‘Well, pumpkin, this isn’t quite what I planned.’

‘Why did we have to come here? We could have stayed at home.’ I kicked at the pine needles at my feet.

‘Of course we could. We could stay at home all our lives and never see anything at all. Aren’t you remotely interested in seeing another country?’

‘No. It’s got horrible cheese.’

My mother laughed and as she did a man walked past and shone a torch at us, its beam lingering on my mother’s face. The tent was up within half an hour, a group of four Frenchmen showing off their camping expertise in pools of gas-light, snapping poles together with gusto, pulling the canvas snug round the frame. And all the time my mother sat on the log, smoking pungent Gauloises and piping, ‘Merci, messieurs, merci’ I was disgusted and wandered off to find the toilet.

I returned, speechless, to find the tent erected, furniture laid out, mattresses inflated. The men had brought bottles of wine and were clustered round my mother, filling her glass, shrugging and gesturing, interrupting each other. I pushed between them and grabbed her arm.

‘What’s up, pumpkin?’

‘The toilet … it’s …’ I couldn’t find any words. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

We were invited to join a family for dinner in a nearby tent. They had a caravan with an awning, a long table laid out beneath it. I sat opposite my mother on a bench, unable to understand a word of what was being said. I was given a plate of food which I looked at for a long time.

‘What is it?’ I asked my mother, whispering.

‘Couscous.’

‘What?’

‘Eat up and smile.’

Smile? I forked a pile of rice stuff and unmentionables and put it in my mouth. I appeared to have an eyeball resting on my tongue, salty with tears. I looked wide-eyed at my mother, who shook her head slightly, glanced up the table and expertly spat an olive into the sand under the table. She looked at me and winked and I spent the rest of the meal spitting green bullets, the game being to remain unseen doing this. I went to bed as soon as I could but I could still hear my mother and the rest of them laughing, the sound of glass clinking coming clearly through the canvas. I stared at the fabric lit by the gas-lights and wished I was in my bed at home, holding Tub, knowing I’d wake up by the creek.

As it was, I woke up at dawn, unzipped the tent and pushed my way out to pee against a nearby tree. No one else was awake so I stood there, unabashed, yawning and scratching my bed-head hair. I looked up when I’d finished and there was the biggest, pale turquoise lake I had ever seen, a golden, sandy beach running round it as far as I could see. I began to run, snaking through pine trees, heart pumping, and thundered into the water until my momentum slowed and I fell forward, arms akimbo and sank into the first fresh water I’d ever swum in. I bullied my mother into wakefulness half an hour later, dripping cold water all over her as I shook her arm and told her she had to get up and come and see.