But this evening, only her sister could see that Céline was pretending, opening her throat to laugh at Lucas’s nonsense, at Enzo’s half-baked jokes. She sparkled for the gallery.

They went to the Tarantula with the others. This ride first came here ten years ago, with its aluminium cars flashing red and yellow, small lights flickering to “Freed from Desire”. Vertigo, as always, and the screams when the metal structure starts and lifts the clusters of willing flyers. Even old folks find it entertaining to watch youngsters get up there to give themselves a fright. Nobody’s ever seemed to find it odd that the same dance track is played year after year, as though time had stopped in 1996, twenty years earlier.

Céline and Jo know it by heart. They’ve lost count of the number of times they’ve screamed all the way up there when the seats start turning slowly on themselves before falling down at a crazy speed then going back up as fast. But they keep coming back, for the thrill of it.

Lucas was already trying to overtake Enzo so he could get in with Céline.

She slid her hand across the nape of her neck to flick her hair back and time stood still in the eyes of the boys, between the lift and the slap as her hair cascaded down again. After that they started to breathe once more, a little less cocky but much braver than earlier, and with a slightly idiotic smile. But despite the game, despite the others, despite the pleasure of the sound being turned up to maximum – so you had to shout or glue your lips to the edge of an ear – the euphoria was just pretence. There was already this thing inside her which she was still pretending not to know about: a logical consequence, a cold logic that says trouble breeds nothing but trouble. She was still lying a little to herself, long enough for a ride, long enough to see two guys fight for the privilege of holding her tight by the waist while dizzy, absorbing her terrified screams and tangled hair as the machine descended, and hoping for more. And yet even as she turned to look at the large iron spider, her feet on the steps streaked with flashing colours, she felt sick. It was absurd: she wasn’t afraid of the void, or the speed, and she’d always loved the rides. A kind of clammy oppressiveness – perhaps primeval intuition?

Céline turned to Enzo and her eyes appointed him for the first ride. Lucas was disappointed, but there would be others; they usually took ten rides a night at the funfair, and the evening was only just starting. The man with the first move didn’t necessarily win the chess game. He stepped away to roll a joint. The next ride would be his. Vanessa was clinging to Manon, unless it was the other way around. They were giggling, pushing away Antony, who was embracing them and whispering stuff in their ears they were pretending not to understand. They were shaking their heads and their hips. Their eyes were shining. The music saturated the air around them, made the ground vibrate and travelled up their legs – Want more and more, people just want more and more – even Jo’s. Her knees were vibrating slightly and she couldn’t tell exactly if she liked this kind of frenzy or hated it. Her eyes travelled from the cars, finally emptied, to her sister. “You sure you’re all right?” she said, forced to shout. Céline didn’t answer. She looked white as a sheet, eyes dilated by the hysterical lights. She nodded, kept her head down, hair over her face. “You don’t have to if you don’t feel well,” Jo continued. “It’s not like every time we have to make do with the same ride we’ve had for the past ten years.”