Читать книгу Breaking Away - Анна Гавальда - Страница 5

I stumbled out onto the forecourt of a petrol station somewhere on the outskirts of Orléans. Feeling groggy as hell. Woozy and drooly. I had trouble keeping my eyes open and my hair felt incredibly heavy. I even put my hand up to it, just to make sure it really was hair.

Simon was waiting by the till. Carine was powdering her nose.

I stationed myself by the coffee machine.

It took me at least thirty seconds to realise that my cup was ready. I drank it without sugar and without much conviction. I must have pressed the wrong button. Wasn’t there a weird faintly tomatoey taste to my cappuccino?

Oh, boy. It was going to be a long day.

We got back in the car without saying a word. Carine took a wet wipe from her make-up bag to disinfect her hands.

Carine always disinfects her hands when she’s been in a public place.

For hygiene’s sake.

Because Carine actually sees the germs.

She can see their furry little legs and their horrible mouths.

That’s why she never takes the métro. She doesn’t like trains either. She can’t help but think about the people who put their feet on the seats and stick their bogeys under the armrest.

Her kids are not allowed to sit on a bench or to touch the railings. She has major issues about going to the playground. And issues about letting them use the slide. She has issues with the trays at McDonald’s and she has a ton of issues about swapping Pokémon cards. She completely freaks out with butchers who don’t wear gloves or little salesgirls who don’t use tongs to serve her her croissant. She hates it when the school organises group picnics or outings to the swimming pool and all the kids have to hold hands as a sure way of passing on their fungal infections.

Life, for Carine, is exhausting.

The business with the disinfectant wipes really gets up my nose.

The way she always thinks other people must be swarming with germs. The way she always peers at their fingernails when she shakes hands. The way she never trusts anyone. Always hiding behind her scarf. Always telling her kids to be careful.

Don’t touch. It’s dirty.

Get your hands out of there.

Don’t share.

Don’t go out in the street.

Don’t sit on the ground or I’ll smack you!

Always washing their hands. Always washing their mouths. Always making sure they pee exactly ten centimetres above the bowl, dead centre, and that they never ever let their lips touch someone’s cheek when they go to kiss them. Always judging the other mothers by the colour of their kids’ ears.

Always.

Always judging.

There’s something rather unpleasant about it all. What’s worse, when you go to lunch at her family’s, they soon feel free mid-meal to start badmouthing Arabs.

Carine’s dad calls them towelheads.

He says, ‘I pay taxes so those towelheads can have ten kids.’

He says, ‘What I’d do with ’em, I’d stick ’em all in a boat and torpedo the whole lot of them, every last parasite, I would.’

And he likes to say, ‘France is full of work-shy benefit cheats. The country’s going to the dogs.’

And often, to finish, it goes like this: ‘I work the first six months of the year for my family and the next six for the state, so don’t go talking to me about poor people and the unemployed, okay? I work one day out of two so Mamadou can knock up his ten wives, so don’t go lecturing me, okay?’

There was one lunch in particular. I don’t like remembering it. It was for little Alice’s baptism. We were all at Carine’s parents’ place near Le Mans.

Her father runs a Casino (the supermarket, not the Las Vegas variety) and that day, when I saw him down at the end of his little paved driveway between his artsy-fartsy wrought-iron lamp and his gleaming Audi, I really understood the meaning of the word complacent. That mixture of stupidity and arrogance. His unshakeable self-satisfaction. That blue cashmere sweater stretched over his huge gut and that weird – really warm – way he has of holding his hand out to you even though he already hates you.

I’m ashamed when I think back to that lunch. I’m ashamed and I’m not the only one. Lola and Vincent aren’t proud of themselves either, I don’t think.

Simon wasn’t there when the conversation began to degenerate. He was out in the garden building a cabin for his son.

He must be used to it. He must know that it’s better just to get out of there when fat Jacquot starts sounding off.

Simon is like us: he doesn’t like shouting matches at the end of a nice meal; he hates conflict and runs like hell from power struggles. He says it’s a waste of good energy and that you have to keep your strength for more worthwhile struggles in life. That with people like his father-in-law, you’re fighting a losing battle.

And when you talk to him about the rise of the extreme right, he shakes his head. ‘Oh, you know … they’re just the dregs on the bottom of the lake. What can you do, it’s only human. Best leave well enough alone, otherwise they’ll rise to the surface.’

How can he stand those family lunches? How can he even help his father-in-law trim his hedge?

