She laughed when she read his letters. She sent him mixtapes.
On August 1 Gloria had completed her month, collected her pay. She was ready for a long lazy morning. But at dawn, Eric tapped on her window.
She lived in a housing estate where many people had converted their basements into bedrooms or offices or utility rooms. Her windows were barred because when she had moved into this room, she’d invited too many friends to come and sleep over.
She had gone upstairs to open the door, and met her mother—an insomniac—trailing around in a blue dressing gown, looking weary. Gloria had apologized. “It’s just Eric, I don’t know what he wants, but he’s here.”
Her mother had simply rolled her eyes, without a word.
The time in the hospital had made the whole family calm down. Gloria asked for fewer outrageous permissions and no longer shouted at them. Her parents forbade fewer things. An uneasy status quo. Nobody wanted to go through the mental-ward stage again. As a result, her father, so as to keep himself out of the way, worked twice as many hours as before, which was some achievement. If he was never there, there was less risk of an explosion.
In Gloria’s room she had an old barstool. Eric perched on it. He seemed disoriented.
“I’ve run away. I can’t stand them anymore.”
He was looking tanned from his holiday. Still half-asleep, Gloria didn’t know what to say.
“You want us to leave for London right now?”
“London’s out, I’m sorry, I don’t want to get caught at the border on the way back. I don’t want to go back home. EVER. Know what I mean?”
“What happened?”
“Everyone was so weird in the country. They were all being super nice to me, the uncles and aunts, but my mother and father too. Treating me like a prince, but putting on pressure as well. I think it must have been to make me go off you, you see? A new strategy, nastier but not stupid. Half emotional blackmail, half manipulation, half—”
“You can’t have three halves, but go on.”
He smiled for the first time. But at once, he had to clench his teeth and his eyes filled with the tears he had been holding back.
“They didn’t lecture me. I even tried to talk to them two or three times, get them to see my point of view. I was so goddamn stupid, I thought they were listening, and I told myself they’d come round in time . . .”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“Let me finish. You don’t know my sister, Amandine, well, generally she’s a pain in the neck. Her tactics are always to say yes, yes, and then she does exactly what she wants behind their backs. She steals from them, she likes poking around, finding money, pills . . . That’s the way she’s always been, Amandine, since she was little, she pokes her nose into everything. She’s sure there are family secrets, that’s her romantic streak. And she’s good at finding things out, plenty of practice. Soon as anyone’s back’s turned, she’ll be into their bag, soon as the house is empty, she’s rooting around in drawers. There’s less than four years between us, and yeah, we scrap a lot, but well, we are brother and sister, you understand?”
“No, I don’t understand, I’m an only child.”
“Two kids in the same house, we may not always get along, but well, fact is we’re fond of each other. So at the end of the holidays, I could tell something was wrong. She was being way too aggressive toward my parents. Never seen her like that before, usually she’s more devious, Amandine, she very rarely tackles them head-on. So I didn’t know what was going on, and with me, instead of teasing me and provoking me as usual, she was kind of embarrassed, looking at me sideways, watching me.”
“Hey, the suspense is killing me, get on with it.”
“So one night she comes to see me—big deal. She acts like the elder sister, asks me a lot of questions about myself, us, drugs, life, how I see things . . . just amazing from someone whose main aim in life since I’ve been around is to make me stay out of her way.”
“I know what it is, she’s pregnant! And they’re saying she’s got to have an abortion?”
“No, no, nobody has abortions in our family. Or if they do, they keep it quiet. Let me finish, nearly there. So I’m suspicious, and I get ratty, I ask her questions too. She doesn’t say anything, not even to tell me to get lost, or that I’m an idiot, etc., she just looks at me with tears in her eyes and trembling lips . . . and finally she lets me into the secret—that the rest of the family all knows about, except for her, and she only found out when she chanced on the enrollment forms—at the end of August, they’re planning to send me to a military academy in Switzerland! With walls as high as a prison, no question of getting out, even for Christmas. The idea is to discipline me, put me back on the straight and narrow.”
