Of the members of the Idrissi family, only Maman is with me on the beach. Papa has gone off God knows where. Weirdly, here, when he rediscovers his roots, it makes him all fidgety; when he’s away from them, he barely budges from the sofa. Nico is probably wandering about with a swarm of girls behind him. I won’t be here for long, by the way, I’m going to have a look. I like to know what my big brother’s up to.

So, there’s only me and Maman on the beach, and lots of strangers around us. I like sitting here with my notebook, watching other people’s lives. For example, three towels away from me, there’s a woman, very pretty, boobs in the air but not to show them off – she has a hungry baby pressed to her breasts. I find it both incredibly moving and incredibly disgusting.

Maman’s staring at her too, a jealous expression on her face.

Maman is lying on the towel beside me, although a good five metres away.

As if I’m not her daughter.

As if she is ashamed of me.

As if I were faulty, the only flaw in my otherwise perfect mother.

Wait a second, I turn around, using my body as a screen, so that Maman can’t read what I write next over my shoulder. I’m going to paint you her portrait in three points. From the nicest to the most horrible.

Point 1. Maman’s name is Palma. It’s a name of Hungarian origin, my grandparents come from there, from Sopron, a few kilometres from the Austrian border. Sometimes I call her Palma Mama.

Point 2. Maman is tall and beautiful. You could also call her rangy, curvy, classy … She’s a good one metre seventy-five in her flip-flops, so you can imagine her dressed for a night out, perched on stilettoes, with her long stork legs, her hummingbird waist, her swan’s neck, her big startled-owl eyes.

Apparently genes sometimes skip a generation.

I am confirmation of that.

The doctors addressing my case are categorical, I’ve almost finished growing, I’ll never grow beyond one metre fifty-five, like millions and millions of other women, the doctors say to reassure me. They add that, because the genes are playing skip-a-generation, if I ever have a daughter one day, she could be a beanstalk, just like my mother. Promises, promises! I prefer not to think about that so let’s move straight on to point 3.

Fasten your seatbelts.

Maman is annoying. Maman is mean. Maman is a pain. Maman is on her towel five metres away from me, reading The Devil is Still Laughing. I’d like to spit all these words that I’m hiding in my notebook out at her. And so I swear on all my Corsican ancestors sleeping in the cemetery in Marcone, I testify here on Alga beach, and you are my witness, my future reader …