He concentrates on Léo’s cabins.

He concentrates on the moment he’ll take his little boy by the hand and they’ll go off together into the deep and silent woods.

I’m ashamed because on that particular day we didn’t dare say a thing.

Once again we didn’t dare say a thing. We didn’t react to the words of that rabid shopkeeper who’ll never see beyond his own distant navel.

We didn’t contradict him, or leave the table. We went on slowly chewing every mouthful, thinking it was enough just to register what a jerk the guy was whilst doing our very best to wrap ourselves in what might remain of our dignity.

How pathetic we were. Cowards, incredible cowards.

Why are we like that, all four of us? Why are we so intimidated by people who shout louder than others? Why do aggressive people make us go completely to pieces?

What is wrong with us? Where does a good upbringing end and spinelessness begin?

We’ve talked about it a lot. We beat our breasts over the pizza crusts and makeshift ashtrays. We don’t need anyone to force us to. We’re big enough to go about it ourselves, and no matter how many empty bottles we have at the end, we always come to the same conclusion. That if we are like this – silent and determined but absolutely useless when it comes to bigots like him – it is precisely because we haven’t got a shred of self-confidence. We don’t love ourselves.

We don’t believe in ourselves, that is.

We don’t think we’re all that important.

Not even important enough to argue the toss with old man Molinoux. Or to believe for one second that our protesting could ever have any influence on his line of thought. Or to hope that a gesture of disgust like tossing our napkins onto the table or knocking over our chairs might have the slightest impact on the ways of the world.

What would that good taxpayer have thought if we had given him a piece of our mind and left his house with our heads held high? He would simply have battered his wife all evening with remarks like: ‘What complete pricks. Total pricks. I mean, have you ever seen such a hopeless bunch of pricks?’

And why should the poor woman be subjected to that?

There were twenty people enjoying themselves – who were we to spoil the party?

So you might say that it isn’t cowardice. You might allow that it’s actually wisdom. Acknowledge that we know when to stand back. That we don’t like to make things worse. That we’re more honest than all those people who protest all the time but never manage to change a thing.

Or at least that’s what we tell each other, to make ourselves feel better. We remind each other that we’re young and already we have no illusions. And that we’re head and shoulders above the ant-hill so stupidity can’t really reach us up here. We don’t really give a damn. We have other things, each other for a start. We are rich in other ways.

All we have to do is look inside.

We have a lot going on in our heads. Stuff that’s light years from that man’s racist ranting. There’s music, and literature. There are walks to go on, hands to hold, secret dens. Bits of shooting stars scribbled onto credit card receipts, pages torn out of books, happy memories and horrible ones. Songs with refrains that are just on the tip of our tongues. Messages we’ve kept, blockbusters we loved reading, marshmallow teddy bears and scratched vinyl records. Our childhood, our lonely times, our first feelings and plans for the future. All that staying up late, and all those doors held open for us. Buster Keaton’s antics. Armand Robin’s brave letter to the Gestapo and Michel Leiris’s battering ram of clouds. The scene where Clint Eastwood turns round and says, ‘One thing though … don’t kid yourself, Francesca …’ and the one in The Best of Youth where Nicola Carati stands up for his patients at the trial of their torturer. The dances on Bastille Day in Villiers. The scent of quinces in the cellar. Our grandparents, Monsieur Racine’s sabre and gleaming breastplate, our provincial fantasies and nights before our exams. Our favourite comics: Mam’zelle Jeanne’s raincoat when she climbs on behind Gaston on his motorbike, or François Bourgeon’s Les Passagers du vent. The opening lines of the book by André Gorz dedicated to his wife, which Lola read to me last night on the telephone when we’d just spent ages saying we were finished with love, yet again: ‘You’re about to turn eighty-two. You’re two inches shorter, you weigh only seven stone, and you are still beautiful, gracious and desirable.’ Marcello Mastroianni in Dark Eyes; gowns by Cristóbal Balenciaga. The way the horses would smell of dust and dry bread when you got off the school bus in the evening. The Lalannes, each working in their own studio with a garden in between. The night we spray-painted Rue des Vertus, and the time we slipped a stinking herring skin under the terrace of the restaurant where that stupid ass Mr Teflon worked. And the time we rode on the back of a truck, face down on sheets of cardboard, and Vincent read us all of Robert Linhart’s L’Établi out loud. Simon’s face when he heard Björk for the first time in his life, or Monteverdi, in the car park of the Macumba.

