So, I’m finally sitting beneath the cross. Papé explained to me once we got there that it’s called the Austrian Cross because it was some mountain-climbers from Vienna who opened up the path to the peak about fifty years ago. The cross dates back to 1969, and it’s been allowed to get into a terrible state over the last twenty years. I feel like a gust of wind might blow it away.

The Austrian Cross – it makes Papé laugh. He told me that the local Corsicans hadn’t waited for the Viennese to climb up Capu di a Veta, that he’d reached the summit for the first time when he was less than eight years old, with Pancrace, my great-grandfather.

I understand why.

It isn’t easy to explain in words, but when you’re at the top, on that little dome of stones where the two of us sat together, you have a sense that you rule the whole world. The wind thunders in your ears, inviting you to keep turning your head and enjoy the incredible three hundred and sixty-degree view. Like a giant. Or children, perhaps, children who have built a plasticine island.

It’s a feeling of floating. A feeling of being alone in the world with my Papé, who didn’t seem to be out of breath, who waited for me every twenty metres during the climb. The feeling of being able to tell him anything.

Now, you who know me so well, you will be expecting that I held nothing back.

‘There’s one thing that amazes me, Papé. I have this sense that everyone here is afraid of you. But I think you’re nice.’

Operation Beluga. I must not forget. It was as if I was hoping to soften him up.

‘Nasty. Nice. Those words don’t mean anything, my girl. You can cause disasters with niceness, you can mess up your life with niceness, you can even kill with niceness.’

Kill with niceness?

OK, Papé, I’ll write it down in my notebook. I’ll take another look when I’m in my final year, studying philosophy.

I turned my head to admire the landscape, like the Geode at the Cité des Sciences (THE school trip of the year!).

‘Papé, how far does the land that belongs to you reach?’