I’m cunning, I’ve prepared my story. I think I’ve startled them a bit, this army of hairy brutes, all bearded and paunchy, with the T-shirt that I’ve chosen deliberately – black and white, WWF in blood red and underneath it a decapitated panda.

‘The most complicated part,’ I simper, overplaying an innocence at odds with my bloody clothing, ‘will not be to persuade the dolphins, it will be building the sanctuary.’

The campers don’t care, they don’t believe in dolphin safaris any more than they believe in the resurrection of sea-calves.

‘I’m Corsican too, just like Natale Angeli, so concrete is out of the question. We need something else, different building materials, wood, glass, stone, it has to be beautiful! There’s no question of spoiling the site, the land belongs to Papé.’

I love that. Calling my grandfather ‘Papé’ in front of all these men who are putting the world to rights, Corsica and the maquis, amid the scents of aniseed, myrtle and tobacco. I have the impression that for them Cassanu Idrissi is some kind of Major General whose name cannot be uttered without them being changed into stone. Then along I come, turning up on their island looking like a zombie, and calling their supreme emperor Papé!

And just wait – I haven’t produced my secret weapon.

‘Luckily,’ I continue, ‘we’ll be working as a family. Papé can supply the land and my mother, who is an architect, will be able to build the house for the dolphins.’

I hesitate to go any further. I’m worried that I’ll overdo it. But no, men who are quenching themselves like a herd of zebras around a watering-hole are rarely the most wily of animals.

‘I think my mother and Natale get on well. Is there a toilet here?’

And down I go, perky as anything. The toilets at the bar are about three hundred steps down, at the end of an endless tunnel, almost as if they’d been built on the mainland. Except that I only go down ten steps and wait for the light to go out before going back up seven. Fine, I admit it, it’s a rubbish plan, it’s mean and borderline unhealthy. So in my defence, I want to confess everything.

Yes, I am jealous! Yes, thinking about my mother totally makes me want to kill someone. Yes, I want to know if my mother is sleeping with Natale. Yes, I’d prefer Maman to belong completely to Papa and Natale to belong only to me. So, I wait, in the darkness, like a curious, slightly anxious little mouse.

I don’t have to wait long. Men drinking in a herd tend to chat. In this regard the only difference between men and women is perhaps the amount of alcohol. And as soon as the subject of sex rears its head …