Clotilde walked towards bungalow C29, pushing aside the branches of a smaller olive tree that was planted in front of the terrace. She remembered that there was already such a tree, the same size, outside her window in 1989. Perhaps Cervone had ripped out the old trees to plant new ones?

‘Can I help you?’

A man had come out of the bungalow, a New York Giants baseball cap wedged over his greying temples, a cup of coffee in his hand. Smiling. Surprised.

Clotilde liked the simple conviviality of campsites. No barriers, no hedges, no palisades. Not a private home, more of a communal one.

‘Oh, don’t worry …’

A little way off, two little boys were playing football.

‘Did you lose your ball under the bungalow?’ the Giant asked.

From his smile, Clotilde guessed that he would have loved to see her getting down on all fours in front of the terrace, wiggling her bottom in her tight leggings as she crawled under the bungalow. On reflection, Clotilde also hated that about campsites – the absence of barriers. The blurring of lines. Ordinary lust.

‘No. Just memories. I used to come to this bungalow on holiday.’

‘Really? That must have been quite a while ago. We’ve been booking this same chalet for eight years now.’

‘It was twenty-seven years ago.’

The Giant’s shocked expression implied a mute compliment.

You don’t look it.

A woman appeared behind him. A mug of tea gripped between two fingers, curly hair held back by a wooden clip, a colourful sarong draped around her crumpled skin. She was smiling too.

She went and stood beside her husband and spoke to Clotilde.

‘Twenty-seven? So this bungalow, C29, used to be yours? I’m sorry, but an idea has just come to me. You wouldn’t happen to be Clotilde Idrissi?’

Clotilde didn’t reply. Crazy thoughts jostled in her head. They hadn’t put up a memorial plaque in the bungalow: Here lived Paul and Palma Idrissi. But hadn’t the story of her parents’ accident been passed down from generation to generation of campers over the decades?

The cursed bungalow.

The woman blew on her cup and slipped a hand under the Giant’s T-shirt.

A subliminal but explicit message.

This one’s mine.

The universal language of gestures and bodies that live in the open air for the duration of the summer. You expose, you look, you meet, you brush past … but you don’t touch, even if it’s all there within easy reach.

She took a sip of her tea then continued, delighted to be the bearer of a mysterious message.

‘I have some post for you, Clotilde. It’s been waiting for you for a while!’

Clotilde nearly collapsed on the spot for the second time in less than a minute. She grabbed the topmost branch of the baby olive tree.

‘For … twenty-seven years?’ she stammered.

The Giant’s wife burst out laughing.