In the little Bellamy plantation I sat watching the children playing in the fountain and listening to two mothers in their late thirties. They drank coffee and croissants from the bakery around the corner.
One, a white linen-knotted curly blonde with a firm jawline, complained about a “handover” that had yet to take place before the holidays. The other nodded understandingly. She had a mischievous Pierrot face with Audrey Hepburn eyes and a pregnant belly under a checkered lumberjack blouse.
‘Well, so that’, the blonde concluded sullenly. ‘And you?’ The pierrot put her hands on her round belly. “I’m really looking forward to the holidays,” she sighed. We’re going on Saturday. Vins wants to ride it in one go, and it’s all the way to Perpignan. A roteind … ha snout, do you want a croissant?’ The latter against a girl of about 7 years old who came running up.
The child nibbled on the croissant in vain. “And I still have so much to do,” her mother continued. ‘I’m still doing all those washing up and looking for shit… I wanted to buy another hammock… Vins has asked Dennis and Tamara for dinner tonight. Well, I’ll just do sushi then, with this weather…’
“Sure, you’d be crazy,” the blonde agreed.
‘Isn’t it?’ the Pierrot continued. ‘Don’t crumble like that, snout… well, go play with Max, in the fountain… oh, and I still have to take the dog to my mother, in Uithoorn. That’s going to take me half a day, because she’s willing to do something for me, but only if she can piss at me for a few hours. Anyway, it’s great for that dog there… what’s up, snout?’
‘Isn’t Basja going on a chance?’, the child squeaked alarmed. The pierrot rolled her eyes at the blonde. ‘No, snout, Basja is going to grandma Kiki’, she said. ‘It’s not fun at all for Basja, being in the car for so long. And dogs are not allowed on the beach in France. In Uithoorn he can run outside. Come on, go play…’
“I don’t want to go on a chance either,” said the child with a trembling lip. ‘I want to go to Grandma Kiki, with Basja, because a chance always takes so long and I don’t like that at all…’ A tear trickled down her cheek.
The pierrot rolled her eyes again and grunted at the blonde: “I just don’t understand what I do it for every time, that shitty vacation. Do you get it?’
The blonde shook her head slowly. The child sobbed.