing down on his hands, intent on counting a long column of black ants parading in front of him: ‘One, two, three … seven hundred and twelve, seven hundred and thirteen’, and me, standing there in my nightdress, my hair a mess, staring at all those little animals with their little feet, murmuring: ‘What ants, no, there aren’t any ants …’

We’ve burst out laughing. We’re laughing so hard we’ve had to sit down, then I put on his slippers and we go in procession into the kitchen, to the refrigerator.

Huddled on the hard chairs, we gobble down sandwiches, like birds perching on a treetop; like those palms on the Riviera, facing the sea, with their long scaly trunks and their miserly clumps on top, ruffled by the winter wind as the waves rose and unfurled on the sand.

But what time is it? I need to sleep. God knows when he’ll be back, plus it’s raining so hard, it must be lashing down, it sounds like the cracking of a whip; what a downpour there was today, it sprouted like daffodils on the ground, such a shame to step on them, meadows full of silvery corollas of water on the asphalt, it was beautiful.

I wonder if he’s eaten. Maybe I should have sliced some salami too: all those nice red circles on the plate, surrounded by white wedges of fennel, would have whetted his appetite, whereas the involtini I made are shrinking and turning brown, streaked with congealed tomato sauce; when they’re kept too long, they aren’t at all enticing. Yes, but what if he reprimanded me for letting the salami dry out when they should be sliced just before eating, why am I so wasteful, and so on? It’s best if he doesn’t drink wine. On Sundays, though, yes, we’ll have half a glass together, just a little, on those slow savoured afternoons, when I wander about the house, quietly enter the study, he doesn’t raise his head, stern in the shade behind the cone of light. That direct light, though, ruins his eyes, it’s an obsession of his, even though he can see perfectly well that I turned the lamp upwards; I think it’s less glaring, too, it softens the corners.

But then he’s extreme in everything.

When he opens the refrigerator, he almost takes the door off its hinges, then stands there engrossed; his legs crossed, his elbow leaning on the open door, his forehead in his hand, which he then rubs against his cheek down to the chin, to the stubble that scratches the skin of his palm; he supports his chin, in deep meditation as he looks at the ham in greaseproof paper, the long green courgettes sleeping in the lunar glow of the fluorescent light, the bars of the iron shelves.