‘Fed up with what?’
‘You know what I mean. This isn’t what you should be doing. And I, just …’
She was on the point of weeping. In her disordered bed, among the flannel garments and bandages, she was perspiring.
‘I’ve been thinking about something else … Since this morning … When your father finds out you’re here … And he will find out. After all, your sister knew about it and she lives off in Orléans. He’ll come and fetch you. He’ll be too proud to let a son of his …’
Suddenly a question that must have occurred to her long ago came to her lips:
‘Why did you do it, Jean?’
‘Do what?’
‘You know what I mean. You got off the bus and helped me carry the incubator. Then you stayed. And now … And I’ve been talking to you as if we are family … I don’t know why …’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Tati!’ he said to hide his embarrassment. ‘You’d do better to lie down and rest.’
‘I just want to ask you one thing. Swear you won’t refuse.’
‘Why? Is it something so difficult?’
‘No. Just swear. You don’t know how miserable I am here on my own in this bed. I can listen out, but there are times I can’t hear. Will you swear?’
‘Yes. I swear.’
‘Not to refuse? All right, I just want you to promise that, whatever happens, you won’t go away without letting me know.’
This time she swallowed a sob and turned away her misshapen head.
‘I won’t try to stop you. But what I don’t want is to be lying here waiting, to hear the door open downstairs, and then tell myself … You swear, Jean?’
‘Yes. Anyway, I don’t want to leave.’
‘You swear that on the head of your mother?’
‘Yes.’
Suddenly a wave of sadness came over him.
‘It doesn’t disgust you, doing all this stuff?’
‘It amuses me.’
‘What about when it doesn’t amuse you any longer? Go on, then! You must be hungry. What are you going to eat?’
‘An omelette … Some potatoes with a slice of ham.’
‘You can bring me up a little bit of the omelette. Tomorrow, I’ll try to get up. The doctor told me I mustn’t move about if I want to get better.’
She called him back when he was already on the stairs.
‘Jean! There was something else. I’m bothering you, aren’t I? If that Félicie starts hanging around you …’
‘Don’t worry. She doesn’t want to hang around me. She hates me!’
And he went down to put on the potatoes.
He didn’t always wait for her to call. He would go upstairs, casually, push open her door gently, in case she was dozing, but he always found himself facing her wide-awake gaze.
‘I’ve finished. What shall I do next?’
‘Is it still raining?’
‘It’s more like a fog.’
‘Are you sure you want something to do? The trouble is, I can’t even show you where things are. You know, Jean, no one in the world would ever have done for me what you’re doing. Even my mother; all she thought about was finding me a place so I wouldn’t be another mouth to feed. She didn’t even bother to find out what kind of a house I landed up in. Do you know what a sulphur spray is?’
He shook his head.
‘It’s in the shed. A bellows with a long pipe. There must be some sulphur still inside. Or if not, there’s a tin on the shelf … A biscuit tin. It’s yellow powder. Don’t make a mistake. You fill the container under the bellows.’
‘Yes, I get it. What am I supposed to spray?’
‘The vines by the hedge.’
He spent part of the afternoon on that. He had already seen, in the countryside, men and women working behind hedges. He remembered their calm actions. He had no idea what they were doing. He could only see the top half of their body, a battered hat, a pipe that had probably gone out.
Now it was his turn to be the man working behind a hedge and he knew that Félicie was watching him, and that Françoise too came now and then to look across at him.
