I smile for six minutes as I invent a new life for him in the cool of the evening.
You’re a famous doctor, Papa, you’ve done outstanding research; you were made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur at the prompting of Hubert Curien when he was Minister of Research. You perfected a treatment to counteract ruptured aneurisms. It’s based on the enzyme 5-lipoxygenase, and you were on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize. You’d even written a speech in Swedish: you came to my room every evening to rehearse it, and I laughed at your guttural accent. But Sharp and Roberts won the prize that year for their discovery of split genes.
That was yesterday, and Papa had liked the sound of his life.
This evening: You’re a fabulous countertenor. You’re so handsome that you have the women shrieking and their hearts beating faster. You studied at the Schola Cantorum in Basle, and your performance in Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto made your name. Oh yes, and that was how you met Maman. She went to the dressing room to congratulate you after you sang from it in a recital, carrying a bouquet of thornless roses. She was crying. You fell in love with her, and she took you in her arms.
Tears of happiness rise to his shining eyes.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you that you were the most wonderful of fathers. I’ll remind you how Maman made you take a shower when you came home, because she was afraid that didecyl chloride would turn us all into monsters out of the comedy film La Soupe aux Choux. I’ll tell you about our games of Monopoly, I’ll tell you you used to cheat so that I could win, and I’ll admit that you once told me I was beautiful, and I believed you, and it made me cry.
Yes, I do smile in the evening; sometimes.
The house is silent.
Papa is asleep in his cool ground-floor room. The nurse has gone to meet her fiancé, a tall young man with a nice smile who dreams of Africa, and of schools and wells there (a candidate for my million?).
We were drinking a tisane just now, my Vittorio Gassman and I, on the shady terrace; his hand was trembling in mine, I know that I’m not sure, it could be the wind, a branch moving, maybe; I’m so uneasy about men these days, I can’t help it.
He rose in silence, dropping a kiss on my forehead. Don’t be too late, Jo. I’ll be waiting for you. And before he goes to our room, in the hope of a cure for me that won’t come this evening, he puts on the CD of that Mozart aria I love so much, just loud enough for it to fill the terrace with sound but not to wake up the fabulous countertenor, the Monopoly cheat and the man who almost won the Nobel Prize.
And this evening, as they do every evening, my lips in perfect synchronisation echo those of Kiri Te Kanawa, articulating Countess Almaviva’s moving aria: Dove sono i bei momenti / Di dolcezza e di piacer? / Dove andaro i giuramenti / Di quel labbro menzogner? / Perché mai se in pianti e in pene / Per me tutto si cangio / La memoria di quel bene / Dal mio sen non trapasso?*
I sing for myself, in silence, my face turned to the dark sea.
I am loved. But I no longer love.
* Where are those beautiful moments / of tenderness and pleasure? / Where are the vows / of those lying lips? / Why has everything changed / into tears and pain for me? / Why has the memory / not left my heart?
(The Marriage of Figaro, Act III).
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Hello Jo. I’ve been a faithful reader of your blog from the start. It was a comfort at a time when things weren’t going very well in my life, and I clung to your tacking thread and Azurite yarns so that I wouldn’t fall . . . Thanks to you and your lovely words, I didn’t. Thank you with all my heart. Now it’s my turn to be there for you if you would like, if you need someone. I just wanted you to know. Mariane.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
I love your blog, but why aren’t you writing it any more? Sylvie Poisson, from Jenlain.
PS I don’t mean that what Mado and Thérèse are writing isn’t good, but it’s not the same thing J.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Hello Jo. Do you member me? You replide to me so nicely when I sent you good wishes for your husband with flu. You seemd so in love it would do anyone good. My husband died at work resently, a concrete making machine fell on his head on a building cite, and in your note that I read at the semetary you say we all have just one love and for me it was my Jeannot. I miss him and you too. No more now cause I’m gonna cry.