“Are you sure your sister isn’t making all this up?”
“Amandine found the fucking forms in my mother’s desk. She usually keeps it locked, but that day one of the grooms had been injured, she’d had to go out in a hurry.”
“A groom? You’re really weird, your family, you have grooms?”
“We keep horses, we’re not going to hire lifeguards.”
“But is it just so we can’t see each other, you and me? That’s why they want you locked up?”
“Partly. My mother’s terrified you’ll get pregnant.”
“Well, you can set her mind at rest, we do abortions super quick in my family. Anyway I’m on the pill, what would I do with a kid, at my age?”
“She thinks you’d pressure me into marrying you and then . . .”
“Love you to bits, baby, but I don’t want to marry anyone. She’s nuts, your mother.”
“. . . for the child support, alimony.”
“Oh really, how does she know I haven’t got a nice little job with good pay and everything?”
Gloria starts packing her bag, in other words collecting her cassettes and some makeup essentials.
“Right, well, the good news about all that is we can go off on our big adventure.”
“But I don’t want to make you miss out on your final year exams, just because—”
“Are you kidding? I couldn’t care less about my exams, anyway I’d never get a job. That’s at least one thing your mother got right.”
SHE’D THROWN HER travel bag out the window, asking Eric to pick it up. He would leave the house first and wait for her at the bar on the corner, the Petit Palais, so as not to alert her parents.
Gloria had stayed alone in her bedroom. She was saying goodbye to her childhood possessions, and wanted to write a letter to her father and mother. She was very young, and thought sincerely at that moment that she wouldn’t be seeing them again. This definitive departure reconciled her to them, and filled her with an affection for them she had not felt for a long time. It was like an ordeal by fire, as invisible tender hands pulled her and begged her. But she had to go. Life means moving on, you’ll have to get used to leaving people behind, she told herself, to bolster her courage. She tore up several versions, getting lost every time in sentimental effusions that made tears come to her eyes as she sat alone. In the end, she simply wrote: “Don’t worry. Thanks for everything, love you lots.”
She went out wearing a T-shirt, no jacket, telling her mother, who was reading the paper in a corner of the kitchen, that she was going to buy cigarettes. As the gate squeaked, she still had tears in her eyes—she was running away like a man, like a coward. The little street on her block was suddenly charged with sweet memories. Happy days leave less trace than traumas—until they’re in the past. Family, I’ll miss you a bit, was the way Gloria thought of it, with melancholy.
Two hundred meters down the road, she had put it all out of her mind.
THEY SPENT THE whole of the month of August in Paris, so happy and trouble free that they were surprised such a life could exist. Coming out of the Gare de l’Est, they had gone straight to New Rose, off the Boulevard Saint-Michel. In front of the record shop, a few skinheads were hanging around. Eric went ri
ght up to them as if they were a friendly group of wolf cubs. Like it did every time, his natural manner won them over, and one tough skinhead with a lot of teeth missing took them under his wing. He put them up at Juvisy for the whole month, in an apartment belonging to his mother, who’d gone off on holiday with Club Med. They went back every night by the last train, brazenly scaring all the other passengers in their carriage. It was weird to see this great brute in his little-boy bedroom. The mother had locked the sitting room and her own bedroom, to keep him from making a mess of them. Eric and Gloria slept on the kitchen floor. Every morning, all three took turns perfecting their look in the bathroom: one shaving his head, the second gelling his Mohawk, the third curling her blond hair—before they went off to spend the day in central Paris, hanging around the Fontaine des Innocents and the Forum des Halles, opposite the Père Tranquille restaurant. They spent the time chatting, telling each other stories or real-life adventures, and panhandling. In those days, Paris wasn’t full of beggars, so people quite readily gave cash to these runaway teenagers, with their wayward looks and strange outfits.
