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she took off her clothes and lay on the carpet with her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the bookworm to get on with it.
    “That’s not what I meant at all,” Decambrais muttered as he handed her back her clothes.
    “Can’t pay no other way,” said Lizbeth as she sat up on her haunches.
    “Look, I can’t manage here on my own any more,” Decambrais went on with his eyes riveted to the carpet. “There’s the cleaning to do, the lodgers’ dinner to make, there’s shopping, and all the bills to see to. Give me a hand, and you can have the room for free.”
    Lizbeth smiled, and Decambrais nearly swooned into her arms. But he was an old wreck and he reckoned the woman could do with a break from all that. And she certainly had taken a break – she’d been in the house for six years now, and there’d never been the slightest sign of a lover. Lizbeth was recuperating, and Hervé prayed for her convalescence to last a while longer.
    The newscast had begun and the small ads were flowing thick and fast. Decambrais realised he’d not been paying attention, as Joss was already on to ad number 5. That was how it worked: you had to memorise the number of the ad that caught your ear, and go to see the crier afterwards for “further details after the fact”. Decambrais wondered where Joss had picked up that strange charge-sheet formula.
    “Five!” barked Joss.
    For sale, litter of white and ginger kittens, three male, two female. Six: Could the tam-tam players making jungle noises all night long opposite number 36 please desist. Some people have to get some sleep. Seven: All types of carpentry, especially furniture restoration, perfect finish, will collect and deliver. Eight: The gas and electric company can go jump in a lake. Nine: Pest control is a complete scam. There are just as many cockroaches as before, and they take 600 francs off you for nothing. Ten: Helen, I love you. I’ll be waiting for you tonight at the Chat-qui-danse. Signed: Bernard. Eleven: Another rotten summer, and now it’s September already. Twelve: For attention of the butcher on the square. Yesterday’s meat was old boot leather, that makes three times this week. Thirteen: Come back, Jean-Christophe. Fourteen: cops means perverts means pigs. Fifteen: For sale, garden apples and pears, tasty and juicy.
    Decambrais glanced at Lizbeth, who jotted down number 15 on her pad. Since the crier had started his newscasting you could get all sorts of first-rate supplies for a song, with consequent benefits for his lodgers’
table d’hôte
. Hervé had slipped a blank sheet between the pages of his book, and waited with pencil in hand. For the last few weeks the crier had been barking very bizarre texts that didn’t seem to raise the fisherman’s eyebrows any more than small ads for cars or kittens. But the morning catch now regularly included these special messages – refined, sometimes crazy, and often sinister snippets. A couple of days ago Decambrais had decided to keep a private note of them. His two-inch pencil was completely hidden by his large hand.
    Joss had got to the forecast break. He would raise his eyes to the sky and give his estimate of the coming turn of the weather on Avenue du Maine, and then forecast wind, sea and visibility for Channel, Falmouth, Finisterre and Irish Sea as if this was vital information for his land-lubbing listeners. But nobody, not even Lizbeth, had ever dared tell him what to do with his shipping news. People listened with religious awe, as if they were stranded on Rockall with a radio tuned in to the BBC.
    “Dull September weather,” Joss clarified, with his face to the heavens.
    No clear spells before 1500 GMT, brightening around sunset. You can go out this evening if you like, but take a woolly. Wind fresh, moderating to light. Now here is the shipping forecast. General situation: anticyclone 1030 millibars off south-west Ireland, cold front strengthening south of Cornwall.