She observed something I'd never really noticed before. Essentially, there are two kinds of English people who inhabit the Auchan supermarket. Firstly, there are the cheery, loud ones, often in t-shirts, who pile their trolleys high with cheap beer and then take a fascinated stroll around the other aisles. Many of them appear to have come on coaches from south London. They joke in raucous voices with the Auchan staff, who obviously don't understand, but smile back pleasantly. Sophie categorised these as 'jolly Brits'.

Next, there are the silent couples, pretending not to be English, who carefully select not quite the cheapest red wine, and supplement their trolleys with large rounds of Brie and multipacks of brioche. They avoid eye-contact with French people at all costs. The men often have beards. They probably have Volvos in the car park. Sophie called them the 'Guardian readers'. The Guardian is a British newspaper. She asked me which group I felt most comfortable with, and I obviously replied that it was the first.

But you are a middle class reactionary! she laughed. You are a typical Guardian reader! I was outraged. I pointed out that I was an intellectual, and that intellectuals don't read the Guardian. Laughing again, she conceded the point.

Back in town, we parked on the fish market, and walked out into the northern suburbs. Sophie thought I was mad, as we entered a working class housing estate that extended to the cliff above the beach, looking out over the industrial area. Rabbit-hutch houses had prim gardens with plastic birdbaths, and net curtains in the windows. She held my hand tightly, and I drew it into my coat pocket. This seemed a wholly inappropriate place for investigating the experience of mortality.

I was conscious of the heat of her small hand in mine. I led her onwards. Here, on the edge of the estate and regarding the sea over the cliff top, there is a tiny jewel of a chapel, one that has long fascinated me, because of its disarming celebration of death. It is le Calvaire des Marins, the mortuary chapel of fishermen. I tried to imagine something similar in England, perhaps in a coal-mining district. I failed, but the attempt was an interesting one. For here is a crystalisation of working-class Catholic intimation of mortality.