He lay down in the sand in his usual spot, very close to Denise’s beach tent. The young woman was not there. Little Francette, in her bathing suit, made sand pies and then immediately demolished them, bashing them with her spade with wild, destructive energy. Her nanny was reading.

Yves tossed and turned, sighing nervously, like a sleeping dog having a dream. He felt anxious but couldn’t understand why; he was having difficulty breathing and he could hear his heart beating faster. ‘I stayed in the water too long,’ he thought. He raised himself up on one elbow and waved at the child to call her over: she recognised him, started to laugh, stood up, took a few steps forward, then turned away and ran off with the inexplicable instinct children have for teasing. He lay back down, so frustrated that he bit his lips in irritation. He stubbornly continued to try to discover the cause of his nervousness by looking for natural, physical reasons: it was hot, the sun weighed heavily down on his shoulders like a leaden cloak; every now and then a burning breeze scattered sand over his legs, tickling his bare skin in a way he found unbearable. He didn’t consciously wonder where Madame Jessaint was yet answered this unspoken question with vague, hypocritical replies: ‘She’ll be here … she’s been delayed … maybe she’s not well … she’s not going swimming but she’ll come down to the beach when her child goes in the water … it’s not that late yet …’ And he turned over again on the warm sand, like a sick man in his bed, unable to lie still, not actually unhappy, but feeling exactly what the English call ‘uncomfortable’, without managing to understand why. All the while, the sun rose in the sky above his head; more and more people left the beach; only the half-naked young boys playing beach ball at the water’s edge remained. Eventually they too left. The lifeguard and his assistants passed by, dragging the lifeboat they stored away at lunchtime; their wet, muscular, tanned arms strained like cables as they slowly walked away. The flat, deserted beach seemed endless, dazzling in the midday sun. Yves remained there, motionless, his head heavy and his throat tight with emotion. Suddenly he leaped up, told himself he was a fool; she must not have been feeling well so hadn’t come to the beach that morning, but she would surely come down for lunch! She wasn’t so ill, he reasoned, that she would have to stay in bed on such a beautiful day: but it must be terribly late; by the time he’d shaved and dressed she’d be gone. Hastily throwing his robe over one shoulder, he ran quickly towards the hotel.

Twenty minutes later he was in the lobby, but Denise was not there; her table was laid but untouched. Yves thought his lamb chop was burned, his peas undercooked, his coffee undrinkable and the waiters incompetent. He complained bitterly to the maître d’ and asked for the wine waiter to be sent over so he could tell him that in any cheap restaurant in Paris the house red was better than his Corton 1898, a remark that almost made the dignified man burst into tears.

Without even touching the peach he’d put on his plate, Yves threw down his napkin and went out on to the terrace. In Denise’s chair, a serious-looking Mademoiselle Francette was rocking back and forth, wearing a short linen dress, as blue as the sky. When she saw the young man walking towards her, she jumped up, threw her arms round him and swung from his neck.

‘Sing “This is the way the ladies ride” for me, please, Monsieur Loulou!’

She couldn’t pronounce ‘Monsieur Harteloup’ as her mother did, so she had given her friend a nickname. Yves sat her on his knee while humming the refrain of the English nursery rhyme.

‘Tell me, Fanchon,’ he said, ‘your mama isn’t ill, is she?’ and his flat tone of voice sounded strange even to him.

‘No,’ said Francette, and she started shaking her head from left to right and right to left, like some Chinese toy. ‘No.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She went away.’

‘Will she be gone long?’

‘Oh, I don’t know!’

‘Of course you do, just think,’ Yves gently encouraged her. ‘Your mama told you before she left, I bet … And when she was kissing you goodbye this morning, didn’t she say: “Goodbye, my darling, be a good girl and I’ll be back in a day … or two”? Didn’t she say that?’

‘No,’ said Francette, ‘she didn’t say anything.’

Then she thought for a moment and added: ‘You see, I was still asleep when she came in to kiss me this morning before she went away.’

Yves was tempted to ask the nanny, but didn’t dare: he feared arousing any suspicion, even though there was nothing to be suspicious about for heaven’s sake! He set the little girl down on the ground and walked away.

Where could she have gone? For how long? It was so absurd: he knew perfectly well she couldn’t be gone for long because she’d left Francette in Hendaye. Perhaps Denise had gone to Biarritz to do some shopping? But then, who was she meeting for lunch? Friends? Which friends? For the first time his exasperated mind began to roam wildly through the world that belonged to Denise; unknown like everyone’s, but whose mystery, until that moment, had not caused him to suffer. Perhaps she was having an intimate lunch with someone? He pictured all the restaurants he knew in Biarritz, one after the other, from the most expensive hotels down to the inns on the outskirts, hidden away in the countryside. Blind rage swept through him. It took all his strength of will to calm himself down, but he was trembling, ashamed, unable to concentrate. Then he went down to the beach and started walking, just walking without knowing where he was going. Maybe her friends had taken her on an outing? Oh, friends he needn’t worry about, relatives perhaps … She hadn’t said anything about it to him the day before, but they didn’t normally say very much to each other … Yes, that must be it … An outing … some of them can last for quite a while, two or three days … But if she’d gone to Spain or to Lourdes, she could be away from Hendaye for a week … away from him … Seven days, seven mornings, seven long evenings … it may seem like nothing, but it’s horrible … Perhaps her husband had suddenly called her to London? An accident, illness, who knows? She wouldn’t come back … The nanny would take Francette to England … He began to panic, as if someone had told him that Denise had died.