One of them would describe how he’d been beaten up the day before, another was angry because someone in the group had given a Nazi salute in front of some old ladies, the discussion would degenerate. One guy would turn up with a newly traded Walkman and want everyone to listen to Crass. Another would arrive and try to grab his head-set, and another lively discussion followed. Their days were punctuated by getting stopped and searched, the cops were the only “normal” adults they really met, briefly, now and then. The rest of the time, there was no one around to bawl them out over little things, they were inside their punk bubble, very pleased with themselves. On the margins of society.
Then the skinhead’s mother got back from her holiday. Gloria and Eric had just met a punk from Marseille who was following Bérurier Noir around from concert to concert. They jumped a train as far as Troyes with him.
When they got there, the station had been invaded by a whole crowd of punks: all it needed was some black flags. Blue hair, red Mohawks, bottles of Valstar, bovver boots, coming from all directions, everyone was at home there. A lot of youth with big grins, still in possession of all their teeth, beginner street kids, delighted to be there, wrapped up in their old sleeping bags. They greeted one another more or less cordially, going with the flow. Eric and Gloria were immediately adopted by some punks from south-west France who had glue to share around, unbelievable accents, and many tales to tell.
The concert was like Brazilian carnival for French kids: lots of fun and partying, but with an undercurrent of rage, of grating madness.
After that, Eric and Gloria followed their new gang to Besançon, a town reputed for its well-organized soup kitchen. The local cops tried to persuade them to move on somewhere else. The police spent their time arresting youths at random, taking first one then another into custody. They all learned the drill, how to spell their names according to police regulations, how to sleep on the floor, leave their shoelaces and belts at the desk, regularly have their money confiscated, receive punches in the police station in front of the others, get handcuffed to radiators. It gave them stories to tell later. It became routine, among these young people, made them feel they were genuine down-and-outs, true punks.
One evening, all high on Coca-Cola and red wine, the gang decided to get back to Toulouse in stolen cars. There were fifteen of them. The first car they tried, a Fiat, wouldn’t start. They all tried pushing it, trying to get the engine to kick in by rolling it downhill. Upon which it crashed into another car . . . belonging to the police. The cops were aggressive at first, not realizing it hadn’t been on purpose. After that, they kept asking, “But what would fifteen of you be doing in a Fiat?” Good question—why had they gone along in such a big group to steal a car?
Eric was enjoying their freedom more than Gloria. He had to get his own revenge for discipline and ambition. To get drunk on beer, singing silly songs, was exactly what he wanted, it made him feel much better. As a couple they were popular, always welcome. It was fun being the two of them.
Another time, Gloria and Eric, having spent several hours sniffing glue, had decided to rob a tobacconist’s shop, after a Parabellum concert in Grenoble. Unwisely, Eric thought it would be a good idea to start by jumping on the roof. Gloria thought that sounded like a great plan and followed him up. They bounced up and down like mad creatures, sincerely hoping the roof would give way, so that they could help themselves to what was inside. Since the owner hadn’t foreseen that anyone might try to rob the shop via the roof, no alarms went off. Not that they needed to. The pair of them were making a racket fit to wake the whole town. The sight had so flabbergasted the shopkeeper, who turned up quickly, that they had time to get away.
Another time though, Eric’s obsession with roofs paid off. They managed to get into a little supermarket several nights in a row, pinching alcohol and savory biscuits, avoiding the night watchmen, crouching down between the shelves, keeping still, thrilled to bits. Very exciting. Then some of their mates caught on and overdid things. The roof was soon security-proofed.
All this time, other people their age were learning about real life in school or university, or already in jobs. People of their generation were learning to be competitive, disciplined, learning not to set their sights too high, not to ask questions, and that money is what matters most in this world. Eric and Gloria were learning nothing at all, they were having a good time and taking their revenge for all the past pain . . . In different ways, both of them would eventually realize what a very poor preparation punk rock had been for later life. Too much fun, too much utopianism. Getting back into reality wouldn’t be a pleasant experience.
