Bye Bye Blondie

by Virginie Despentes

  Praise for Apocalypse Baby by Virginie Despentes

  “Apocalypse Baby is more than a compelling punk, queerish spin on the noir genre. It is a choral performance that tumbles its readers into the heart of violent spectacle, with all its attendant grief, unease, and unclarity.”

  —Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts

  “Powerful and empowered.”

  —Kirkus

  “An addictive feminist thriller that reads like shameless gossip from your smartest friend.”

  —Johanna Fateman, writer and musician

  Praise for King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes

  “King Kong Theory is essential reading!”

  —Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of California

  “Despentes argues compellingly about women’s guilt, men’s power, and the way that both are still abused three decades after the supposed triumph of feminism.”

  —Katy Guest, Independent

  Published in 2016 by the Feminist Press

  at the City University of New York

  The Graduate Center

  365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406

  New York, NY 10016

  feministpress.org

  First Feminist Press edition 2016

  Text copyright © 2004 Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle

  Translation copyright © 2016 by Siân Reynolds

  Originally published in French as Bye Bye Blondie by Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle in 2004.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

  This book was made possible thanks to a grant from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First printing July 2016

  Cover design by Molly Crabapple

  Text design by Suki Boynton

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Despentes, Virginie, 1969- author. | Reynolds, Sian, translator.

  Title: Bye bye blondie / Virginie Despentes; English translation by Sian Reynolds.

  Other titles: Bye bye blondie. English

  Description: First Feminist Press edition. | New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2016.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015046360 | ISBN 9781558619289 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Man-woman relationships--Fiction. | GSAFD: Love stories

  Classification: LCC PQ2664.E7895 B3913 2016 | DDC 843/.914--dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046360

  For Philippe and Manon

  CONTENTS

  PRAISE FOR VIRGINIE DESPENTES

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  BYE BYE BLONDIE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY FEMINIST PRESS

  ABOUT FEMINIST PRESS

  Mental asylums are receptacles for black magic, conscious and premeditated.

  Aliénation et magie noire, Antonin Artaud

  SHE’S REALLY LOSING IT. IT’S NOT GETTING better, not even staying the same. She’d been sure, from experience, that every time she got too near the brink, she’d be able to swerve away. But this time, she’s out of control: Look, no hands. All the warning lights are flashing in vain, and she senses that people are alarmed—they’re actually moving out of the way when they see her coming. She’s just had a fight with her boyfriend. She could have killed him. It came that close: a centimeter, a second! She’d diced with tragedy. What if he’d been just a bit slower and clumsier? And like after every explosion, she is particularly calm, lucid, and ashamed.

  Gloria takes great strides up the rue Saint-Jean, under a pelting shower of rain. Soaked through, she feels stupid, grubby, and above all, back on the streets. She’d moved in with him, but something tells her that after the scene she’s just made, she is—temporarily—homeless. She makes a mental list of the apartments of people she knows. Most of them have children, and no room anymore to put someone up. In the fight just now, she’d hurled her phone against the wall. When for once she had a bit of money left on it. She would’ve liked to call Véronique, the one person who might help her out for the next few days, but now she doesn’t have her number, or even a euro left to call her with . . . and anyway, at this time of day, she’ll be at work. Gloria doesn’t have a cent in her pocket. She decides to walk on up to the Royal, i.e., up by the railway station, i.e., at the other end of town. How often had she complained that Lucas lived too far away from her favorite bar?

  Even when the sun’s shining, the city of Nancy isn’t a cheerful place, not in her eyes anyway. So in the rain, it stretches out in shades of gray and looks underwater, drenched, so depressing it becomes borderline interesting. A town in eastern France, low clouds, low buildings, just two floors, some of them with rather fine architecture, but you can’t help but be aware that they don’t belong to doctors. Because of the rain, the homeless and the young punks with dogs have taken shelter in the Saint Sébastien mall. Passersby are walking close to the shop windows, to protect themselves a little. Trolleybuses clang their bells, not unpleasant to the ear. Her route is lined with logos that could be found anywhere in Europe: Foot Locker, Pimkie, H&M, The Body Shop. The window displays are ugly, too brightly lit, clinical. Never anything odd, original, or surprising. The whole length of the street now, there isn’t a single window that breaks the monotony—no room for that in modern-day towns. Morbid and frozen, it’s like walking through a morgue decorated with bright colors.

  The rain trickles down Gloria’s back, dripping coldly to her waist. She feels inside her pockets, checking that she’s got her ID papers. She’s sobbing openly as she walks, making no attempt to be discreet. Too bad for the people who see her and look sympathetic or scornful, anxious or disapproving. What the fuck does she care about the reactions of people she doesn’t know?

  For a few years now, since things have gone downhill, she has often wept in the street, and she thinks she’s noticed that other people get some kind of kick out of that. They come up to her at once, saying something, consoling her, wanting to talk. She’d like to be struck by lightning, but her number-one fantasy is that someone puts a bullet through the back of her neck, finishing her off like an animal.