From: françoise-et-daniele@coiffesthetique_arras.fr
To: [email protected]
Jo, you’re totally nuts! You’re crazy!!! Crazy, crazier, craziest! They’re wonderful. And with the Onion Jacques* painted on the roof and the chrome rear-view mirrors they’re lovely, lovely, lovely like in Cloclo’s song! They’re the cutest Minis anyone ever saw. The people around here think it was us who won a big prize, imagine that! We have lots of guys chasing us now, we get sent flowers, poems, chocolates, we’ll end up as fat as a couple of pigs!!!! There’s even a boy of fifteen who’s in love with us both and wants to run away with us. He waits for us every evening behind the belfry with his suitcase, would you believe it? One evening we hid to see what he looks like, he’s really cute!!! Fifteen years old, imagine that! And he wants us both, ha ha! In his last letter he said he was going to kill himself if we didn’t turn up, talk about irresistible! The salon is full all the time, we had to take on two girls, one of them is Juliette Bocquet, you may remember her, she used to go out with Fabien Derôme and it ended badly because her parents thought he’d made her pregnant, oh well, that’s all in the past. With your Minis we’re the belles of Arras now, and soon we’ll come down and see you even if you say no, it will be a surprise! Well, we suppose you know what happened to Jo, how the neighbours called the police because of the smell; it was a shock for everyone here, particularly because he was smiling, but we don’t talk about it any more.
Nearly two already, we must sign off, Jo, we’re going to fill in our lottery tickets and then go back to reopen the salon. Thousands and thousands of kisses. The twins who love you.
* Union Jack pronounced with a French accent
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Bonjour beautiful maman. Juste quelques mots to say that Nadine is expecting a bébé only she hasn’t dared to tell you yet. We are très très happy. Come bientôt she will need you. Chaud kisses. Fergus.
From: faouz_belle@faouz_belle.be
To: [email protected]
Hello Madame Guerbette.
My name is Faouzia, I live in Knokke-le-Zoute where I met your husband. He was always talking about you and your haberdashery shop and your website; he sometimes cried and he paid me to comfort him. I was only doing my job and I’m sure you won’t think too badly of me. Before he left he gave me a Patek watch and I only recently found out what it’s really worth so I thought it ought to go back to you. Please tell me where I can send it. I am so sorry about what happened to you. Faouzia.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
I am looking for some seagull-grey stranded embroidery thread, do you have any? And do you know whether there are any crochet workshops in the Bénedoit area? I’d be glad to find out. Thank you for your help.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to the amazing Karina Hocine.
To Emmanuelle Allibert, the most delightful of press attachées.
To Claire Silve and her invigorating demands.
To Grâce, Sibylle and Raphaële, who were Jocelyne’s first three friends.
To all the bloggers and readers who have been encouraging me since I wrote L’Écrivain de la Famille, and whose enthusiasm and friendship prompted the joy with which I wrote this one.
To all the bookshops who backed my first novel.
To Valérie Brotons-Bedouk, who introduced me to The Marriage of Figaro.
And finally to Dana,
who is the ink behind it all.
Reading Group Notes
A Note from Grégoire Delacourt on
The List of my Desires
Have you ever noticed that when you choose something, you often ask yourself if it wouldn’t have been better to choose something else? We quickly grow tired of the things we possess. We make the longevity of things – the fact that they last – the source of our unhappiness. Oh, if only I had a new telephone! If only my wife were blonde! If only I could own that red car! I would be so much happier if . . .
And so, with The List of my Desires, there came the idea of a life that could be rewritten, reinvented; a life in which one could rub out the grey and replace it with green, or blue. A life in which one could appreciate what one already possessed – and savour it.
That is how the idea for this book was born. I was going to give a character, someone deep in middle age, the chance to change their life.
And, like a magic wand, there appeared the idea of an impressive win on the lottery (I could equally have made a genie appear from a lamp, but that idea had already been used and was rather well done!).
