My cast of characters on the plage privée are settled, named, content. They’ve not been consulted, I know. But then this is not a democracy. You can tell they like it by their relaxed, easy, affable behaviour; Edith and Alphonse sleep with the sun gleaming in their purple rinses; Wolf is reading the life of Bismarck – his little daughters look happier; the breasts of the Dutch sisters, Ria and Beatrice, are no longer quite so distant. Raoul looks a bit shifty – he knows I have my eye on him … We are at that point in the season where time seems to have stopped and no one is ever going to leave. Early in August the days get this way, the hawks fly higher, the sky is pale and powdery above the breasts of St Joan and it seems as if everything will continue, but I know that the perfect weather cannot last. Summers past are proof of that. The less time left, the faster it runs. These perfect moments mean the end of things. The sun pierces the wooden slats and lets down its dusty, silver nets into the green water but catches nothing.
