He was lucky he hadn’t been given the sack.

‘Is Madame Roubaud with you?’ Henri inquired.

Yes, she had wanted to come too in order to do some shopping. He was expecting her back at any minute. Madame Victoire always let them have the key to her room whenever they came to Paris. They liked to have a quiet meal there on their own, while she, bless her, went off to her job as a lavatory attendant. They’d had a quick sandwich at Mantes so that they could get everything done before they had lunch, but it was now gone three o’clock, and he was starving.

Henri was in a chatty mood and asked if they were staying overnight.

No, they weren’t. They were returning to Le Havre that evening, on the 6.30 express. Some holiday! A lot of fuss and bother just to get a ticking off, and then it was back to the grind!9

The two men exchanged knowing looks, but their voices were drowned by a loud burst of spirited piano playing. The sisters must have been at the piano together; their laughter could be heard above the sound of the music, and it had obviously excited the birds in their cage. Henri, not wanting to miss out on the fun, waved goodbye and went back into the room. Left alone, Roubaud stood for a minute or two looking down at the balcony, from which the sounds of youthful merriment continued to rise. When he looked up again, he saw that the locomotive had closed its cylinder taps and that the pointsman was sending it on to the Caen train. A few last wisps of steam evaporated into the great swirls of dark smoke that blackened the sky. Roubaud turned and walked back into the room.

The cuckoo clock now said twenty past three. Roubaud shook his hand at it in frustration. Where on earth had Séverine got to? She only had to walk into a shop and you couldn’t get her out of it! In an effort to take his mind off the pangs of hunger that were churning away inside his stomach, he decided to lay the table. He knew the room well. It was a large room with two windows and it served as bedroom, dining room and kitchen all in one. All the furniture was in walnut — a bed with a red cotton quilt, a sideboard-cum-dresser, a round table and a Normandy wardrobe. He opened the sideboard and took out napkins, plates, knives and forks and two glasses. Everything was spotlessly clean. He enjoyed performing his little domestic chores, like a little girl laying the table for a dolls’ tea-party, admiring the beautiful white tablecloth, thinking how very much in love with his wife he was and smiling to himself as he thought of her breezing into the room and laughing when she saw his handiwork. He placed the pate on a plate and put the bottle of white wine beside it. Suddenly a puzzled expression came over his face; there was something missing. He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out two packages that he had forgotten — a small tin of sardines and a piece of Gruyère cheese.

A clock chimed half past three. Roubaud paced up and down the room, listening intently for the least sound on the staircase. There was nothing he could do but wait. As he passed in front of the mirror he stopped and looked at himself. He didn’t look his age. He was approaching forty, but still had a good head of strikingly red, curly hair, with not a sign of grey. He sported a full, vigorous, shiny blond beard.