‘That’s the way it is, eh, Couderc?’
He flinched but did not seem to understand, simply bending his head over his plate.
‘Eh, Couderc, it’s true, isn’t it, you’re a goat and you were chasing after me in the cellar even when your son was alive?’
She was deliberately raising the subject. Her lips and eyes were moist with the effort.
‘You don’t care for brawn? From far away, are you?’
‘Yes, quite far.’
‘And you’ve no money at all?’
He felt in his pockets. As if ironically, he pulled out a small coin.
‘Just a copper.’
‘We’ll see. We can try to get the incubator started, anyway. I’ve been wanting one of these for a long time. What it is, with the price of chickens, you can hatch sixty-five at a time. It was secondhand, so I don’t have the instructions, more’s the pity. But there’s a brass plate on it with some words.’
She stood up to fetch the coffee pot and drank her coffee in little sips, all the time observing her guest.
‘There’ll have been some folk this morning, and they’ll have thought: “Tati’s off her head. Buying an incubator, did you see?”’
She laughed.
‘And what would they be gossiping about now?’
She looked at him. She was taking possession of him. She was not afraid of him. And she was determined to make him understand that she was not afraid.
‘What about a little glass of something? None for the old man, that’ll get his goat.’
She brought out a bottle of colourless brandy and poured him a few drops.
‘And now we’ll try to get this machine going. It’s time the old man went to keep an eye on his cows, they’re grazing by the towpath. So, do you understand the system? I know you have to put the eggs here, in this kind of drawer, and I suppose the lamp goes there. What does it say on the metal plate?’
Perhaps she couldn’t read? That was possible. Or maybe the letters were too small.
‘Bring the temperature up to thirty-nine degrees and maintain it there for the twenty-one days of incubation.’
‘How will we know it’s thirty-nine degrees?’
‘By the thermometer.’
They were both crouching alongside the incubator. The day was hot. Sweat stood out on their skin.
‘Show me where it says thirty-nine degrees.’
‘To try it out, we need some paraffin for the lamp.’
‘I’ve got some. Wait.’
She went to fetch it from an outhouse, cleaned the wick and lit the lamp.
‘You’re sure this is where it goes?’
Long before this, the red bus had arrived at Montluçon, almost empty, having dropped the farmers’ wives along the route. The driver was eating in the shady backroom of a small café and would be off again at four.
From Montluçon to Saint-Amand, sometimes running alongside the Cher, sometimes veering away from it, the Berry canal, scarcely six metres wide, carried toytown barges on its calm waters, and in places toytown bridges crossed it, having to be raised manually by pulling a chain.
It was late May. The gooseberries were ripe. The strawberries were coming on. In one corner of the garden was a large bed of broad beans.
‘If they say you have to put water in it, that’s what we should do.’
Tati was suspicious. Jean peered inside the machine. Where did the water go that was needed to keep up the humidity of the incubator?
He had taken off his jacket. His shirt of fine cotton, striped blue and white, was frayed at the collar and cuffs.
He was thin, but there was something a bit pasty about his face.
‘We’ll soon see,’ he said. ‘If, in a few minutes, the temperature reaches thirty-nine …’
‘I’ve got the eggs all ready. Nothing but Leghorns. Where will you sleep tonight?’
He smiled, which meant he had understood. From the first moment in the bus, before they had said anything, they had understood each other.
‘I don’t know. Here perhaps. Look! Thirty-seven, almost thirty-eight. In a few minutes …’
‘You could sleep in the attic?’
