No and Me Page 13

  They were in love. That’s what she says.

  They told each other their stories and their dreams. They wanted to run off together far, far away. They smoked and drank coffee together in the common room, the grey walls covered with American film posters. They talked quietly for hours, the plastic cups staying there after they’d gone, with dried-up sugar at the bottom. Before being sent to the school, Laurent had held up a bakery and stolen an old lady’s handbag. He’d been placed in a young offenders’ institution. He knew how to play poker. He’d get crumpled notes out of his pocket and place big bets just like that. He taught No, Geneviève and the others to play. They’d play late into the night after lights-out in the silent dorms. She could tell when he had a winning hand. And when he was bluffing, when he was cheating. Sometimes she caught him red-handed. She’d throw her cards on the table, leave the game and he’d come running after her, catch up with her, hold her face in his hands and kiss her. Geneviève used to say, ‘You two are made for each other.’

  Often there are questions I’d like to ask No about love and stuff, but I can see that the time’s not right any more.

  When he turned eighteen, Laurent left the school. On his last day he told No that he was going off to live in Ireland to look for work and to have a change of scene. He told her he’d write to her as soon as he was settled and he’d wait for her. He promised. Geneviève went off the same year to do her exams. No was seventeen. The next year she started running away again. One night she met a man in a bar in Paris. He bought her a drink and she knocked them back one after the other, looking him straight in the eye. She wanted to feel them burn her insides, she laughed and laughed and cried until she fell off her chair in the middle of the café. The fire brigade came and then the police and that’s how she found herself in an emergency centre for minors in the fourteenth district a few weeks or months before I met her. She hid Laurent’s letters somewhere in a place only she knows. Dozens of letters.

  When she stands up and has no strength any more, when she doesn’t want to eat because she feels so bad, I go close to her and whisper, ‘Think of Laurent waiting for you over there.’

  .

  Chapter 42

  I watched for Lucas’s outline in the playground till the very last moment. I went upstairs after everyone else. I slipped into class just a second before Mr Marin closed the door. Lucas isn’t here.

  Mr Marin’s taking the register. Léa’s wearing a tight black pullover and silver rings. Axelle is back to her natural hair colour. She’s wearing lip gloss. Léa turns round to me to ask if Lucas is ill. They smile at me with an air of complicity. Mr Marin starts the lesson as usual. He walks between the rows, his hands behind his back. He never looks at his notes, it’s all in his head – dates, figures, trends. You could hear a pin drop.

  It’s crazy the way that things can seem so normal. If you take the trouble. If you don’t look under the carpet. You could almost imagine you’re in a perfect world where everything turns out fine.

  We’re more than half an hour into the lesson when Lucas knocks on the door. He comes in. Mr Marin lets him sit down, continues developing his idea. Lucas takes out his folder, takes off his jacket. We’re taking notes. Is Marin actually going to let him get away with it?

  No.

  The attack’s about to happen.

  ‘Mr Muller, is your alarm clock broken?’

  ‘Eh, no sir, our lift. I was stuck in the lift.’

  A sound of hilarity runs through the rows.

  ‘You expect me to swallow that?’

  ‘Well, yes . . . I mean, it’s the truth.’

  ‘Mr Muller, I will soon have been teaching for thirty-five years. You are probably the fiftieth student to try the lift trick on me.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘At least show a little imagination. You’ve led us to expect better from you. If a herd of goats had blocked your way, I would have sympathised.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘You can put your jacket back on. Go and see the deputy head.’

  Lucas gets up, takes his jacket and leaves without looking at me. He seemed worried. He just slunk out. That’s not like him. Not a mutter or a mumble. He didn’t even drag his feet or slam the door. Something must have happened. Something has happened.

  After class, Mr Marin follows me down the stairs and calls to me. ‘Miss Bertignac, your lace is undone.’

  I shrug. My lace has been undone for the best part of thirteen years. I just stretch, step over it, or take a bigger step. It’s a question of practice. Mr Marin passes in front of me, a smile on his lips.

  ‘Take care of yourself.’

  I didn’t say a word. He knows something’s up.

  Outside the English class I catch up with Lucas. I don’t get the chance to ask the question: No hasn’t come home. He left the key under the mat. He says she’s in a bad way – she’s drinking in secret, she really stinks of booze, she’s doing crazy things, anything at all. He’s talking quickly and loudly, no longer being careful. You can probably hear him at the other end of the corridor. He says, ‘We’re not going to make it, Lou. You’ve got to understand, we can’t leave her in that state. She’s taking things. You can’t talk to her any more. You can’t fight against that . . .’

  ‘She talks to me.’

  Lucas looks at me as though I’m crazy. He goes into the class and I sit beside him.

  ‘You just don’t get it, Chip. You don’t want to get it.’

  I’m leaning against my tree, which is his too, and all around us there are bursts of laughter and shouts. I don’t know what to say. If the world’s an equation, I don’t understand it, the division between dream and reality, I don’t understand why things collapse, tip up, disappear, why life doesn’t keep its promises. Axelle and Léa are coming towards us arm in arm, looking purposeful.

