was a young girl. You would catch a glimpse of her sometimes in a way she had of sitting down, tugging her skirt over her knees, of running a hand through her hair, a surprisingly graceful movement in that wrinkled skin glove.
She had sat down at a table, an empty plate in front of her. Across the table another place was set. The ceiling lamp hung quite low, and was not strong enough to light up the rest of the dining room, which remained shrouded in darkness. You could sense, however, that it was cluttered with objects and pieces of furniture. All the air in the room seemed to be concentrated around the table, held within the cone of light shed by the lampshade. Yolande waited, bolt upright in her chair.
‘I saw the school bus this morning. The children were wearing every colour imaginable. Getting off the bus, they were like sweets spilling out of a bag. No, it wasn’t this morning, it was yesterday, or maybe the day before. They really did look like sweets. It brightened up just then, a streak of blue between the clouds. In my day children weren’t dressed like that. You didn’t get all those fluorescent colours then, not anywhere. What else did I see? Any cars? Not many. Oh yes, there was the butcher this morning. I’m sure it was this morning. He comes every Sunday morning. I saw him parking, the old bastard. He’s always trying to see in. He’s been at it for years. He never sees anything, and he knows he never will.’
Beef, some stringy, some covered in fat, with a marrow bone to boil up for a pot-au-feu. It was ready, had been cooking away all day. Bub, bub, bubble. The pan lid was lifting, dribbling out greyish froth, a powerful smell, strong like sweat. ‘What else did I see?’
Yolande showed no surprise at hearing the three quick taps at the door and the key turning in the lock. Her brother had always knocked three times to let her know it was him. There was no point, since no one ever came. But he did it anyway.
Yolande was still sitting with an empty plate. The room was cold, the cooker was off. Bernard hung up his wet coat. Underneath he was wearing an SNCF uniform; he worked for the railways. He was around fifty, and looked like the sort of person you would ask for some small change, the time or directions in the street. He greeted his sister with a kiss on the back of the neck as he went round to take his place opposite her. Locking his fingers, he cracked his knuckles before unfolding his napkin. He had a yellowish complexion and big dark shadows under his eyes. His flattened hair showed the circular imprint of his cap.
‘Haven’t you started? You should have, it’s late.’
‘No, I was waiting for you. I was wondering when the school bus last went by.’
‘Saturday morning, I expect.’
‘You’ve got mud all over you. Is it raining?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’
They were both equally still, sitting upright in their chairs. They looked at each other without really seeing, asked questions without waiting for an answer.
‘I had a puncture coming home from the station, near the building site. It’s all churned up round there. You’d think the earth was spewing up mud. That’s their machinery, excavators, rollers, all that stuff. The work’s coming along quickly, but it’s creating havoc.’
‘Have you still got a temperature?’
‘Sometimes, but it passes. I’m taking the tablets the doctor gave me. I’m a bit tired, that’s all.’
‘Shall I serve up?’
‘If you like.’
Yolande took his plate and disappeared into the shadows. The ladle clanged against the side of the pot, and there was a sound of trickling juices. Yolande came back and handed the plate to Bernard. He took it, Yolande held on.
‘Have you been scared?’
Bernard looked away and gave the plate a gentle tug. ‘Yes, but it didn’t last. Give it here, I’m feeling better now.’
Yolande went back for her own food. From the shadows she said, without knowing whether it was a question or a statement, ‘You’ll get more and more scared.’
Bernard began to eat, mechanically.
‘That may be, I don’t know. Machon’s given me some new pills.’
Yolande ate in the same way, as if scooping water out of a boat.
‘I saw the butcher this morning. He tried to see in again.’
Bernard shrugged. ‘He can’t see anything.’
‘No, he can’t see anything.’
Then they stopped talking and finished their lukewarm pot-au-feu.
Through the closed shutters, shafts of light came in from the street, illuminating the chaos cluttering the dining room. A network of narrow passages tunnelled through the heaped-up jumble of furniture, books, clothing, all kinds of things, made it possible to get from one room to another provided you walked like an Egyptian. Stacks of newspapers and magazines just about managed to prop up this rubbish tip, which threatened to collapse at any moment.
At the table, Yolande had swept the used plates, cutlery and glasses from the evening before over to one corner. She was busy cutting pictures out of a magazine and sticking them on to pieces of cardboard to make a kind of jigsaw puzzle. By day the pendant lamp still oozed the same dead light as it did by night.
‘Bernard’s not gone to work today, he wasn’t up to it. He’s getting tireder and tireder, thinner and thinner. His body’s like this house, coming apart at the seams. Where am I going to put him when he’s dead? There’s not a bit of space left anywhere. We’ll get by, we’ve always got by, ever since I can remember. Nothing has ever left this house, even the toilet’s blocked up. We keep everything. Some day, we won’t need anything else, it’ll all be here, for ever.’
Yolande hummed to herself, to the accompaniment of mice scrabbling and Bernard’s laboured breathing in the room next door.
He was asleep or pretending to be. He was fiddling with a sparkling pendant on a gilt chain: ‘More than yesterday and much less than tomorrow.’ He wouldn’t be going back to the doctor’s. Even before setting foot in the consulting room he had known it was his final visit, almost a matter of courtesy. As usual, Machon had adopted specially for him the jovial manner which he found so irritating. But yesterday evening he’d struck more false notes than usual, stumbling over his words while looking in vain for the prompt. In short, when he’d sent Bernard away, his eyes had belied what his lips were saying.
‘It’s a question of attitude, Monsieur Bonnet, and of willpower. You’ve got to fight, and keep on fighting. In any case, you’ll see, two or three days from now and you’ll be feeling much better. Don’t forget now, take three in the morning, three at lunch time and three in the evening.’
It was true, on leaving Bernard had felt relief, but that had had nothing to do with the medication. These regular appointments with the doctor, for months now, had been eating away at him as much as his illness, a never-ending chore. He who had never been ill in his life had experienced something like profound humiliation at handing himself over body and soul to Dr Machon, despite knowing him well. Every Wednesday for years now, the doctor had caught the train to Lille to see his mother. They had ended up exchanging greetings and passing the time of day until there had grown up between
