Bye Bye Blondie

by Virginie Despentes

  “If you say so. But don’t get too keen, you don’t know how much it might piss you off.”

  “It would be a change for you. You might be getting bored here with nothing to do.”

  “Me, bored? Seen the size of your TV set? I never get bored, I leave that to people who are stressed out. But I wouldn’t mind making a bit of money. Do people pay you for writing stuff?”

  “Don’t be childish, of course they do.”

  “Eric, what’s the matter? You’re not your usual self. I don’t like this, not at all.”

  He looks surprised. But he knows she’s right. They’ve reached the house, there’s a silence while Eric pays the taxi driver, bending down. He gives a big enough tip to placate the old guy who stinks. It’s freezing cold, the air is fresh and invigorating. For once it’s a pleasure to breathe in Paris.

  ERIC’S ENTOURAGE IS getting concerned, taking him to one side, with anxious looks, embarrassed at having to talk to him. They’re giving him words of warning, trying to protect him, whispering in his ear. The whole group reacts as one, in a desire to expel the foreign body.

  Because what the fuck is he doing with this strange blond woman? She isn’t even all that pretty. In eastern Paris there are plenty who are better looking, if he really wants to take up with some working-class girl. She doesn’t talk to anyone, and worse, she looks a bit shopworn. Why not go for someone younger? Who’d suit him better? Spontaneously, the group takes the place of his dead parents and tries to fix him up more suitably. It would be in everyone’s interests, obviously. They find her vulgar, provincial, absolutely lacking in charm. Not very cultured either! Gloria sees what they are up to, after a fashion. She doesn’t tackle any of them aggressively. If people try to talk to her, she barely turns her head toward them. She can feel, and almost see, the fear among Eric’s friends when they see her installed like this. In the eyes of the women, especially, she sees immediate revulsion. She sticks out like a sore thumb, so much herself, everything they’re afraid of being. Awkward, shy, ill at ease, putting on weight, with a glowering expression. If she wasn’t with him, of course she’d feel the pain of their attitude. But he’s always at her side, his lovestruck preference protects her, he’s with her against the rest of the world. So it becomes a fun game, something between the two of them. He’s delighted to see the way she gets on people’s nerves. Spontaneously everyone wants to be friends with Eric. So he thinks it’s great that one can annoy so many people.

  THREE WEEKS LATER, she arrives at the Champs-Élysées half an hour early. She goes for a walk while she waits. A Japanese woman asks her in halting French if she can help her find the way to the Louis Vuitton store. Gloria doesn’t even understand what she means, but shakes her head and hurries on. Some kids are in a group around the George V metro station. All boys and mostly black. They’re making a huge din and chasing each other around. Apart from being about six feet tall and weighing about a hundred kilos each, they’re acting like little children. The windows of the Disney Store are full of fluffy toys in bright colors. Some Saudi women, draped in rich fabrics, only their eyes visible, are waiting to cross the road, their arms full of Chanel, Armani, and Dior bags, and heading for Cartier. Outside the Virgin Megastore, two employees in red uniforms are smoking a quick cigarette on the pavement. In front of all the boutiques, black bouncers in suits watch the passersby.

  Gloria ended up emailing her screenplay to Claire a week ago. She started writing it “just to see,” for want of something to do. She spent ten days sitting in bars, writing in school exercise books. When she’d got a final version, she spent three sleepless nights typing it all out on the computer. Which made Eric laugh.

  “It’s all or nothing with you, isn’t it? You bugger about doing nothing, then you throw yourself at it full time. Don’t you have a medium-speed switch?”

  “I’m not going to spend a year on it, am I? Got to get a move on.”

  When he came home, he’d sit by the computer, surprised that she didn’t want to do anything else. Gloria had kept saying, “I’ve nearly finished, almost done.” And when he pressed her to go out to dinner or a party, she knew how to calm him down.

  “Want me to read you the bit where the heroine is looking for her boyfriend all over Paris, and he hasn’t even written her a letter to explain?”

  “Why the hell did I take you to that party, eh?”

  “’Cause you can’t stop doing stupid things.”

  He jumps from one idea to another, frowning.

  “Did you ever talk to your parents about the psychiatric ward?”

  “Never had time.”

  After that, there were very few things that she had kept to herself, saying she’d think about them later.

  When she’s finally finished it and typed it up and printed it out, she asks Eric to read it. Without thinking, happy to have done it, more exhausted than she would have imagined, drained but not relieved. Eric reads the screenplay in one sitting. Then he acts a bit strangely. More loving, but sadder. He says several times that it’s very good. Something has come between them like a thin veil. She’s no longer a total savage with nothing in common with his world. He’s torn between a delighted admiration, “So that’s it, all you have to do is want it enough, and you can write!” and a general sense of unease at the problems this is going to cause. Gloria persuades herself that this is just temporary, that he’s too preoccupied. But it’s their whole world that starts to slip and needs to be rebalanced, detail by detail, raised voice by raised voice. Every quarrel ends with them clinging to each other, and she desperately wants to believe that their embraces will be enough to wipe the slate clean.

