French property for sale

The inheritors came on Wednesday evening, parking two cars and a horse van in the narrow lane that goes up to the woods. They made a bonfire in the old lady’s front garden, feeding it with furniture from her house, green and blue plastic flower pots, anything they didn’t want.

The stoking continued for most of the night; leaping red flames and acrid, watery yellow smoke cursing through the forsythia and hawthorn blossom into the loose-gravelled road and across the village.

They missed the take-away food trays strewn in front of the well.

And the two wooden brushes the old lady used to wash down the terrace are still leaning against the wall where she nailed a pair of lucky horseshoes.

The inheritors left late morning, with the horse van and one car, tying the gates shut with a long, worn band of black rubber.

The second car, now without wheels, is propped up on stones in the garden.

Whispy white strands of smoke still puff from a mound of ash and charcoal - the ugly remains of the inheritors’ pyre.

The usually empty green communal bin is stuffed with over-packed recyclable carrier bags. Old rubber boots, papers. Details from the old lady’s life squashed among her neighbours’ rubbish.

A bright yellow notaire’s sign is tied to the fence.

For sale: Number 3, the old lady’s house. It comes with a little white Renault (no wheels).