  ‘Hi!’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘We wanted to invite you to a party at Léa’s next Saturday.’

  Lucas smiles.

  ‘OK, that’d be cool.’

  ‘Are you on MSN?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK, give us your address and we’ll send you an invite.’

  I don’t like this. We’ve got other fish to fry. We’re battling against the current. We’ve taken an oath. A silent oath, but that makes it all the more important. Nothing else counts. Nothing else must count.

  I don’t say anything. I listen to them talking about music. Lucas will bring his iPod along, he’s got loads of stuff on it, enough to last all night, the best tracks in the world and so on. They laugh, go into ecstasies, then turn to me. ‘And Lou, you will come this time, won’t you?’ I watch them laughing with him; they’re fifteen and have busts that fill their bras and bums that fill their jeans. They’re pretty, there’s no denying it. There’s not even some little flaw that would make them ugly – nothing. Lucas brushes the hair from his eyes and all of a sudden I don’t like that gesture any more, or the way he has of standing in front of them, all confident and relaxed.

  I sulk a bit for the rest of the day. Sulking helps. It’s like shouting at someone in front of the mirror, it’s a relief. But you mustn’t keep it up too long, just enough to make your point. You have to know when to stop before things begin to fester. That’s why I dragged him off after maths: ‘Come on, let’s go to your place. I’ll buy you a Swiss brioche.’ They’re his favourite because of the cream and those little chocolate chips. He loves those chips, that’s what I was thinking in the queue at the baker’s, he loves me but he doesn’t realise. Or perhaps he thinks I’m too small to kiss. Or maybe he resents me dumping No on him. Or he’s in love with Léa Germain. Or . . .

  The problem with theories is that they multiply at the speed of sound if you let them.

  We go into the apartment with an enormous bag of pastries
. The curtains are drawn. In the gloom we make her out stretched out on the sofa. She must have crashed there when she got back this morning. Her T-shirt is pulled up on her stomach, a thread of saliva has trickled from her mouth, her hair’s hanging down, she’s lying on her back, exposed. We tiptoe towards her. I hardly dare breathe. Lucas looks at me and in his eyes I can read in capital letters: what did I tell you?

  It’s true that there’s an empty bottle by her side. And it’s true that the whole room stinks of booze. And it’s true that she’s not doing well. Not much better than she was before. But before she was all alone. Before, no one worried about where she was sleeping or if she had anything to eat. Before, no one worried about whether she came home. Now we’re here. We carry her to bed when she can’t do it by herself, we’re afraid when she doesn’t come home. That’s the difference. Maybe that doesn’t change the course of things, but it makes a difference.

  Lucas listens to me. He doesn’t say anything. He could say, ‘You’re really little, Chip, but you’re really big too.’ But he stays silent. He knows I’m right, that makes the difference. He ruffles my hair with his hand.

  I used to think things were the way they are for a reason, that there was some hidden meaning. I used to think that this meaning governed the way the world was. But it’s an illusion to think that there are good and bad reasons. Grammar is a lie to make us think that what we say is connected by a logic which you’ll find if you study it, a lie that’s gone on for centuries. Because I now know that life just lurches between stability and instability and doesn’t obey any law.

  .

  Chapter 43

  They’ve got the boxes out of the cupboard and have put them on the floor to sort through them. They’re both sitting there, with objects and papers and newspapers spread out all over the carpet in front of them. My father’s taken two days off work to do the big tidy-up before the painting gets done. I go into the living room with my bag on my shoulder and they say hello. My mother doesn’t deviate from her usual questions – did you have a good day? You didn’t have too long to wait for the bus? She’s wearing her hair down and has got on the earrings my father bought her for Christmas. They’ve got two piles – things to keep and things to chuck. They look happy. They’re creating order. They’re getting organised for a new life. Different. Of course, they haven’t forgotten No, not quite. Sometimes they talk about her in the evening at dinner. My father tries to reassure me, we’ll hear from her one day, he’s sure. He keeps calling the social worker, almost every week.

  I put my bag in my room, open a couple of cupboards in the kitchen, grab an apple and then go back into the living room. They’re working silently. My mother looks questioningly at my father with an object in her hand. He gives a nod and she puts it in the good pile. Then he consults her about a pile of old newspapers. She makes a face and puts them to the side. They understand each other.

  ‘I’ve been invited to a party next Saturday at a friend’s place.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nice.’

  My father’s the one who’ll make the decision. My mother hasn’t even looked up.

  ‘It’s in the evening. From eight.’

  ‘I see. Until what time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Midnight maybe. Whenever you like.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  There. ‘That’s fine.’ Everything’s perfect. Everything is for the best. It’s all settled.

  I go back to my room and lie down with my arms crossed, like No.

  I don’t like this new life. I don’t like it when things get erased, lost. I don’t like pretending to have forgotten. I don’t forget.

  I don’t like it when it gets dark. These days which disappear into the shadows for ever.

