After the funeral, Pater departed quick smart for one of his longest tours at sea, entrusting me to his aunt, Granny Soize, the woman who brought me up and who took care of my every need on a daily basis. He only took his retirement from the Merchant Marine super-grudgingly when all that remained for an old guy like him was the fitting out of rust-buckets filled with Filipinos.

I was twelve years old by the time he started living with us full-time and it goes without saying he was entirely unwelcome, his unsavoury machismo misfiring completely after his lifelong absence.

Every place prompts its own particular set of destinies, so prior to my escape I must have subconsciously sensed that I had to get the hell away from that island and its constant dramas at all costs before I suffered my own calamity, in personam ... And I wasn’t wrong about that.

It’s a pretty banal story when all’s said and done, and as you’d expect, entirely typical of the island, for anybody in the know . . . We were taking advantage of the fact that the police hadn’t yet arrived for the summer season by indulging in one of our favourite pastimes as idle youth, namely taking one of the cars parked at the wharf for a joyride. The keys were always left hanging in the ignition, and we were hammered and had no licence. Here we go, guys! We’re outta here . . . I was with some guys and girls from the camping ground, not kids from the island, otherwise it would never have played out the way it did.

I was sitting in – or, rather, I was squashed into – the backseat, unfortunately too pissed to realise that the idiot who was driving was taking the coast road.

He simply didn’t see that the earth stopped there. Finis terrae. Boom, over the cliff. The two guys in the front were crushed to death and the girl next to me burnt alive, because she had been sensible enough to put on her belt and got stuck. Seeing as I’ve never been sensible about anything, I flew through the rear window when the car rolled and broke my spine.

Paris

12 June 1870

Since drawing a bad number in the ballot, Auguste had spent some ghastly nights tortured by anxiety.

Ever since that cursed day, he had continued to set his alarm clock for 7 am, but having only ever snatched one or two hours’ rest when it rang, he would switch it off and go back to sleep, managing only to drag himself from his bed in the late afternoon. He had not set foot in the university for two months on account of his constant headaches, and relations with his aunt Clothilde had deteriorated considerably.