Bad news from my oncologist didn’t spoil my joyous reunion with my grandson

The Moulinards had inhabited the old stone hilltop house for centuries, ekeing out a hard living among the sun-baked boulders. They were peasants. In the winter of 1962 there was one Moulinard left. Henri: old, alcoholic, feeding the furniture into the fire for warmth. A delegation of relations came up the hill to persuade him to go into an old people’s home. When they’d left, old Henri took himself off to a large oak tree and hanged himself from a branch, dangling there for several days before being found. The house passed to a Marseille butcher who sold it on to an English couple who asked us to house-sit last week while they went on holiday to Austria.

We were three: Catriona, me and my ten-year-old grandson, whom I hadn’t seen since Christmas. He had lengthened considerably in seven months, his teeth were falling out, and he was addicted to watching TikTok videos on his secondhand smartphone.