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There’s music on the hi fi and he turns it down before I place it. He loves the quiet.

“I’m writing, not bleeding,” he chuckles, “you know what I mean?”

I do. I see a boy hunched over a table, clutching a pen, pressing meaning on paper. Tip of the tongue between the teeth, tasting air. I think back on a summer en Provence, the dry heat, cool swim, scorched earth, lemon ice cream type of holiday. The two images don’t blend.

“You’re taller, better looking and you’ve got better hair,” I say. Smooth as butter and mostly true.

“Absolutely,” he says.

Mistral winds, purple hues of lavender. Pitching your tent in the middle of the arid, scratchy bushes of wild oregano and sariette. Eyeing French lads, two per moped.

He’s sucking on his cigarette, tiny, tiny sounds of satisfaction. The butt so small the fingers touch the lips.

Insists I should swim. But my skin rebels. “There’s cream,” he says, “for when you get a rash… ”

I’m sure there is.

“… she used to get them after swimming. Get that.”

Too much information. I hear water, a single splash. Must be the pool. Lying on a lounger, drinks ‘n’ sweets. Factor 40 and a hat. Twenty tens nearby.

We used to do the shopping before noon, markets were like heaven. Heaps of swollen pomodores, capped tanned weathered fishermen offering glistening shell food. Olives and pistachios. We’d drink wine from glass Danone yoghurt cups and cook pasta à la camping gaz.

He’ll never know the mouldy rubbery smell of our ancient canvas tent, the gentle tap tap tap on rainy days. Not there, not swimming in the sound, not living in a rich man’s world.

“Talk soon. Bye bye.”

Days pass, the smells and sounds remain. The single splash resounds. Again. Again.

And then it dawns. The quiet hollow slap of water and flesh reflected between tub and tiles.

The smile on my face is so wide my eyes start to tear.