. . they are my true parents.’ They were lying on a small beach a few miles east of St Tropez. It had been only thinly populated through the day and now as the first cool breeze came off the Mediterranean and the sun began to set, it was empty save for the two of them and a beachcomber with his dog in the distance under the cliff. Joe had gazed on the sea and lay in the sun yet again, despite advice. On this fourth beach day, he was still red, rather prickle-skinned, sore, salted, a little feverish. Natasha, who had taken both sun and sea in a modest habituated manner, was freshened by the breeze and relaxed now after La Rotonde. Joe waited for her to tell him more. He knew by now that too direct a question about her childhood could halt her for days. He had learned to look away from her when she was in this mood in which he sensed both something dangerous and something sacred. ‘Alain was at school with my father,’ she said, propped on her elbows, looking out at the Mediterranean, ‘and then at university, in Montpellier and in Paris.