So much silliness, and regret, and the soap bubbles at Lola’s godfather’s funeral …

Our lost loves, our torn-up letters, and our friends on the end of the telephone. All those unforgettable nights, and how we were forever rearranging our stuff, and all the strangers we knocked into all those times we had to run to catch a bus that wasn’t going to wait for us anyway.

All of that, and more.

Enough to keep our souls alive.

Enough to know not to try to talk back to morons.

Let them die.

They will anyway.

They’ll die all alone while we’re at the cinema.

That’s what we tell ourselves so we’ll feel better about not having got up and left the table that day.

Then there’s the obvious fact that all of it – our apparent indifference, our discretion and our weakness, too – is our parents’ fault.

It’s their fault – or should I say it’s thanks to them.

Because they’re the ones who taught us about books and music. Who talked to us about other things and forced us to see things in a different light. To aim higher and further. But they also forgot to give us confidence, because they thought that it would just come naturally. That we had a special gift for life, and compliments might spoil our egos.

They got it wrong.

The confidence never came.

So here we are. Sublime losers. We just sit there in silence while the loudmouths get their way, and any brilliant response we might have come up with is nipped in the bud, and all we’re left with is a vague desire to be sick.

Maybe it was all the whipped cream we ate.

I remember how one day we were all together, the whole family, on a beach near Hossegor – because we rarely went anywhere together as a family – family with a capital F, that wasn’t really our style – our pop (our father never wanted us to call him Papa and so when people were surprised we would say it was because of May 1968. That was a pretty good excuse, we thought, ‘May ’68’, like a secret code; it was as if we were saying, ‘It’s because he’s from planet Zorg’) – so our pop, as I was saying, must have looked up and said, ‘Now children, you see this beach?’

(Any idea how huge the Côte d’Argent is?)

‘Well, do you know what you are, you children, on the scale of the universe?’

(Yeah! Kids who aren’t allowed any doughnuts!)

‘You are this grain of sand. Just this one, right here. And nothing more.’

We believed him.

Our loss.

‘What’s that smell?’ said Carine.

I was spreading Madame Rashid’s paste all over my legs.

‘What … what on earth is that stuff?’

‘I’m not sure exactly. I think it’s honey or caramel mixed with wax and spices.’

‘Oh my God, that’s horrible! That is disgusting! And you’re going to do that here?’

‘Where else can I do it? I can’t go to the wedding like this. I look like a yeti.’

My sister-in-law turned away with a sigh.

‘Be very careful of the seat. Simon, turn off the air conditioning so I can open the window.’

Please, I muttered, my teeth clenched.

Madame Rashid had wrapped this huge lump of what looked like Turkish delight in a damp cloth. ‘Next time come see me, I take care of you. I do your little love garden. After you see how he like it, your man, when I make it all gone, he go crazy with you and he give you anything you want,’ she assured me with a wink.

I smiled. Just a faint smile. I’d just made a mark on the armrest and was juggling Kleenex. What a mess.

‘And are you going to get dressed in the car, too?’

‘We’ll stop somewhere just before. Hey, Simon? Can you find me a little side road somewhere?’

‘One that smells of hazelnuts?’

‘I should hope so!’

‘And Lola?’ asked Carine.

‘What about Lola?’

‘Is she coming?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’ She looked startled.

‘No. I don’t know.’

‘This is unbelievable. Nobody ever knows anything with you guys. It’s always the same thing. A complete bohemian shambles. Can’t you get your act together for once? Just a little bit?’

‘I spoke to her on the phone yesterday,’ I said curtly. ‘She wasn’t feeling too good and still didn’t know whether she could make it.’

‘Well, well, what a surprise.’

Oooh, how I disliked that condescending tone of hers.

‘What’s surprising about it?’ I said, through clenched teeth.

‘Oh dear! Nothing. Nothing surprises me any more with you lot. And if Lola is feeling that way, it’s her fault, too. It’s what she wanted, isn’t it? She really has a knack for ending up in the most incredible fixes. You don’t just go around—’

I could see Simon frowning in the rear-view mirror.

‘Well, as far as I’m concerned …’

Yes. Exactly. As far as you’re concerned …

‘… the problem with Lo—’

‘Stop!’ I exploded, cutting across her. ‘Stop right there. I didn’t get enough sleep, so … leave it for later.’

Then she got all huffy. ‘Oh, well! No one can ever say a thing in this family. The least little comment about any of you and the other three rush to put a knife to your throat; it’s ridiculous.’

