5 to 3 Days
Team Spirit
Over the past few days, we’d been a real team. At the hospital, the motley collection of individuals, aged from twelve to sixty, who were keeping watch on my son around the clock had been dubbed ‘team Louis’. I always found it hard to admit publicly, but sharing the burden with team Louis did me the world of good.
For the following challenge – in Paris, this time – I decided to recruit Isadora. We had to fine-tune our act, because Louis’s goal was far from easy. We rehearsed a little mother–daughter number that was totally insane. Ordinarily so poised, sensible and friendly, Isadora had to give a credible performance as a temperamental teen, swear like a trooper and vent her frustration with tears and tantrums. Truth be told, Isa was having the time of her life. Contrary to what she’d told me during our football training, she was not a terrible actress at all, and in fact played the part so well that she frightened her father. Isa flew into a rage when Edgar said he didn’t have the two euros she wanted to buy her favourite magazine. She stamped her foot, flushed crimson and began to sob. I applauded her performance, she bowed and we burst out laughing at Edgar’s half-astonished, half-relieved look. For a moment, he’d really believed that his daughter had completely lost it.
Having perfected our number, we put on our glad rags and headed for the N.R.J. Music Awards party, which was taking place that evening, 14 February, Valentine’s Day. Once inside the building, we marched determinedly towards the stage door. As expected, it was guarded by two giant bouncers. Isadora was chewing gum outrageously, keeping her nose glued to her phone. She seemed to be developing a taste for her role. Edgar would have to watch out, in a few years’ time . . .
The Hégémonie group was one of the event’s sponsors. So I flashed my old business card, which said I was the company’s marketing director. A card with a gilt logo, like that, intimidated people. I acted the stressed-out, borderline-hysterical executive, swearing I’d left my accreditation in the taxi, and I dropped a few names of senior people in the company – I’d done my homework thoroughly. I kept this act up for ten long minutes, and, faced with the bouncers’ reasonable refusal to let me past, I produced my trump card: my daughter for the evening. Isadora began to yell, calling on the security guards as witnesses, telling them that not only did she never get to see me because of my job, but – worse – every time I promised her something, I screwed it up. That I’d promised to take her backstage, and a promise was a promise. In a final theatrical flourish, she sat down on the floor and sobbed her heart out. A young woman with a V.I.P. badge came over to us, said a few words to Isadora, then turned to the security guards and said, ‘They’re with me; let them through.’ Bingo.
Once past, we thanked the pretty young woman, who gave Isa a kiss and asked if everything was OK now. She was sorry to leave us there, but she had to go and get ready. Isa threw her arms around my neck in a daze, thanking me a thousand times for allowing her to kiss Lulu something or other – her schoolfriends would be sooo jealous.
‘I allowed you to kiss Lulu who?’
‘Louane Emera. She’s a really famous singer? OK, you’ve obviously never heard of her . . . I know, for the past two years, you’ve been shut away in your cave, listening to Wham! records, haven’t you?’
I’d never seen Isa so bubbly. She didn’t stop smiling all evening.
We wandered around backstage, then we froze. We were close to our goal. Holding our breath, we pushed open the door on which a clumsily Sellotaped plain sheet of A4 paper announced soberly, Maître Gims.
He was there, but he wasn’t alone. He leapt up, two men and a woman barred our path and tried to push us back. Isa managed to wriggle past and sum up the reasons for our intrusion in a few seconds: Louis, the coma, the notebook, our mission, his invaluable help. OK, our sheer gall, as well. I don’t know whether he believed us, but the guy started to laugh and said, ‘OK.’
‘Super cool, super swag, a legend,’ declared Isadora as we left some minutes later. She still couldn’t get over it, but, in her phone, she had the irrefutable proof: I’d jammed with the rapper Maître Gims. I can tell you that hearing myself screech, ‘Elle répondait au nom de Bella . . . ’ was worth its weight in peanuts, as my mother would say.
*
The following morning, I took Isa with me into Louis’s hospital room, for the first time. She hadn’t seen him since the accident. Of course, I’d prepared her, explaining that he’d lost a lot of weight, that he was pale, his features were sharper, and he was hooked up to countless machines. I was used to seeing him like that, but the reality was hard for Isa’s tender little heart to take. She cried silently for a while, watching Louis and holding his hand. She kissed him on the cheek. For me, too, that scene was gruelling. I managed to hide my emotion, but I couldn’t help thinking that Louis might never know what it was to be in love. That he might never feel that glow in the pit of his stomach, desire, the need to feel his arms around another person.
Isa gradually regained her composure, her voice, her natural language, and told Louis about our evening, Louane’s kiss, my a cappella with Maître Gims. I think she played him the soundtrack of my little private gig a dozen times. I didn’t have such a bad voice, after all. ‘Maybe you chose the wrong career,’ teased Charlotte, who’d joined us.
That seemingly harmless joke deeply perturbed me. No, I had no ambition to become a singer, but, yes, I had chosen the wrong career. Or, rather, I’d chosen the wrong life.
I had no wish to carry on with my job from before. I had no wish to carry on with my life from before. In fulfilling my son’s dreams at high speed, I’d blown apart my relationships with other people, and the very idea of my future.
Of my previous life, I only wanted to keep the foundations. Those pillars that stood firm, come rain or shine: my fragile structure. My mother. The upbringing she’d given me. My culture. My values. My memories.
And, above all else, my son.