They’d all gone to Salin-de-Giraud, a picnic in the bed of the pick-up truck. Patrick and Valérie had taken the girls with them, in the back of their Peugeot 205. The pick-up was behind them, with Manuel and Séverine in the cabin. Once they’d left the main roads, they’d parked by the wayside; Patrick, Céline and Jo had climbed into the back of the truck, while Séverine had joined Valérie in the small car. Céline remembered the road like a loud scream, a gale in their faces, shrieking with laughter, laughing like idiots. Standing up, clinging to the crossbar above the cabin, they tackled the road head-on, and Manuel had fun swerving suddenly to throw them off balance. It was a bit stupid and dangerous, but funny. Patrick had glued himself to Céline, his belly against her buttocks, an arm around her waist to stop her from falling over. In Céline’s memory, there were herds of dark bulls along the road, and the first pink flamingoes had made them giggle overexcitedly. Family outings, or with friends of their parents, didn’t happen very often. At the weekend, the men would do their odd jobs and the women would go shopping. The girls would veg out in front of the TV or go and smoke in the fields with their village mates. Weekends would drag from doing nothing, but were always too short despite their complaining about monumental boredom. She didn’t remember their ever having gone further than Salin-de-Giraud at any point. She’s never even taken the train, except once to go to Avignon with her class in year nine; a visit to the Pope’s Palace and the Petit Palais museum, and she was bored to death among the badly proportioned religious paintings.