House of Alphonse.

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I neither own nor rent the house in which I live: it belongs to my cousin, but he lives in Martinique where he has a little woman on the go but she refuses to marry him. So I live here, rent free and with few responsibilities, which has been most convenient during these years of my impecunity since I returned from my years of study in Scotland. I’m more or less a caretaker rather than tenant, and, though I say so myself, the care that I take is vastly superior to the care the house would have received from cousin Alphonse. He has always cared more for his clothes, his beer, his hair and his women that for his house. Perhaps this is why that wise woman in Martinique refuses to become his wife. The house is clean and tidy and the garden produces all the onions, spinach and aubergines that I need. And there are chickens. I don’t know why I’m confessing all this. Perhaps I miss cousin Alphonse or, more likely, perhaps I have some fear that his woman might kick him out and he’ll come running back here.