“He’s been dead since the seventh century, Mel.” Antoine smiled. “No, this is a more recent story. I loved it. It was so Gothic.”

“So what happened?”

“A ship named after the monk. It went down in 1931, I think, just over there.” Antoine pointed ahead to Bourgneuf Bay. “It was quite a tragedy. A mini Titanic. I believe the boat was heading back to Saint-Nazaire. Her passengers had just enjoyed a picnic here on the Plage des Dames. Nice weather and everything. And then, when she had barely left this very pier, a storm blew up, a huge one. A wave knocked the ship over. About five hundred people drowned. A lot of women and kids. Hardly any survivors.”

Mélanie gasped. “How could that old man tell you things like that? How perverse of him! You were only a little boy.”

“No, it wasn’t perverse. It was magnificently romantic. I remember being heartbroken. He said the graveyard in Nantes was full of bodies from the Saint Philibert tragedy. He said he would take me there one day.”

“Thank God he didn’t and that he’s pushing up daisies now.”

They laughed and continued looking out to sea.

“You know, I thought I wouldn’t remember a thing,” she murmured. “All this is making me feel so emotional. I hope I don’t break down and cry.”

He pressed her arm. “I feel like that too. Don’t worry.”

“What a pair of soppy dummies!”

They laughed again, walking back to the beach where Mélanie had left her jeans and sandals in a little pile on the sand. They sat down.

“I’m going to have a cigarette,” said Antoine, “whether you like it or not.”

“Your lungs, not mine. Smoke away from me.”

He turned his back to her. She leaned against him. They had to shout against the wind.

“So many things are coming back… About her.”

“About Clarisse?”

“Yes,” Mélanie said. “I can see her here. I can see her on this beach. She had an orange bathing suit. A fuzzy material. And she used to chase us into the water. She taught us to swim, you remember that.”