And so, since this was about the list of my desires, there also came this idea – to be a woman for the duration of the book. I wanted to write this story through the words of a woman, the way she saw things, her kindness, her wisdom (even if I know full well that women aren’t always wise!).
And that is how I became Jocelyne, the owner of a haberdashery in a little town in the north of France; a woman who had a life like everyone else, with its highs and lows, and who suddenly had the possibility to erase everything she didn’t like about her life.
But of course it is just when we are on the point of losing something that we suddenly understand its true value . . .
For Discussion
1. What would you have done in Jocelyne’s shoes? If you had cashed the cheque, what would you have spent the money on?
2. I’d like to have the chance to decide what my life will be like. I think that’s the best present anyone can get.
Why is Jocelyne’s life so different from the future she imagined when she was seventeen?
3. Women are the fingers and the hand is their passion.
Why does Jocelyne’s blog appeal to so many women?
4. Why is Jocelyne unconvinced that money can make her happy? Were you willing her to cash the cheque as you read or did you empathise with her hesitations?
5. You’re a wonderful husband, Jo, I think; a big brother, a father, you’re all the men a woman can need.
And maybe even an enemy too.
How would you describe Jocelyne’s relationship with her husband, Jo?
6. Why is Jo unfulfilled by his new life as a millionaire?
7. Should Jocelyne have stayed with Jo when his behaviour changed after the death of Nadège? Can you understand why she stayed?
8. Jocelyne makes four lists. One is a list of things she needs, the second is a wish list, the third is a list of crazy notions and then she makes her final list. How do these lists change as the book progresses?
9. Grief refashions you in a strange form.
How does Jo’s betrayal change Jocelyne?
10. Does The List of my Desires have a happy ending? Is Jocelyne’s new life better than the life she had before?
11. Did reading The List of my Desires change your views on whether money or material objects can make you happy?
12. Jocelyne is an everywoman but her creator, Grégoire Delacourt, is a man. Did knowing that change the way you read The List of my Desires? Does it matter?
10 Lottery Facts
• The largest prize ever won in Europe was €180 million (£161 million), won by a Scottish EuroMillions ticket holder on 12th July 2011.
• The first lotteries are thought to have taken place during the Chinese Han Dynasty, between 205 and 177 BC, and were used to help finance The Great Wall of China.
• The Dutch Staatsloterij is the oldest running national lottery.
• Over 20 million viewers tuned in to watch the first UK National Lottery show on BBC 1.
• The first French lottery, the Loterie Royale, was held in 1539.
• France is Europe’s luckiest country as far as EuroMillions jackpot winners are concerned. The nation has had more top prize winners than any other participating country.
• The odds of winning any prize in the EuroMillions are 1 in 13. The chances of winning the jackpot are 1 in 116,531,800 and the chances of winning the UK national lottery jackpot are 1 in 13,983,816.
• In the time of the Roman Empire, lotteries were a popular amusement at dinner parties.
• When the UK National Lottery first began in 1994 there were five machines from which the balls were drawn, named Arthur, Galahad, Guinevere, Lancelot and Merlin.
• The luckiest EuroMillions number is 50; it has been drawn 39 times since the game launched.
• The longest lottery celebration ever was by a pub syndicate in London and lasted two weeks.
Grégoire Delacourt was born in Valenciennes in 1960. His first novel, L’Écrivain de la Famille, was published in 2011 and won five literary prizes including the Prix Marcel Pagnol and the Prix Rive Gauche. The List of my Desires has been a runaway Number One bestseller in France, with rights sold in twenty-seven countries. He lives in Paris where he runs an advertising agency with his wife.
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Copyright
A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
This ebook first published in 2013 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
© éditions Jean-Claude Lattès 2012
Translation © Anthea Bell 2013
The rights of Grégoire Delacourt and Anthea Bell, to be identified as the author and translator of this work respectively, have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
978 0 297 86837 8
This book is supported by the Institut français Royaume-Uni as part of the Burgess programme (www.frenchbooknews.com)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
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The List of My Desires Page 9