In the toilets Maman slips on the dress, and comes back out, the fine black straps disappearing against her bronzed shoulders; her breasts, her hips, her thighs swelling the light fabric (crêpe georgette, apparently – how can such a stuffy name become so exciting when it’s worn by a sexy woman?). The barmen at Tao have all turned to look at Maman, even though they must have seen plenty of gorgeous women walking about in mini-mini dresses.

Before sitting down and crossing her bare legs under the table, Maman whispers, ‘Thank you.’ Not even a kiss on the cheek. Not even ‘You’re a darling.’ Not even ‘You had me there.’

God damn it!

She’s a confident one, is Mama Palma.

Total mastery of the situation.

If a guy had pulled that on me, I would have cracked straight away and thrown myself at him, even if he’d done the most horrible things beforehand. But she doesn’t, she just lets her eyes roam towards the concert posters stuck below the bar, and linger on the one showing the seven singers of the A Filetta group, with their black shirts and their hands on their ears.

Total mastery! Making yourself be desired.

Giving hope. Revealing a little, the bottom of a thigh, the top of a breast, but keeping everything reined in. Remaining cool-headed. Freezing your feelings. Never giving yourself entirely. Never opening up completely. Forcing the other party to bet, and constantly raising the stakes.

Life as a couple – a game of poker.

Oh, my future reader, I will never be any good at playing it! I’ll be trounced by the first handsome guy who comes along. I don’t have that confidence the other girls have, that certainty that I’ll be the one pulling the strings, working the controls, dangling the guys like puppets.

I’m not like Mama Palma, or Maria-Chjara. I’m going to have to talk to you about her again, because something else has happened.

Anyway, I loved Papa even more after that trick he pulled with the Benoa dress.

But I admired Maman … You won’t tell anyone, will you? Promise?

I’d be too ashamed if she read that.

So I’ll give you my prognosis, right now, for Saint Rose’s day, for the evening of 23 August.

Corsican polyphony or a romantic meal at Casa di Stella?

I’m betting everything on Mama Palma!

*

*     *

He looked up and stared at the stars.

Of course. Of course, everything would have been so different if Palma Idrissi had won.

16

15 August 2016, 3 p.m.

Calvi hadn’t changed, that was the first thing Clotilde thought. The same granite citadel overlooking the bay, the same villages clinging to the coast, the same train from the beach to L’Ile Rousse.