“Did he leave?”
Valérie shrugs; the fat in her arms flops down, pathetic, against the embossed dress, too warm for the season despite the thunderstorm.
“I couldn’t take it any more.”
“So it was your decision?” Séverine insists.
“No, it was his, but he’s right.”
“You’re saying he’s right? Listen to yourself.”
Séverine is upset and angry on Valérie’s behalf, as if Valérie was speaking for all women when in fact it’s only about her. She’s leaning against the outside wall of the school, barely sheltering under the roof projection, one foot against a tub of flowers. It’s still thundering, exploding in the distance. She lights a cigarette – the last one before going back to work. Playtime is almost over, and she’s only taking a break because Valérie has dropped by. The teacher is bound to make an unpleasant comment when she gets back, because she’s supposed to watch the children during playtime, but shit, she’s exhausted. And with this rain on top of everything else, the kids are going to get water everywhere.
“There’s no right or wrong; in any case, I was expecting it. I think I’d even been expecting him to do it for a long time.”
“Then why didn’t you leave?”
Valérie shakes her head and hesitates. “I don’t know. After all, you know him, he’s nice.”
In fact, Séverine isn’t really listening. She’s applying every answer to her own case, wondering if she’s better than Valérie, if she’s at a standstill because life has something wonderful in store for her or if she’s painting a black picture again and her life isn’t so bad after all, compared to her friend’s.
The phone vibrates and rings in the pocket of her work smock.
“Go on, you can answer it.”
“No, it’s my mother, and I’ve no wish to speak to her.” Séverine silences the device with her thumb and draws a little satisfaction from it, confusing the machine with the caller. “You were saying?”
“I don’t know any more.”
“Are you going to find yourself a guy who can give you a kid?”
Valérie grits her teeth: Séverine rarely minces her words. Never, in fact. “You’re kidding. It’s too late now.”
“You still could. You’ve got a few more years left.”
In silence, they draw on their cigarettes at the same time. They’d like to sit down, but the wood of the only available bench is saturated with water. Its forest-green paint has been cracking for a long time, chips scratched off by the teenagers who sometimes loiter outside the school while waiting to pick up a sibling. There are words carved in the wood, and sentences written with a marker. Porn to be alive, for instance, the loop of the first B having been deliberately erased. Below that, Love me Lili – probably with the point of a compass – must have been long and hard to engrave, a true labour of love. Valérie sighs. She stamps on the spot and crosses her arms over her large chest.
“Things have been complicated with me and Patrick for a long time, and since the last building site it’s become unbearable. So I guess it was time.”
“Where’s he going? Do you know?”
“Apparently he wants to leave here. He mentioned a public building firm in Marseilles.”
“Marseilles? So he wouldn’t be working with Manuel any more?” This separation seems to her more outrageous than the other one.
Her phone rings again. “Shit, can’t she leave me alone?”
“Maybe you should answer.”
It’s the weakness in Valérie’s voice, this compliance before an order, that prompts Séverine to switch off her phone completely. She stuffs it angrily to the bottom of her pocket. “Does Manuel know?”
“Not sure. I imagine he would have told you, wouldn’t he?”
“No. We don’t talk much at the moment.”
They exchange a glance, friendly but not overly so; they became friends twenty years ago because their men were. They both wonder if it will carry on now that one of the couples has exploded. Séverine has kept a kind of adolescent cruelty in her friendships, a need to surround herself with people whose worth reflects well on her; Valérie’s limp gentleness, her very body puts her off. They’re no longer young enough for her friend to make Séverine feel good about herself, and her loser’s face gives Séverine the horrible impression she, too, is one. But neither of them has forgotten the famous evening when Séverine once lost it. Jo was five, Céline six, and Séverine about to celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday. She was so young, and she was dragging her daughters behind her like annoying appendages now that she had regained her shape and her desire to go dancing. But nightclub sessions had been replaced with dinners with colleagues, or rather her husband’s colleagues and their wives. So she drank a bit too much and laughed loudly, sitting outside the Cheval Blanc, while bottles of rosé circulated among the workmen, whose conversations alternated between healthy anti-boss anger and rather heavy-handed tenderness aimed at their wives. The kids were playing between and under the tables, a few pushchairs blocking the way, so the waiter served the dishes over them. There was a fun atmosphere: the guys were coming out of themselves, cheerful and letting their hair down. But Séverine had had too much to drink, and when they started playing a 1980s compilation – old stuff she didn’t even like – her emotions bubbled up to breaking point without her quite knowing why. Maybe it was because of those stupid hit songs everybody obviously knew the words to, so everybody started singing “et moi je vis ma vie à pile ou face” and then “que je t’aime, que je t’aime que je t’aime”, the guys yelling like coyotes, the women responding, and when the owner came out with fresh bottles, he was yelling as loud as them. But when they started singing “Comme une pierre que l’on jette dans l’eau vive d’un ruisseau”, she felt so sad that Valérie noticed and came to sit next to her. The circles of wine under the balloon glasses were tearing the paper tablecloth, and Séverine was following the wet tracks with her fingers, pulling bits off, folding them – focusing on her hands so as not to start crying. And then Valérie’s presence, her gentleness – though Séverine was wary of gentleness, a sign of weakness – and the kindness of her questions. So she suddenly let rip like she’d never done before: she’d had enough, she was anxious, she had daughters growing up who she didn’t always want to look after, she wanted to go back to the lycée, and then being carefree, that was over but she didn’t want it to be, it had all happened too fast. The feeling of missing out on her life but not knowing what kind of life she wanted instead. Twenty-four years old and life was already laid out. The drink, Valérie’s attentive silence and the surrounding noise like a screen had prompted her to talk like she’d never dared before.
Although it came as a relief, the memory of it made her feel mortified the next day. And remembering it today is still unpleasant. Because of that evening, Valérie knows that for all her airs, Séverine has cracks like everybody else in this world.
“So are you coping?”
Valérie grimaces in a twisted smile. “I haven’t got a job any more.”
“What?”
“Restructuring. There’s several of us, not just me.”
“Shit. Bastards. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I have an appointment at the Pôle employment agency tomorrow.”
“Yes, but aren’t going to go after them about the redundancy?”
“I’d rather not rock the boat. They’ve given us a small bonus… If we start screaming and shouting they may never take us back. But, well, if I keep my mouth shut, then maybe next time they’re hiring they’ll remember me, right?”
A woman pushes open the door and calls Séverine sharply, reminding her that the children have been back in class for over five minutes. Her tone is annoyed, falsely benevolent and categorical. Séverine gives Valérie’s arm a squeeze, kisses her and disappears into the school. Just before closing the door, she turns. “Drop in at home whenever you like. You’re not on your own.”
The promise makes Valérie’s cheeks quiver a little; she lifts her eyes very high, presses her fingers into the dark rings and sniffs. She doesn’t want her tears to flow, these large tears of abandonment and half a messed-up life.