  On the rue Léopold Lallement, she looks at the posters outside the cinema. Even if she had any money on her, and even if a show was just starting, none of the advertised films would tempt her inside. One ad for a Japanese animation holds her attention: the globe suspended in blackness. She wonders if it’s just for little kids or for everyone. She turns her head one last time, then crosses at the light without paying attention. A car screeches to a halt, just missing her. It had come up silently—shiny black bodywork—even if you know nothing about cars, you can’t miss that this one’s top of the line. Gloria stops dead, in the middle of the road. She’s completely in the wrong. Well, so damn what? Anyone in that car want a fight? Here it comes again, same as ever, she’s pumped up with rage. And she’s well aware that not only is she being super tiresome, but her attitude is stupid. Whether you look at it from an ethical, pragmatic, or logical point of view, this urge to take on the rest of the world will never come to any good—on the contrary, it’ll bring her nothing but grief. But as usual, knowing that doesn’t change her reaction. Like junkies who know perfectly well they shouldn’t do drugs, but c
arry on, day after day, Gloria is addicted to pointless anger. Hour after hour, she’s burying herself in it.

  So there she stands, in the middle of the pedestrian crossing, with the rain beating down on her head, as if heaven incarnate were trying to make her see reason. The lights change to green again, she stays where she is for a few seconds, staring in the direction of the driver. She can’t see his features, given the veil of water between them. She contents herself with pulling a mean face. Jutting out her jaw, she swallows hard—her eyes are like molten lead. If someone gets out of the car now, please God, let him be big enough to defend himself. In the end, someone does get out, but from the backseat. She’s drawing herself up, ready to call him everything under the sun, but the guy shouts, “Gloria!” which rather undercuts the adrenaline rush. Very tall, classy overcoat, automatically she glances at his shoes and can see at once they cost a lot. He’s clean-shaven, with very white teeth.

  “Gloria, is that you? I can’t believe it, it is you!”

  She stands transfixed, openmouthed, in a stupor. She clears her throat, says nothing, tries to smile. He takes her in his arms, she hasn’t time to back off.

  “How weird is this! Don’t you recognize me? Get in, I’ll drop you off. Where are you going?”

  He’s left the back door of the car ajar, other cars are waiting for him to get out of the way. She hears herself say feebly, “Eric? You’ve changed, oh, wow! A lot. But you don’t look like you do on TV either . . .”

  At the time, she is too surprised to realize what she’s said. It’s when she remembers it just afterward that she discovers what an utterly cringeworthy remark that was.

  He insists: “Can I drop you somewhere?”

  She points vaguely at the sky behind her, as if it were a precise place, and refuses.

  “No, I’m nearly there, it’s just here.”

  “What about a coffee, have you got time?”

  “No. No, I’m, um, double-booked.”

  The guy at the wheel shuts the back door of the car and pulls over to the side of the road, parking a few meters away. Eric gazes at her intensely. Even soaked to the skin, he looks fantastic.

  “Incredible isn’t it, bumping into each other?”

  “Oh, this isn’t Paris, you know. We’re all on top of each other here.”

  “You’re joking? I never come back to Nancy, and no sooner do I arrive than . . . I’m here for work, we’re recording a show for a few days. And I was thinking about you, wondering if we’d see each other. But, well, you don’t look . . . um . . .”

  He shakes his head from side to side, making a comical face, to indicate that she doesn’t look in great form. She puts him right.

  “Ah no, I’m not exactly top of my game right now, but these days, I’m always like this.”

  “Red in the face and soaking wet?”

  “Yeah, you know, in the provinces, we never leave the house unless we’re red in the face and soaking wet.”

  He bursts out laughing. He looks like a guy in fantastically good shape. Such good humor and health on display always makes Gloria want to throw up. Bubbling, and quite at ease, he insists: “Look, let’s meet up tonight, I’ll be free around ten. We could—”

  “Oh, I’m a simple girl, I’ll be at the Royal. Tonight, tomorrow, night after that, I’m at the Royal. It’s my bar.”

  “Got the address?”

  “You’re getting really wet, aren’t you?” remarks Gloria in amusement, watching as he pulls out an electronic organizer from a pocket of the impeccable suit he’s wearing under the fancy overcoat. He agrees.

  “Yeah, that’s what happens if it’s raining. We could have been sitting inside the car to say all this, but you see, I haven’t forgotten you. If you want to stand talking in the pouring rain, I’m not going to argue.”

  “Oh, put your electronic gadget away, you poor lost Parisian, and the little matchstick too. It’s easy to find the Royal, rue Mondésert, by the station. Ask anyone, it’s been there twenty years, everyone knows it.”

  “Tonight then?”

  “Like I said, I’ll be there.”

  He hesitates before leaving, tries to think of the right move, finally chances it, and grips her arm quickly and firmly. Then he runs to the car and gets in the back. It moves off, and Gloria carries on, cursing herself.“Why didn’t you punch him in the jaw, for God’s sake?

  Fucking prick. Over twenty years you’ve waited for this moment, and all you find to say to him is that the Royal is a nice bar.”

  The Royal, a bar that’s practically empty during the day. A big room with high ceilings, colored moldings, and pictures by a pal of the owner on the walls. It isn’t really designed for broad daylight, what seems fabulous at night looks a bit tatty by day. Just pushing open the door to the bar is reassuring in itself, in spite of the combined smell of stale tobacco and cleaning products.

