All the Way by Marie Darrieussecq Read Free Book Online Page B

standing on his dignity again, he’s already heading off in those ridiculous shorts, stepping over the mats. Now they have to yell out their flavours. Two scoops of vanilla for Rose’s mother. Apricot-pear for Alma. Cherry-nougat for Méré. Licorice if there’s no nougat. She runs after him. Pistachio-chocolate for Rose. Same for her.
    That’s going to cost you a fortune.
    And he’s already paid for the petrol.
    â€˜You can talk about that when you’ve got your own money.’
    He doesn’t head for The Ice-cream Palace, but for Monsieur Lopez’s truck. Monsieur Lopez recognises him and lets them both go to the head of the queue. They chat. The sun’s shining. ‘You came together?’ Monsieur Bihotz waves his arm, but Monsieur Lopez sees the four cousins and Rose’s mother. ‘You don’t muck around, do you, Bibi?’ (Apparently Bibi is Monsieur Bihotz’s nickname.)
    Bibi buys vanilla-strawberry gelati for everyone (but a double vanilla for Rose’s mother). By the time they’ve stepped over the crowd again, the ice-creams are already melting. They have to stop and lick them, quickly, quickly. And they’re laughing just like at home, as if they were alone in the sunshine, as if (she reminds herself) he was her big brother, say, and not this gawky yeti.
    â€˜It’s absolutely fabulous here,’ says Sixtine, refusing an ice-cream. ‘You’ve got everything in the one place. In Paris you have to go for miles to get the best ice-cream, and then even further to get the best tea. Here everything’s in the same street. Do you have a Cacharel boutique?’
    Rose’s mother suggests they go for a swim, but Sixtine, looking wounded and pouting coyly, says she is ‘indisposed’. The announcement is met with respectful silence. Rose’s mother gets up. She hops up and down because the sand is boiling. Her breasts are round and white like two scoops of vanilla ice-cream, with pink creases from the raffia mat.
    â€˜Are you coming with us, Monsieur Bihotz?’
    Monsieur Bihotz wiggles his feet and then shakes his head.
    â€˜But Monsieur Bihotz, you can go swimming, can’t you?’
    Rose and her cousins burst into hysterical laughter.
    Rose’s mother swims off straight away with a perfect freestyle stroke, diving under the breakers as if, between her and America, the ocean was nothing but a silly nuisance; off she shoots, further and further, released from her boots, which are right here, stinking in the sun. Rose and Sixtine are whispering, their hair mingling. Monsieur Bihotz has turned over onto his front, his arms pressed against his sides, his mammoth feet almost touching Rose’s bum. Doing his best to distribute his massive body, he occupies as circumspectly as possible his five billionth share of the Earth’s crust: right here, on some burning sand.
    She’d like to swim off straight away, like Rose’s mother, into that watery element. She’d like to believe that between her and the sea there is some kind of transcendental pact that excludes the rest of humanity. Despite the fact that she scarcely knows how to swim, however, it seems to her as if she should stay and rescue Monsieur Bihotz here, on dry land. Something about the points of this triangle, Rose, Sixtine and Monsieur Bihotz, demands her urgent attention.
    He’s got that dazed look about him, like when he’s having a coffee meltdown. Quivering, a slight shudder, as if he was trying to hold himself still.
    Rose and Sixtine are red in the face from suppressed laughter. Sixtine doesn’t say anything, and when Rose lets forth she hides under her sarong.
    â€˜He’s got an erection,’ hisses Rose. Solange is also keen to bury herself in her raffia mat, but is less successful.
    Sixtine whispers a story that happened to her in the metro—she’s addressing Rose, but you can hear her over the sound of the sea