Simon was trying to catch my eye.

‘And you think that’s funny, do you? Both of you, you think it’s funny, don’t you? It’s unbelievable. Completely childish. I’m entitled to my opinion, aren’t I? Since you won’t listen and no one can say a thing to you, and no one ever does say a thing, you’re untouchable. You never stop to question yourselves. Well, I’m going to give you a piece of my mind—’

But we don’t want a piece of your mind, sweetheart.

‘I think this protectionism of yours, this way you have of acting all ‘to hell with the rest of you’ won’t do you any favours. It’s not the least bit constructive.’

‘But what is constructive here on earth, Carine love?’

‘Oh please, spare me! Not that, too. Don’t start on your pseudo-Socrates disillusioned philosophers act. It’s pathetic, at your age. And have you finished with that gunk, it really is revolting—’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I assured her, rolling the ball over my white calves, ‘I’m almost done.’

‘Aren’t you going to use some sort of cream afterwards? Your pores are in a state of shock now; you’ve got to remoisturise your skin otherwise you’ll be covered in little red spots until tomorrow.’

‘Damn, I forgot to bring anything.’

‘Don’t you have your face cream?’

‘No.’

‘Or moisturiser?’

‘No.’

‘Night cream?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t bring anything?’

She was horrified.

‘I did. I brought a toothbrush, and some toothpaste, and L’Heure Bleue, and some condoms, and mascara, and a tube of lip-balm.’

She was shattered.

‘That is all you have in your toilet bag?’

‘Uh … it’s in my handbag. I don’t have a toilet bag.’

She sighed, and started rummaging in her make-up bag, and she handed me a big white tube.

‘Here, put some of this on.’

I thanked her with a genuine smile. She was pleased. She may be a first-class pain but she does like to please others. Credit where credit is due.

And she really doesn’t like to leave pores in a state of shock. It breaks her heart.

After a few minutes she added, ‘Garance?’

‘Mm-hmm?’

‘You know what I think is deeply unfair?’

‘The profit that Seph—’

‘No, that you’ll be lovely no matter what. Just a little bit of lip gloss and a touch of mascara, and you’ll be beautiful. It hurts me to say it, but it’s true.’

I was floored. It was the first time in years she’d said anything nice to me. I could have kissed her, but then right away she ruined it.

‘Hey, don’t use up the whole tube! It’s not L’Oréal, I’ll have you know.’

That’s Carine all over. No sooner does she suspect you might catch her red-handed in a moment of weakness than, systematically, after doing you a favour, she has to make a cutting remark.

Pity. She’s missing out on a lot of good moments. It would have been a good moment for her if I’d flung my arms round her neck without warning. A great big smacker, between two trucks … But no. She always has to spoil everything.

I often think I ought to invite her to live with me for a day or two so that I can give her a few lessons in life.

So that she could let her guard down for once, let herself go, roll up her sleeves and forget about other people’s imperfections.

It makes me sad to see her like that, straitjacketed by all her prejudices and incapable of tenderness. And then I remember that she was raised by the dashing Jacques and Francine Molinoux at the bottom of a dead-end street in the residential outskirts of Le Mans and I figure that, all things considered, she isn’t doing so badly after all.

The cease-fire didn’t last, and Simon was used for target practice.

‘You’re driving too fast. Lock the doors, we’re getting near the péage. What on earth is that on the radio? I didn’t mean twenty miles an hour though, did I? Why’d you turn the air con off? Watch out for those bikers. Are you sure you’ve got the right map? Can’t you read the road signs, please? It’s so stupid, I’m sure petrol cost less back there … Be careful round the bends – can’t you see I’m painting my nails? Hey … are you doing it on purpose, or what?’

I can just make out the back of my brother’s neck in the hollow space of his headrest. That fine, straight neck, and close-cropped hair.

I wonder how he can stand it, I wonder if he ever dreams of tying her to a tree and running off as fast as his legs can carry him.

Why does she speak to him like that? Does she even know who she’s talking to? Does she know that the man sitting next to her was the god of scale models? The ace of Meccano sets? A Lego System genius?

A patient little boy who could spend several months building the most incredible planet, with dried lichen for the ground, and hideous creatures made from bread rolled in spiders’ webs?

A stubborn little tyke who entered every contest and won nearly all of them: Nesquik, Ovaltine, Babybel, Caran d’Ache, Kellogg’s and the Mickey Mouse Club?

