‘Think you’ll be happy with them, in a three-room flat, upstairs in a grey house? Who’ll make love with you then?’
‘Tati!’ cried Amélie, jumping up with a start.
‘As if you didn’t know! As if you didn’t know that it even began when your brother was alive! Look at him, all of you. Think he wants to go away from here with you?’
The old man had stood up, letting the notebook fall to the floor. He went to sit by the fireside, to be safe from any approach.
‘You’ve taken advantage of his state of mind. But you haven’t won the day, I’m telling you, Tati. In these cases, there’s always the right to call a family council. I know what the lawyer said. And that’ll be the day.’
She looked round and made a movement as if sweeping the room.
‘You’ll be kicked out, you and your murderer friend.’
She was shaking and her lips were trembling. Her eyes fell on the window, golden with sunlight. It must have reminded her of something, since she suddenly shrieked:
‘Hector! Where’s Hector? Désiré! Go quickly and find Hector! He’s capable of …’
Tati smiled, a broad, contented smile, and her hand stroked the cameo brooch pinned to her black blouse. The same brooch as in the photo of her mother-in-law.
‘Sure you won’t have something to make you feel better?’ she asked, picking up the blackcurrant bottle.
And then Amélie made a sudden, unwise move. She snatched at the bottle, which fell to the floor and smashed. Tati, by reflex, pulled off Amélie’s hat, which fell into the sticky, dark-red liquid.
‘Amélie! Tati!’ squeaked Françoise, beside herself with fear.
‘You’re lucky I can control myself,’ puffed Amélie, her eyes on Jean, for fear that he might intervene. ‘Where’s Désiré? Désiré! Désiré! Hector! Where have the pair of you got to?’
She had opened the door. The sun poured into the kitchen, making a diamond shape on the floor and lighting up the fine specks of dust in the air.
Amélie was on the point of weeping. Françoise had stood up.
‘Désiré! Hector! I’m sure that boy has fallen in the canal.’
This gave her an excuse to burst into tears.
‘You go off too, old girl,’ Tati advised Françoise, pushing her inert sister-in-law in front of her. ‘Go and find your daughter, the little tart. Off you go!’
And she kicked the door shut.
‘It’s all about the house,’ she declared, coming back to the middle of the room and addressing Jean. ‘It drives them mad. The idea that they can’t have the house to share out. But who’d take care of the old boy then, eh? Would that be fair?’
And, for the first time, she looked at Couderc with some tenderness.
‘The very idea of losing his Tati, and not having a little fun now and then.’
She stroked his cheek and glanced at him promisingly.
‘Come on, you. This time, you really deserve it.’
With a movement of her head, she indicated the stairs. Jean, who had his back to her just then, nevertheless had the impression she was making an obscene gesture.
He looked out of the window. Amélie, minus her hat, her hair tumbling down, was holding forth vehemently, while her husband had a contrite air. The little boy, one shoe full of water, had probably just had a smack, since his cheek was red and he was rubbing his eyes with his dirty hands.
Amélie and Françoise hugged each other goodbye at length, as people do after a funeral.
Then the three from Saint-Amand set off towards the main road, where they would have to wait for an hour and a half for the bus.
When Jean turned round, there was no one in the kitchen. He could hear sounds from upstairs and preferred to go out into the yard, where the chickens were clustering in the shade under the cart.
What was there to do today?
He turned the wheel of the well and set about watering the lettuces.
4
That Saturday turned out to be like one of those days in your childhood you make too much of ahead of time.
And it even began with a childish impression: Jean’s panic when, half-asleep, he heard the rain drumming on the sloping skylight above his head. Every other day, the weather had been glorious. Was it raining on purpose? He had to make an effort to open his eyes a little. He had always been a heavy sleeper, finding it difficult to wake up. It was still dark, thank goodness. What time could it be? The moon was in the sky and the raindrops glistened as they zigzagged down the glass.
He went back to sleep, telling himself that the weather had time to improve, and when he heard a door banging, and jumped quickly to his feet, the sun was bright, shining even more radiantly than the previous days, and the chestnut trees were a deeper green.
While he was under the open barn, preparing the chicken feed, Tati’s window opened. Tati leaned out, combing her hair as it hung round her shoulders.
‘Don’t forget the chickens in the basket!’
And he felt light as air, as if something exceptional was about to happen. He whistled as he arranged carefully everything that Tati was taking to market: one basket of white chickens, attached in pairs by their feet; twelve dozen hens’ eggs; three dozen duck eggs (for the baker) and five large goose eggs; then several pats of butter wrapped in cabbage leaves.
‘Have you picked the little gooseberries?’ she called again, now that she was almost ready.
