I am sitting on a narrow strip of grass next to a French supermarket parking lot with my sister, spooning out a watermelon, watching our parents’ fight. It is over 40 degrees and we are in St. Malo, Brittany, summer holidays of 1994, the door to our caravan wide open, MC Solaar on the radio. I can smell the rice burning on the gas stove inside. We know we need to get up, but we are lazy, as the air is indicating high noon, getting denser and hotter. I feel the pleasant coolness of the huge halved watermelon against my shins. Bits of juice trickle down onto my lap. I am wearing blue shorty shorts and a pink T-shirt that says Niki Freedom Now Eternity with a swoosh underneath, faded already. My father brought it from his hometown Jalandhar in India years ago. My sister Anna has small droplets of sweat on her upper lip, and dark curls stick to her forehead in ornamental shapes. Eyes firmly on the prize: getting the darker, sweeter bits of melon flesh before I do. We both have faint sheens of white sunscreen on our noses, generously rubbed on by our mother this morning. I felt fresh and lovely then, catching my tan reflection in a mirror above the fish displays in the supermarket, admiring a moray eel and her sharp incisor teeth;

Read issue 7 of first page magazine here