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Seascape with Figures

IT WAS one of those Septembers when it seemed that the summer would never end

The five-mile promenade of Royale-les-Eaux, backed by trim lawns emblazoned at intervals with tricolour beds of salvia, alyssuest beach in the north of France, the gy bathing tents stillbattalions Music, one of those lilting accordion waltzes, blared from the loudspeakers around the Oly above the music, a man's voice announced over the public address syste for hisfor her friends below the dock at the entrance, or that a Madame Dufours was demanded on the telephone Frohbourhood of the three playground enclosures -'Joie de Vivre', 'Helio' and 'Azur' - came a twitter of children's cries that waxed and waned with the thrill of their games and, farther out, on the firm sand left by the now distant sea, the shrill whistle of the physical-fitness instructor h the last course of the day

It was one of those beautiful, naive seaside panoramas for which the Brittany and Picardy beaches have provided the setting - and inspired their recorders, Boudin, Tissot, Monet - ever since the birth of plages and bains de o

To Ja in one of the concrete shelters with his face to the setting sun, there was sonant, ephemeral about it all It reminded him almost too vividly of childhood - of the velvet feel of the hot powder sand, and the painful grit of wet sand between young toes when the time came for him to put his shoes and socks on, of the precious little pile of sea-shells and interesting wrack on the sill of his bedroo It'll dirty up your trunk!'), of the s beneath the seaweed in the rock-pools, of the swi waves - always in those days, it see, inevitable 'time to come out' It was all there, his own childhood, spread out before hio they were, those spade-and-bucket days! How far he had come since the freckles and the Cadbury milk-chocolate Flakes and the fizzy learette, pulled his shoulders out of their slouch and sla-closed file Today he was a grown-up, a erousin this concrete hideout to sentimentalizeabout a pack of scrubby, smelly children on a beach scattered with bottle-tops and lolly-sticks and fringed by a sea thick with sun-oil and putrid with the main drains of Royale He was here, he had chosen to be here, to spy To spy on a woman

The sun was getting lower Already one could smell the September chill that all day had lain hidden beneath the heat The cohorts of bathers were in quick retreat, striking their little ca up the steps and across the prooing up in the cafes The announcer at the swi-pool harried his customers: 'Allo! Allo! Fermeture en dix minutes! A dix-huit heures, fer sun, the two Bo a blue cross on a yellow background were speeding northwards for their distant shelter up-river in the Vieux Port The last of the gay, giraffe-like sand-yachts fled down the distant water-line towards its corral ae of the car-parks pedalled away through theranks of cars towards the police station in the centre of the town In a matter of , was already a ulls that would soon be flocking in their hordes to forage for the scraps of food left by the picnickers Then the orange ball of the sun would hiss down into the sea and the beach would, for a while, be entirely deserted, until, under cover of darkness, the prowling lovers would corittily in the dark corners between the bathing-huts and the sea-wall

On the beaten stretch of sand belohere Ja bikinis packed up the ga, and raced each other up the steps towards Bond's shelter They flaunted their bodies at him, paused and chattered to see if he would respond, and, when he didn't, linked ar why it was that French girls had eons sought to add, even in this irl babies?

And now, up and down the beach, the lifeguards gave a final blast on their horns to announce that they were going off duty, the reat expanse of sand was suddenly deserted

But not quite! A hundred yards out, lying face doards on a black and white striped bathing-wrap, on the private patch of firirl was still there, led in direct line between Ja the left-behind pools and shallow rivulets into blood-red,scrawls across theher - now, in the silence and e for her to do so, he didn't knohat, to happen It would beover her He had an instinct that she was in soer Or was it just that there was the ser in the air? He didn't know He only knew that he mustn't leave her alone, particularly now that everyone else had gone

Jaone Behind hie on the other side of the promenade, two men in raincoats and dark caps sat at a secluded table bordering the sidewalk They had half-empty cups of coffee in front of them and they didn't talk They sat and watched the blur on the frosted-glass partition of the shelter that was James Bond's head and shoulders They also watched, but less intently, the distant white blur on the sand that was the girl Their stillness, and their unseasonable clothes, would have ht have been watching them But there was no such person, except their waiter who had siory of 'bad news' and hoped they would soon be on their way

When the lower rinal had sounded for the girl She slowly got to her feet, ran both hands backwards through her hair and began to walk evenly, purposefully towards the sun and the far-away froth of the water-line over a mile away It would be violet dusk by the tiuessed that this was probably the last day of her holiday, her last bathe