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managed to get some ice cream bars as well. She was really angry with Papa and she screamed it was all his fault she’d had kids, and because of that her breasts were all horrible and spoiled. If she’d stayed single she wouldn’t have had any kids and she’d still be pretty. Little Lu was standing outside the door. He heard everything and started to cry like a baby. When she saw him she cried too, even louder than him. And then she took him in her arms and said it wasn’t true. She didn’t really mean what she’d said; it was just to wind up Papa.
    Maybe. But, I think she’s right about her breasts. They do droop a bit.
    Anyway that time me and Little Lu got to have ice cream bars. And to be honest, I love that.

13
Ferdinand Is Plagued by Doubts
    Ferdinand passed the track leading to Marceline’s house. He slowed down, but didn’t stop. He told himself she might take it badly, all these visits one after the other. She might think he wanted to interfere. And he wasn’t like that. So he went home. It was pelting down and he didn’t feel like doing much, except sit by the stove and have a glass of mulled wine. He thought about switching on the TV but first he had a look at what was on and that changed his mind. Nothing but tedious soaps, he’d have to find something else to occupy him. He went upstairs. Seeing the toys on the floor and the unmade bed where the children had slept, he felt a twinge of sadness. At that very moment they were bound to be getting an earful from their mother. That was OK, just so long as she wasn’t too hard on them. It was the most he could hope for. He tidied up and made the bed. Then he started to look for little Chamalo, but couldn’t find him anywhere. The kitten must have gone out for a stroll. As it wastipping down, there was no chance of it coming back in a hurry. That cat didn’t like water.
    Going back downstairs he did a detour via the room where they had put the cello. He lifted the blanket in which it was wrapped but, like the children earlier, didn’t dare open the case to look inside.
    Finally, on reaching the kitchen, he stood there aimlessly.
    The damage caused by the storm at his neighbor’s house, the holes in the roof, the leaks in the ceiling, and the cold and damp which had enveloped her house . . . It made him shudder just to think about it. He tried hard to distract himself with something else: listen to the radio, do the crossword, thumb through a catalog. But he kept going back to it. If he started to work out the answer to a clue, invariably he would raise his eyes to the ceiling and see the leaks again. Listening to the radio was even worse. All they talked about was the record rainfall for the time of year and the plunging temperatures.
    So he immersed himself in his DIY catalog. His favorite pages, the last ones, were reserved for inventions. The kind that gets entered for the Lépine competition, but a little less glamorous. A pan for sweeping up crumbs, a telescopic pole for taking down jars from a high shelf, a left-handed vegetable peeler or a gadget to pull up your socks without bending down. He quite liked the scrub-free magic sponge that cleaned everything from floor to ceiling, all for a very modest sum. But he was afraid he might be disappointed. Better to carry on dreaming that it would work. Carefully complete the order form and never send it off. And so, once again, that was what he did.
    At the end of the day he heated up the remains of the spaghetti from the day before, watched the news on the TV and after channel flicking for a while, found a Western. But for once he didn’t enjoy it. The girl was beautiful, but after three days riding through the desert, pursued by baddies, with nothing to eat or drink and no chance to wash, she still looked like she’d just stepped out of the salon, with hermake-up immaculate and barely a crumple in her clothes. Usually that didn’t bother him, but right now it was all too much.
    He switched off