  I look for memories, precise images, exact light. Those hours spent playing with Playmobil with my mother, stories we made up on the carpet and would begin again a thousand times. We shared out the plastic characters, men, women and children, we gave them voices and names, they went for picnics in the yellow truck, slept in tents, celebrated their birthdays. They had bikes, glasses, hats that came off and smiles that didn’t. That was before Chloe.

  I remember an autumn evening later, I must have been nine or ten. I’m with my mother in a park. The sun’s going down, there’s almost no one left. The other children have gone, it’s time for their baths, pyjamas, damp feet slipped into slippers. I’m wearing a flowery skirt and little boots, my legs are bare. I’m playing on my bike and my mother’s sitting on a bench keeping an eye on me from a distance. On the main path I get up some speed, my jacket’s done up, the wind’s in my hair, I’m pedalling as hard as I can to win the race. I’m not afraid. At the turn I skid, the bike slides off to the side, and I go into the air and come down and land on my knees. I stretch out my legs. It hurts. I’ve got a big cut, encrusted with earth and gravel. I scream. My mother’s on her bench a few metres away, looking at the ground. She didn’t see it. She can’t hear. The blood’s started to come and I’m screaming louder. My mother doesn’t move, cut off from everything around her. I’m screaming as loud as I can, emptying my lungs. I’ve got blood on my hands. I’ve bent the injured knee in front of me. My tears are burning my cheeks. From where I am, I can see a lady get up and go over to my mother. She puts her hand on her shoulder. My mother looks up and the lady points towards me. I turn up the volume. My mother waves me over. I don’t move. I keep crying. She stays where she is, paralysed. So the lady comes over and crouches down beside me. She takes a hanky out of her bag and cleans around the wound. She says it’ll need disinfectant when I get home. She says, ‘Come on, I’ll take you to your mother.’ She helps me get up, picks up my bike and leads me to the bench. My mother gives me a weak smile of welcome. She doesn’t look at the lady, doesn’t say thank you. I sit down beside her, no longer crying. The lady goes back to where she was, on her bench. She’s looking over at us. She can’t help it. I’m gripping the lady’s Kleenex tight in my hand. My mother gets up and says we’re going. And we go. We pass the lady, who hasn’t stopped looking at us. I turn back to her one last time. The lady gives me a wave. And I understand what it means, a wave like that, as the night falls in the empty park. It means you’re going to have to be strong, you’ll need lots of courage and you’ll have to grow up with that. Or rather without.

  I walk along with my bike. With a clank the park gate closes behind me.

  .

  Chapter 44

  ‘Mr Muller, stand up and count to twenty.’

  Lucas is looking rough this morning – you can tell from his eyes, which are all screwed up, his messy hair and the way he looks as though he’s not really here. He sighs ostentatiously, gets up in slow motion and starts counting.

  ‘One, two, three –’

  ‘Stop! That is your mark, Mr Muller: three out of twenty. You’ve known about this homework for two weeks; your average for the second term is five and a half. I’m going to ask the deputy head to suspend you for three days. If your plan is to repeat this year for a second time, you’re going about it the right way. You may leave.’

  Lucas collects his things. For the first time he looks humiliated. He doesn’t protest or knock anything over. Before he goes he turns to me. It’s as though his eyes are asking me to help him, not to leave him, but I sit there looking haughty with my back straight and my head high, concentrating as though I’m on Questions for a Champion. If I was equipped with an automatic central-locking function, that would be convenient.

  He’s going to go to Léa’s party. He’s going to go without me. I’ve tried hard to imagine the scene, with me in the middle. I’ve tried to imagine myself in the middle of the party, with spotlights and music and sixth formers and everything. I’ve tried to find images that seem authentic – me dancing in the middle of the others, me talking to Axelle with a glass in my hand, me sitting on a sofa laughing. But it doesn’t work
. It’s quite simply impossible. It’s inconceivable. It’s like trying to imagine a slug at an international dragonfly convention.

  I look for him in the playground. He’s talking to François Gaillard, waving his arms about. From a distance I can see that he’s smiling at me and I can’t help smiling back, even if I’m angry, because I don’t have a carapace like a tortoise or a shell like a snail. I’m a tiny slug in Converse. Stark naked.

  At the school gate Léa and Axelle are talking loudly. They’re with Jade Lebrun and Anna Delattre, really pretty girls in their last year. I realise at once that they’re talking about Lucas. They haven’t seen me. And I manage to stay hidden behind a post and listen.

  ‘This morning he was at the brasserie on the boulevard with a really strange girl. They were having coffee.’

  ‘Who was the girl?’

  ‘I dunno. She wasn’t a girl from school. She didn’t look too good, I can tell you. You should have seen her – she was like a corpse or something. She was crying and he was shouting at her like anything.’

  Lucas comes over to me. They stop immediately. The two of us head to the metro. I say nothing. I look at my shoes, the lines on the pavement, and count the cigarette butts.

  ‘Chip, you should come with me on Saturday to Léa’s. It would do you good.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My parents don’t want me to.’

  ‘Did you ask them?’