They started getting things out of the car. They had brought bed-linen and enough clothes to last them three weeks. In this heat they would not be wearing much. The problem of dinner soon arose. It was too late to go back down to wherever it was to go shopping; everything would be closed.

‘Tell me, are those really hazel trees down there?’ Lise asked playfully.

‘I don’t know, Lise. I don’t know anything. You think I’m looking at the trees?’

‘You should. Because if they are hazel trees, there might be hazelnuts, or blackberries, and mushrooms. Have you looked to see if there are any?’

‘Seriously, Lise, you really want to eat mushrooms with hazelnuts?’

Lise made no reply. Instead, she unpacked two big bags, containing crisps, three packets of warm salad, as well as a bottle of wine and an assortment of drinks she had bought at the service station just in case.

Franck felt lost. In these new surroundings, he was unsure what to do or where to put himself. He followed Lise’s instructions to get this or that bag out of the boot, to take this or that upstairs. She was on top of the situation. He watched her; she seemed cool and relaxed, while he had scratches all over his body and was soaked in sweat, with blood on his arms and legs. He listened to her obediently. In the bedroom he gave her a hand making the bed.

‘This mattress is brand new. That’s odd, don’t you think?’

‘The important thing is that there is a bed.’

Franck plugged in his charger near the bedside table, but that was not working either. He began to complain, until Lise told him to go and turn the electricity on to calm him down. Franck went downstairs and looked everywhere to find the meter. It was behind a curtain; he set it to ‘ON’ and the radio immediately started up in the bathroom, an old FM radio playing a Bob Marley song that sounded out of place, but at least he had got something from this house. Disturbed by the sudden burst of noise, he went to the bathroom to switch it off. It was an old black Telefunken with a knob and a big aerial, the same type of radio he had had as a teenager.