The Camper Van – Part 1: Borrowed Van

"It has a kettle," said Olivier, triumphantly.

"It has a kettle."

"And a gas ring. And a bed."

"One bed."

"It's a double," he said, with the tact of a man who had measured it.

Nathalie stood at the open door of the little white camper van on a clifftop above the Atlantic, with a rucksack on her shoulder and a feeling of enormous silliness. She was forty-one, a pharmacist from Bordeaux, in a baggy jumper and sandals, with her hair coming loose. He was forty-four, an urban planner, in a bobble hat and an expression of boyish triumph. They had been married seventeen years. They had never once, in all that time, taken a van anywhere.

The coast below them was wild: grey-green waves rolling in long lines onto a vast empty beach, white spray in the wind, dune grass shining silver. A few surfers bobbed far out like seals.

"We are going to learn to surf," said Olivier.

"We are going to be cold."

"We are going to be brave."

On Saturday morning they rented wetsuits and boards from a shop smelling of wax and rubber. The instructor, a bronzed twenty-year-old with a ponytail, looked at them with kind alarm. They paddled out into the waves, gasping at the cold. Nathalie fell off nine times. Olivier fell off fourteen. On the fifteenth wave, he stood up, wobbling, arms flung wide, riding the white foam for three glorious seconds before sinking with a yell.

Nathalie, floating on her back in the swell, laughed so hard she swallowed half the Atlantic.

They ate chips on the sea wall in their wetsuits, shivering, sunburnt, wild-haired, with seagulls circling. The sun, low and gold, lay along the water.

"Can I ask you something?" said Nathalie.

"Yes."

"When did we last laugh like this?"

"Never," said Olivier. "Not like this."

"Green?" she said, the old word.

"Green," said Olivier, softly. "Very green. Come back to the van. It's very small."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Low Tide.