After all, what was the point of taking the stakes and chains back? No one was going to steal them.
Standing upright and turning towards the bridge, which the cows were now crossing, he muttered:
‘Thanks!’
She let him walk a short distance away. She was about to go back to the house. Each of them started in their own direction. But she spoke again:
‘Goodnight!’
He turned around quickly. Too late. She was walking homeward, lifting her feet up because of the wet grass.
And he plodded back to the farmhouse. He stroked the ribs of one of the cows with his stick. The lights were on at Françoise’s place. Couderc’s shadow could be guessed at behind the curtains.
He found the lantern in the cowshed and lit it.
‘Now don’t be difficult. You can see I’m doing my best.’
The first cow sent a stream of piss over his feet and legs, and kicked the pail over twice, while the other one lowed as it stared at him. He hadn’t got the chickens inside yet, and he mustn’t forget to put more paraffin in the lamp of the incubator.
Tati, upstairs, was now in the dark. The evening air was cool and the window wide open. Frogs were beginning to croak in the pools among the shallows of the Cher.
‘Everything all right, Jean?’
Her voice came from far away, up in the air.
‘Yes, all right!’ he shouted.
In the wash-house, there were some large glazed earthenware bowls. He poured the foaming milk into them and remembered that his sister, when she was little, used to drink the milk that came straight from the cow at a farm their father had bought.
Would he sleep better tonight? Would it start up again, like a toothache that comes back at fixed times, as soon as he lay down under his skylight?
Every person condemned to death …
He finished his tasks quickly, and lit the lamp in the kitchen, an old-fashioned lamp with a blue glass shade. He closed the door and put up the chain.
‘Is that you?’ called Tati.
Well, of course it was him!
Going into her bedroom, he guessed at her eyes staring through the dark.
‘Close the window first, because of mosquitoes. Then you can light the lamp. Have you eaten?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Was there a lot of spilled milk?’
She must have heard the pail being kicked over twice!
‘No, not much.’
‘I’m not blaming you. I know you’re doing all you can. You haven’t forgotten the incubator? I’m wondering how we’ll manage on Saturday, for the market.’
‘I could go.’
She touched wood as he lit the lamp. It scared her to talk about a future so far off. Who knew whether by Saturday …
‘You haven’t seen Félicie again?’
‘No.’
He hadn’t hesitated. He had lied instinctively, and he was the first to be surprised.
‘Her parents should send her off to work. She does nothing all day long. Well, neither does her father, come to that. Or Françoise. People their sort, they’d rather live in vermin than put themselves out. They think the world owes them a living, that’s the Coudercs all over for you. They’ve only got just enough to eat. And even so. Not a lot of meat. And yet they have to show off …’
She was surprised at the silence into which her words were falling.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing, I’m listening.’
‘Oh, I’m boring you with all these stories, aren’t I? But if you’d come to live in this house at fourteen, like I did … I didn’t get much chance to play with dolls, eh? “Tati do this, Tati do that! Go and fetch some water, take the buckets down. Go and check the cowshed, in case.” Always Tati having to do all the work. And those two girls sitting there like slugs, getting fat and doing not a hand’s turn. Now what are you going to eat, my poor Jean?’
‘I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it yet.’
‘Tomorrow, the butcher comes to the village. You can go and buy some meat from him. For tonight, there should still be two tins of sardines in the cupboard. You have one of them. You can just bring me a bowl of hot milk with a bit of coffee in it. I’m frightened I won’t be able to sleep.’
He thought as he went downstairs:
