‘You see, Clotilde, I’ve spent hours, years, studying that cove. The people who come and windsurf in Recisa Bay for the first time are young, they’re unattached, they have no kids. They’re muscular guys, tanned, adventurous types, and hot athletic girls, who look Californian, Australian or Hawaiian, even if they come from Lyon, Strasbourg or Brussels. They meet up here, they share the same passion, they think each other is gorgeous and cool, they fall in love, they have sex like crazy, they become a couple, have one kid, then another one, buy a van to put their surf boards on and the kids inside, and of course they come back to the same beach, the same spot every year to do their surfing. Except – and this is true, I’ve seen it every summer – the guy won’t give up his passion. Never! So it’s the wife who’s left sitting on the beach with the kid. And where’s Papa? Down there, you see, that big red sail going very fast, that’s Papa! She sits waiting, with a bucket and spade, a bottle of water, a book, in the shade of the beach bar if there is one; she gets bored, she has time to chat to a guy if there is one, a nice waiter, a local boy, particularly since her kid is busy with the two or three children’s games set up there. And anyway, her little blond-haired two-year-old is already starting to climb over the turnstiles, and she already knows that she’s only going to be able to hug her little prince out there on the sand until he’s six or eight at the most, before he goes and joins his hero dad on the waves; and when he comes out of the water he’ll say, “You should have seen us, Maman. Papa and I had a brilliant time”, and then she will smile and feel happy, happy for them at least, when she hasn’t been out windsurfing for ten years, and she waits the whole year for those three weeks of holiday and sits there alone on the beach, just waiting for her son and her husband; and in the evenings she will hang up their wetsuits and tend to their bruises. I could go into even more detail, Clotilde, but I think you understand my plan of attack. Can you tell me of another place on the planet where the most beautiful girls in the world are sitting all on their own, getting bored? No! When the big muscly men are out at sea, your only chance is the waiting room. That’s the place for men whose only true advantage is to be in the right place at the right time.’