  “Ooooh, old lady! In one of our moods are we?”

  Jérémy, behind the bar, bursts out laughing when he sees her. She would like to stay looking furious, on her high horse, but it doesn’t work. She smiles, and leans on the counter.

  “Can you put it on my tab? Till Tuesday?”

  “I’d like to say no, but I can see you’d smash the place up. A Jack?”

  “Thankyouthankyouthankyou,” she chants, twisting her head on her neck to make the vertebrae click. That very morning, leaning over the washbasin, vomiting up her guts, she had sworn not to have a drink at all today. Her liver’s crying out for understanding, mercy, and respite. But seeing how the day’s turning out, to remain clearheaded wouldn’t be appropriate.

  Gloria takes her glass and goes over to a seat. Slight headache, backache, she feels stiff. The warmth of the alcohol immediately unlocks her joints, her knees, the insides of her wrists and elbows. Something relaxes. But it’s still not enough to let her draw breath without pain.

  She’s been here before, of course she has, she knows the score by heart. Pain doesn’t lessen with age, on the contrary. But she knows there’s nothing to be done, except wait, day after day, for it to get bearable. Another failure, par for the course, another breakup.

  Gloria’s not her real name. Her parents had her christened Stéphanie. But even in primary school she’d changed it, every new year she tried a different one. That wreaked havoc when the teachers realized what she was up to, and it made the other kids suspicious when they figured out she was lying. She’d almost given up when Gloria the “punk princess” became a media icon. She realized it was time to settle on something. It was the early eighties, and she’d just discovered that there was something out there that spoke to her: the Sex Pistols, Bérurier Noir, Sham 69, and Taxi Girl. Hair carefully dyed electric blue, one evening in town she’d met this young guy who’d shown her the three chords for “Gloria” on a guitar. He’d announced, with that confidence possessed only by kids under twenty, that “it’s the most beautiful name in the world.” He was wearing a white Perfecto leather jacket. A dark-haired boy with broad shoulders, fleshy lips, and a piercing gaze. Possibly it wasn’t piercing at all, perhaps he was just nearsighted, but she had thought this was someone who could fathom the depths of your soul and caress its vice. Whatever, he’d blown her mind, and starting the next day she had told every new person she met: “Hi, I’m Gloria.” And the name had stuck. Because twenty years later, that’s still what people are calling her.

  Jérémy sweeps by grandly, carries off her glass and brings it back full. He’s humming, walking with shoulders a little bent, his low-slung, hyperbaggy jeans exposing a band of belly: smooth golden skin, young man’s skin. With one hand, Gloria hoicks up his trousers, scolding: “Hey kid, get your ass back inside your pants.”

  Jérémy wanders off, delighted that someone in this place has protested yet again about his trousers.

  Two men have just arrived, and now they’re hardwired to the counter. Difficult to put an age on the older one, he’s so destroyed by drink. A caricature of the wine-bibbing Frenchman: stra
wberry nose, puffy face, sepulchral voice, rotten yellow teeth. With him is a hulking, ruddy-faced youngster, head sunk into his shoulders, probably his son.

  The old man is yelling, he’s already plastered, and now he’s furious: “I don’t believe it! You got a brain or what? God should’ve given you another asshole, you’re so full of shit.”

  Gloria exchanges a quick glance with Jérémy. They both roll their eyes and turn away to hide a smile.

  Every day, these two come into the Royal, just to shout at each other all afternoon. Around aperitif time, off they go to the betting shop, the old one still yelling at the young one. Gloria predicts, as she watches them stagger away every night at about seven, that one day they won’t be back: the young one will have chucked the old one out the window.

  The young one blows his nose, making a hell of a noise. Gray-and-red tracksuit, picked up on sale, no doubt, and he has these enormous feet. Gloria can’t get used to how big young boys’ feet are, she wonders if there’s some plan up there in the cosmos for the human race. Should it be planning to go and live underwater, growing long flippers? The kid’s jaw drops when he sees her, he looks truly impressed.

  Gloria gets up and goes to the washroom to check what it is about her appearance that seemed to strike the youth so much. Looking in the mirror, she realizes better why all the dumb idiots she’d met on her way there had stared at her, trying not to show it. She’s been weeping her heart out so hard that there are broken blood vessels under her eyes and on her cheeks, and her face is tomato red. Makes her eyes look puffy. The cherry on the cake is that in her frenzy back at Lucas’s place, she’d banged her head against the wall a few times, so it looks like she’s wearing a red clown nose. The whole lot topped off with a wild-eyed expression. Yeah, she’d have stared at herself too.

  She sings under her breath as she splashes water on her face: “Qu’est-ce que j’en ai à foutre et je ne crois en rien / je peux vivre au coup par coup / en coups durs de plus en plus” (“What the fuck do I care / Got nothin’ to believe in / Live day to day / Take what’s comin’”). She tugs several times on the roller towel to get a clean stretch. She plunges her face into the clean cotton fabric, it feels soft, like new. She stays like that for a bit.