basting bodies, the gaudy towels, the bright primaries and whites of the beach umbrellas — a whirl of colour. So lightheaded am I that I must roll first to my hands and knees before gaining my feet. For seven years I have had trouble with this manoeuvre, and every time I attempt it I remember the face of the liposuction operator who damaged the nerve in my right leg. I remember his Oriental face and I imagine him watching me now, his narrow eyes heavy with remorse. What grace haveI inhibited? he asks himself. How fortunate it is that her beauty overwhelms her halting step!
A man has joined the woman now, a Saxon with close-cropped hair in a golden fuzz. He’s big, like a German, like a Swede, like an Australian. Like her, he’s seen a lot of harsh sun and is prematurely aged. Bulging slightly in her Lycra shirt, her bra straps cutting little valleys into her shoulders, his tired-faced wife smiles at him and offers him a drag on her cigarette and it occurs to me then — it makes my performance all the more bittersweet, the pleasure I take in it more acute — that he reminds me of my father.
Now I am promenading towards them, towards the shower by the path, my thighs slipping noiselessly past each other: they haven’t touched for thirty years. Do they guess that I am fifty-five? I place each foot carefully, one in front of the other in the sand, so as not to jar my tendons, my distended knees. I would like to have some bone shaved from them, and my elbows, to bring the joints more into the line of my limbs.
For my next operation I will travel to Algeria. Surgeons in the south of France are grown reluctant to touch me, because of my little heart problem.
My feet find the concrete disc set into the sand, my hand finds the tap. I know this tap well, its little idiosyncrasies, because I’m here every day in summer — even through these August crowds. A slight jerk, the metal pipe gurgles and one drop extrudes from the showerhead. I extend my tongue and turn, so that the handsome blond brute can admire my derrière.
‘Look!’ It’s one of his children. ‘That lady’s got no bum cheeks!’
The dear, sweet little family. They know not, but they will be my favourite audience of the day, for no other reason than thatthey are my father’s countrymen. To hear their English — the thick, slightly stupid-sounding vowels, the muffled, woolly consonants: it is like a nursery rhyme from childhood, a cosy song sung by my late, lamented Papa.
‘She’s incredible!’ comes the mother’s voice as I turn back to them slowly, taking another drop on my tongue on the way through.
‘Don’t stare at her,’ says the father.
‘Why not?’ says the mother. ‘It’s what she wants. Incredible.’
She said it again.
Incroyable
.
I turn once more, another jerk of the tap, another drop to the tongue. I don’t want the water to touch my skin and ruin my carapace of oil. The boy says something — I don’t catch it. It’s earnest, serious, querying, like Jacques Cousteau or whatshisname, David Attenborough. Perhaps he is asking his mother a scientific question about how I came to be like this. The girls listen to her whispered answer too, their mouths full of icecream. Children generally like my hair, which is a pure blonde, tied in a high, smooth bun on top of my head, my blue bandanna a moat to its castle. Wearing it up so soon after a lift shows my stitches, but I decided this morning after close examination in a mirror that the space behind my ears would benefit from some air.
Anyway, the family won’t be able to see the wounds from where they are, on the other side of the road. And the hairpiece does hide away my burnt, broken ends.
A final dart of water to slake my tongue before I begin to make my way between the bodies, back to my sponge pallet on the sand, carefully, carefully …
‘That was lunch,’ I hear the woman say, and she laughs.
My thong, my old brown favourite, flops between my legslike a bandage. I
A man has joined the woman now, a Saxon with close-cropped hair in a golden fuzz. He’s big, like a German, like a Swede, like an Australian. Like her, he’s seen a lot of harsh sun and is prematurely aged. Bulging slightly in her Lycra shirt, her bra straps cutting little valleys into her shoulders, his tired-faced wife smiles at him and offers him a drag on her cigarette and it occurs to me then — it makes my performance all the more bittersweet, the pleasure I take in it more acute — that he reminds me of my father.
Now I am promenading towards them, towards the shower by the path, my thighs slipping noiselessly past each other: they haven’t touched for thirty years. Do they guess that I am fifty-five? I place each foot carefully, one in front of the other in the sand, so as not to jar my tendons, my distended knees. I would like to have some bone shaved from them, and my elbows, to bring the joints more into the line of my limbs.
For my next operation I will travel to Algeria. Surgeons in the south of France are grown reluctant to touch me, because of my little heart problem.
My feet find the concrete disc set into the sand, my hand finds the tap. I know this tap well, its little idiosyncrasies, because I’m here every day in summer — even through these August crowds. A slight jerk, the metal pipe gurgles and one drop extrudes from the showerhead. I extend my tongue and turn, so that the handsome blond brute can admire my derrière.
‘Look!’ It’s one of his children. ‘That lady’s got no bum cheeks!’
The dear, sweet little family. They know not, but they will be my favourite audience of the day, for no other reason than thatthey are my father’s countrymen. To hear their English — the thick, slightly stupid-sounding vowels, the muffled, woolly consonants: it is like a nursery rhyme from childhood, a cosy song sung by my late, lamented Papa.
‘She’s incredible!’ comes the mother’s voice as I turn back to them slowly, taking another drop on my tongue on the way through.
‘Don’t stare at her,’ says the father.
‘Why not?’ says the mother. ‘It’s what she wants. Incredible.’
She said it again.
Incroyable
.
I turn once more, another jerk of the tap, another drop to the tongue. I don’t want the water to touch my skin and ruin my carapace of oil. The boy says something — I don’t catch it. It’s earnest, serious, querying, like Jacques Cousteau or whatshisname, David Attenborough. Perhaps he is asking his mother a scientific question about how I came to be like this. The girls listen to her whispered answer too, their mouths full of icecream. Children generally like my hair, which is a pure blonde, tied in a high, smooth bun on top of my head, my blue bandanna a moat to its castle. Wearing it up so soon after a lift shows my stitches, but I decided this morning after close examination in a mirror that the space behind my ears would benefit from some air.
Anyway, the family won’t be able to see the wounds from where they are, on the other side of the road. And the hairpiece does hide away my burnt, broken ends.
A final dart of water to slake my tongue before I begin to make my way between the bodies, back to my sponge pallet on the sand, carefully, carefully …
‘That was lunch,’ I hear the woman say, and she laughs.
My thong, my old brown favourite, flops between my legslike a bandage. I
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