Play@YSDC

"Who is the man in the water?" asks Laurent.

'That's when it all started' says Elizabeth. 'I saw him first. Felix said it looked like a fish but it was a man. A white man, swimming. He was naked. Right out there in the middle of the bay.'

Bazile scoffs, 'What would anyone be doing swimming out in the bay? If they fell out of a boat they could have just got back in - the water was smooth as glass today.'

'Well he was!' says Elizabeth, petulantly. 'We tried to come up beside him but then, something was happening in the water. It was like an eye, slowly opening, the water was swirling around it, spinning, a massive whirlpool I think. He was, he was sucked down, he looked at me, he was terrified, he screamed, it was horrible, and then, then he just vanished.' Mrs Langer looks even more shaken now she's recounted the story of the swimmer. But Captain Bazile rolls his eyes again and mimes a drinking motion.

Elizabeth colours red and her face hardens. 'I was not drunk!' she shouts. Dr Clermont gives her a sceptical look. 'I didn't have one drink, not even a beer. I was afraid of getting seasick again, last time I ruined it for everyone.'

If she had been drinking Laurent can't smell it anymore. Just the damp and salt of the seawater.

"It sounds like the sirèn," says Laurent, "but those are only supposed to be women."

Dr Clermont laughs at Laurent. 'The sirèn? Don't be silly boy. You've been talking to old Pierre haven't you? Don't pay him any heed. When I left for Paris, Pierre Labas was already an old alcoholic, talking a lot of nonsense and dressing it up as Vodou. When I came back to Dame Marie, well, there was only one thing that hadn't changed, and that was Pierre.'

"Oui, I've been talking to him," says Laurent. "He has been here longer than anyone else, probably."

Pierre has been here for as long as anyone can remember. And he's the only one left from old Dame Marie, well apart from me' says Clermont.

'But that doesn't make him wise. It just makes him old.'

"What happened to old Dame Marie?" asks Laurent.

'What happened to old Dame Marie? I'd have thought that was the first thing Pierre would have told you about' Clermont says with a grim laugh.

'I wasn't here myself, I was still in Paris in 1928, I settled there after the war. Built up my private practice. It wasn't easy for a man like me but I showed them I was as good as any of them...'

'Anyway, where was I? Yes, I came back later, but the only one who remembers what happened is old Pierre. They say there was a great hurricane, came in suddenly off the sea and destroyed the town. No survivors, aucun de ma famille, mes parents, mes frères et sœurs, all gone. Ils n'ont même pas trouvé les corps.'

'Only one who made it through was Pierre Labas, when people arrived from Cap Matelot and Port Roche they found the village smashed into splinters and old Pierre just sitting there on the beach babbling about Agoué and Lasirenn. Il n'avait pas beaucoup de sens before that storm but even less since.'

'Well, they rebuilt Dame Marie again in the end, a good site for fishing. And eventually I came back. I don't know why. To see it for myself I suppose. People from Cap Matelot and the surroundings had come and built houses. But it wasn't the same place. But then where else was I going to go?'

"Do you know how Pierre survived?" asks Laurent.

"I've been to those caves," says Laurent. "Found a bunch of clothing in a pit in one of them."

Clermont smiles, 'Well a lot of things have happened in those caves over the years.'

"Like what?" asks Laurent.

Looking a bit wistful, Clermont answers, 'Ah, you know, parties, illicit rendezvous, les liaisons dangereuses. It may be hard for you to believe but I wasn't always an old man.'

Laurent can't help but grin. "Do you know who still does it these days?" he asks.

Returning Laurent's grin, Clermont says, 'I think you'd know better than me nowadays, young man. Lt Etienne says he thinks a few of you youngsters might come and smoke a little marijuana there, and I'm sure young lovers still use it for some seclusion.'

"Well, I don't do that sort of thing myself," says Laurent.

'I'm sure you don't, I'm sure you don't' laughs Clermont.

"Did Pierre Labas, when he was younger?" asks Laurent.

'There's no one alive who knew Pierre when he was young, so your guess is as good as mine' says Clermont, frowning slightly. 'I'm the only other person left from old Dame Marie and he was already an old man when I was young. Or at least, well, he seemed old to me. I don't think I ever realised what getting old would really mean' he sighs.