One year, his sand castle was so beautiful that the judges disqualified him: they claimed he’d had help. He cried all afternoon and our granddad had to take him to the crêperie to console him. He drank three whole mugs of cider one after the other.

First time he ever got roaring drunk.

Does she even know that for months her good little lapdog of a hubby wore a satin Superman cape day and night that he folded up conscientiously in his schoolbag whenever it was time to go through the gate into the playground? He was the only boy who knew how to repair the photocopy machine in the town hall. And he was the only one who’d ever seen Mylène Carois’s knickers – she was the butcher’s daughter, Carois & Fils. (He hadn’t dared tell her that he was not all that interested.)

Simon Lariot, a discreet man, who’d always made his own sweet way, gracefully, without bothering a soul.

Who never threw tantrums, or whined, or asked for a thing. Who went through his university prep classes and got onto a top engineering course without ever grinding his teeth or resorting to tranquillisers. Who didn’t want to make a big deal when he did well, and turned bright red when the headmistress of the Lycée Stendhal kissed him in the street to congratulate him.

The same big boy who can laugh like an idiot for exactly twenty minutes when he’s smoking a joint and who knows every single journey of every single spaceship in Star Wars.

I’m not saying he’s a saint, I’m saying he’s better than one.

Why, then? Why does he let people walk all over him? It’s a mystery to me. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve wanted to shake him, to open his eyes and get him to pound his fist on the table. Countless times.

One day Lola tried. He sent her packing and barked that it was his life, after all.

Which is true. It’s his life. But we’re the ones who are saddened by it.

Which is idiotic, in a way. We’ve got more than enough to keep us busy on our own turf.

He opens up the most with Vincent. Because of the Internet. They’re in touch the whole time, sending each other corny jokes and links for websites where they can find old vinyl LPs and second-hand guitars and other model enthusiasts. Simon has made great friends with a guy in Massachusetts; they swap photos of their respective remote-control boats. His name is Cecil (Simon can’t pronounce it right; he says See-sull) W. Thurlington and he lives in a big house on Martha’s Vineyard.

Lola and I think it sounds really chic. Martha’s Vineyard … ‘The cradle of the Kennedys’, as they say in Paris-Match.

We have this fantasy where we take the plane and then go up to Cecil’s private beach and we shout, ‘Yoo-hoo! Darling See-sull! We are Simon’s sisters! We are so very en-chant-té!’

We picture him wearing a navy-blue blazer, with a dusty-pink cotton sweater thrown over his shoulders, and off-white linen slacks. Straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad.

When we threaten Simon with our disgraceful plan, he tends to lose some of his cool.

‘Hey, are you doing it on purpose or what?’

‘Well, how many coats do you have to put on, anyway?’ he says eventually.

‘Three.’

‘Three coats?’

‘Base, colour and fixer.’

‘Oh.’

‘Be careful, and at least warn me when you’re about to brake.’

He raises his eyebrows. No. Correction. One eyebrow.

What can he be thinking when he raises his right eyebrow like that?

*

We ate rubbery sandwiches at one of those motorway service stations. It was revolting. I’d wanted us to have a plat du jour at a roadside café but ‘they don’t know how to wash the lettuce’. True. I’d forgotten. So, three vacuum-packed sandwiches, please. (Infinitely more hygienic.)

‘It may not be good, but at least we know what we’re eating!’

That’s one way of looking at it.

We were sitting outside next to the dustcarts. You could hear brrrrammm and brrrroommm every two seconds but I wanted to smoke a cigarette and Carine cannot stand the smell of tobacco.

‘I have to go to the toilet,’ she announced, with a pained expression. ‘I don’t suppose it’s too luxurious.’

‘Why don’t you go in the grass?’ I asked.

‘In front of everyone? Are you crazy?’

‘Just go a little bit further that way. I’ll come with you if you want.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ll get my shoes dirty.’

‘I don’t think so. What’s a few drops?’

She got up without deigning to answer.

‘You know, Carine,’ I said solemnly, ‘the day you learn to enjoy having a wee in the grass, you’ll be a much happier person.’

She took her wet wipes.

‘I’m fine as I am, thank you.’

I turned to my brother. He was staring at the cornfield as if he were trying to count every single ear. He didn’t look too good.

‘You okay?’

‘I’m okay,’ he replied, without turning round.

‘Doesn’t look it.’

He was rubbing his face.

‘I’m tired.’

‘What of?’

‘Of everything.’

‘You? I don’t believe you.’

‘And yet it’s true.’