But for now, they didn’t leave each other’s side for a second. They fucked when they felt like, they lost all inhibitions, they panhandled together, they went to charity shops together when it got cold, looking for warm sweaters, they went together to the public baths . . . Besançon, Montpellier, Toulouse, Paris. Then it was autumn and really cold outside, so they bedded down together in the same sleeping bag. It was a time of student demonstrations, about which they couldn’t care less, but throwing stones at the police then running away, breaking shop windows, and fighting skinheads was still just as exciting. They stayed in Paris for a few weeks.
At Nation metro station, they spent hours doing nothing but lounging around and chatting about passersby. There were regular scuffles. Eric liked picking fights with soldiers. He’d found some mates who shared his taste. Gloria loved hiding behind him when he started to mix it with them, he would give her the sign and she’d come forward to give them a head butt. They were never expecting that a girl would be the first to strike a blow. Let alone that she’d hit so hard. They’d run away after that, often pursued by the companions of the guy on the ground. They’d be laughing about it for days afterward. Being stupid had become an article of faith. They were beaten up themselves too. They patched each other up as best they could, with handkerchiefs and spit, or else they would go into a pharmacy and ask for help. Sometimes they’d be given top-notch dressings for their injuries, other times they’d be chased out with threats to call the police. Occasionally they managed to grab a prescription for amphetamines, and then they would walk around in a group for nights on end, high as kites, talking nonstop.
They had all declared losses, using false names and dates of birth so as to avoid their parents being alerted, since they were minors.
In October they were in Évry, a town outside Paris, a big gang of them. Sleeping in the staircases of a tower block, since nobody used the stairs, especially on the thirteenth floor where they were squatting. That morning, someone had brought up a whole tray of croissants “found” in front of a canteen.
Since it was cold, they spent the day hanging around in the entrance to a shopping mall, where they were all copped by the police, because some madwoman had accused them of nicking her purse while she was window-shopping. They were bundled
into the same cell, girls and boys together, for once. Gloria clung to Eric, she had the beginnings of a cold with a high temperature, and she dozed off while the others quarreled or joked. One tall guy, prematurely aged with drugs, had hidden a dirty syringe in his pillow, which he had been allowed to keep. He was being scolded by the others, who told him that was filthy and dangerous. Then in the middle of the quarrel they had fallen about laughing. “Are you nuts or what, did you think you were going to able to find some H in the cop shop?” and they all found it hilarious. Gloria had dozed off again. One of the cops came for Eric. It didn’t worry her, that was the usual tactic, pick the kids off one by one, take their photo, threaten them, etc. She was used to it, so she didn’t protest. At about five in the morning, they were all told to scram—in fact, the woman had been making it up, and the cops had no intention of making out a lot of paperwork for all these time-wasting kids. She had asked where Eric was, and the duty sergeant told her to get lost. She decided to wait at the mall all that day. Since she was feeling ill, she dosed herself on cough syrup with codeine, so she was feeling a bit high, and still didn’t worry until the evening. He hadn’t reappeared. That was more weird. The first three days, two friends with the self-chosen nicknames of Sid and Waty had kept her company, trying to find any information from the police station, but they just kept being sent away. Had he been charged with some offense? They went to the law courts, all five of them, but there was no trace of him there either. Or anywhere else. Gloria made light of it—“It’ll be okay, no worries”—until the friends shook her awake. “Stop taking that syrup, Gloria, wake up. You can see he’s not here anymore. They can’t keep someone for five days, even if Pasqua’s minister of the interior. They must have taken him back home. He’s still a minor, isn’t he? You should go back to Nancy, see if he’s there.” She benefited from the others’ general benevolence and kindness because of their status as the mascot couple.
Bye Bye Blondie Page 10