We often suffer more in imagination than in reality.
Twenty-four degrees. It’s just before nine. I’m sitting on the balcony eating breakfast (avocados, grapefruit and perfectly boiled eggs). Apocalypse Mommy waltzes through the French windows as I pour her a cup of sustainable Ethiopian coffee. She kisses me on the neck, then puts four croissants (still warm), on the table.
“The bakery was busy,” she says as she gives Alice a hug. “Everyone was happy. They were giving away freshly baked bread.”
Below the balcony our elderly neighbour skips past, whistling. He’s wearing shorts and twirling a walking stick as if he was leading a marching band. He looks up at us, waves hello, and continues on his walk.
“Daddy,” Alice says. “Could I have jam on my croissant, please?”
Mais oui. As the croissant flakes in my hand, I spread apricot jam across its glistening surface. Ever since Harvard scientists published a study in Nature Magazine proving categorically that sugar was good for you and, in fact, contrary to previous science, you should eat as much as you possibly can, Alice has been adding jam to everything.
The sugar exposé had followed the “Four Hours Sleep Is The Only Way To Sleep” study, the “Fasting Really Doesn’t Work” and “Blue Screens Help you Get To Sleep, Even Though You Don’t Need To Sleep As The Body Functions Without It,” studies.
Musicians appear in the garden and start playing Friday I’m in Love. The whole neighbourhood cheers.
“Alice,” I say as the Red Arrows fly overhead in formation. “School’s out for summer.”
Three hours later and we’re on the road. We stop for coffee at a delectable little cafe on the outskirts of Marseilles. The waiter says it was once a Mafia hideout. We drink coffee from runcible spoons. Music plays from a jukebox. The magnolias are out. It is twenty-eight degrees.
We leave the café and drive to the beach. It’s protected from the Mistral wind that hammers down the south coast by pine trees that flank the eastern cape of the bay. They also provide shade. Dolphins play in the tranquil waters.
Have you ever seen a bored dolphin?
“Alice,” I say, as friends arrive carrying an ornate barbecue, seven bottles of champagne and an oak picnic table. “If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?
She says she’d be a flamingo.
I ask if there is reason.
And she says, “A reason about anything.”
She pulls a sea bream from the sand. “Look Daddy, I made a fish.”
The beach is empty, save a handful of families scattered around the sand like freckles on a sunny day. The sensation of hot sand ricochets through my memory. I know the heat will last long after the sun has set.
We won a competition to stay at the Intercontinental in the Old Town. Penthouse suite. Harbour views. The hotel sends a text message: our room is ready whenever we are.
Apocalypse Mommy is teaching Alice to swim. The water is thirty-two degrees, unseasonally warm. Apocalypse Mommy supports Alice’s back as she flops her arms around like a drowning windmill. A nearby pod of dolphins sense distress and come to Apocalypse Mommy’s aid. Swimming on their backs, they use their pectoral fins to support Alice.
I open a cold beer and drink to the availability of freedom.
A friend of Apocalypse Mommy has surprised us with concert tickets. Pearl Jam are playing at the Molotov Bar, down on the docks. In the Old Town. It’s one of those once in a lifetime shows. The venue is tiny, eighty-five people, all crammed together in front of a wooden stage. The bar staff zip around on rollerblades giving out smoked Spanish ham, cured for twenty-four months, on olive biscotti.
The concert ends after three encores. I call an Uber. A people carrier arrives with Brian Cox and Neil deGrasse Tyson doing science experiments in the back seat. The driver is playing Thelonious Monk on his Bose system. Neil de Grasse Tyson asks Alice if she would like to learn the Periodic Table. Brian Cox goes into a monologue about the creation of the universe. He says the Big Bang is misunderstood, that there wasn’t a single point from which the universe began and the idea of a primordial soup a trillion degrees hot doesn’t hold water. Because there wasn’t any water. At least not then.
The Uber pulls up at our hotel. A crowd of journalists and fans swarm around our car. Someone licks the windows, the police arrive and hold back the clicking cameras.
More and more photos.
And more photos.
On and on and on. A million clicks.
A billion clicks. A trillion clicks.
Aperture speed.
Police sirens wail.
Helicopters buzz around the battered streets of the tourist Mecca in the centre of town, filming the beauty, recording the chaos, giving meaning to the sedentary masses watching at home.
And a wooden oven smashes into my left temple.
And I wake up.
And there is Alice and an upturned shopping trolley.
“Are you awake?” she says.