  Since the party at the producer’s house, Amandine has telephoned every evening, and every evening Eric has cloistered himself in the bedroom for hours, murmuring softly to her, making her laugh, or listening to her. It certainly helped Gloria to get on with writing her story. She had to find something to do during those long conversations. One night when she was working away, Eric was pacing around the apartment wondering how to tell her or wondering if he should lie.

  “I’m going out to dinner this evening.”

  “And you’re not going to bother me for hours making me go with you?”

  “I can see you’re working.”

  “So you’re off to see your old flames?”

  “I’m going to see my sister.”

  “Ah. I’d have preferred it if it was your exes. Then I wouldn’t have anything to complain about.”

  She’s already checked his telephone, like a suspicious nagging wife, to see that it was indeed Amandine’s number that called every night. She felt angry with herself doing this, despised herself for doing it, and thought it was ridiculous after that to be unhappy that brother and sister should find something they shared, needing each other.

  A certain distance, almost imperceptible, has sprung up between them. Like the proverbial grain of sand: almost nothing. And all this time, whether scribbling in her notebooks or crouched over the computer, Gloria has convinced herself she’s worrying about nothing.

  In physical terms, though, they’ve been getting on better than ever, every week has brought them closer together. One morning when she came at the same time as him, she started to weep, just like the girls in books she had always thought so pathetic—she had felt the tears, enormous, full tears, roll silently down her cheeks. And sensed an emotional weight she had always dragged around with her fly upward, like a moth. Something inside her had come out, a star that should have been there always, but now it could shine and twinkle in her own heaven. A light in an ink-black sky.

  During the ten days she spent writing, she persevered, correcting as she went, driven onward by the urge to get it finished, without really thinking about what she was doing. At first she thought it would do her good to look back on her past, to impose some kind of order on it, and to shed light on the wanderings of her damaged self. But it’s simply her vulnerability that’s expanding and taking control. She
feels weighed down by the same lies that only yesterday had protected her. The lighting has changed a little, and everything’s different. She’d like to be a girl to whom these things hadn’t happened. She’d like to be someone who hadn’t run away from home out of distrust. She’d like to be herself, but cleansed of all that. She’d like not to know a whole lot of things she does know, things she is deeply acquainted with in her flesh, and above all, she’d like not to have opened all those trapdoors under her feet. She’d finally emailed the script off to Claire without really expecting a reply. Gloria had missed an interview about her benefits, she needed to go back to Nancy, and it was slightly depressing to have to move heaven and earth to get them to send her less than €200 a month. Not even the price of a sweater in Eric’s world.

  Gloria was sitting watching the Disney Channel, entranced by The Lion King. She heard Claire come in on the voice mail, and got up to reply. The husky tones congratulated her enthusiastically, said they must meet and have a chat about it. After putting down the telephone, before telling anyone, Gloria put on a disc of the Clash, drew the double curtains, and allowed herself a little dance session in the dark, arms in the air, drunk on this strange triumph, heavy with both promises and threats.

  When Eric had come home that night, Gloria was wornout from having danced so long and with such persistence.

  “She called me, she’s flabbergasted, it’s so great, it’s a fantastic story, she cried, she laughed, I’ve got to go and see her, isn’t it brilliant?”

  And he lifted her up and swung her around, congratulating her, even more thrilled than she was. But he warned her not to get too excited: “Film people, they’re famous for it: they keep stringing you along for months, then at the last minute they cancel, they’re cockteasers, you’ve got to protect yourself.” Actually he was getting more excited than she was, and Gloria was proud to have impressed him. But their happy evening was brought to a halt around midnight when Amandine left a voice mail in tears, appealing for help. Eric, spreading his hands in a gesture of powerlessness, sincerely sorry, disappeared into the bedroom for the next two hours.

  Gloria’s blood was boiling.

  “Are you fucking her or what, your bitch of a sister?”

  “Don’t be stupid. She’s really in a bad way.”

  “Pity it has to happen just when we’ve got together.”

  “I don’t think she timed it on purpose.”

  “So it’s a new development, is it, that her man’s become a total shit?”

  “Gloria, for God’s sake put a sock in it for two minutes, try and understand.”

  “Are you looking at me? Do I look like someone who wants to understand or do I look like a chick who’s just had some fantastically good news and wants to pass a happy evening celebrating?”

  “What am I supposed to do, hang up on her?”

  “Yes! I want you to tell her you’ve got your own life to live, and that she can sort out her problems herself. Can’t she leave him, don’t they have any doors, so she could just walk out?”

  “She’s got kids, it’s not so simple.”

  “Oh, of course you’re right. There’s the big house, the sports car, the family château for holidays, and she might miss all that. But I won’t call her a tart in front of you, in your family there’s a different word for it.” She gets up, bursting with fury, she’s angry at herself for it, she’s losing her mind, and in all this the only clear and tangible thing is her anger.

  “Just call her back, your tart of a sister. Call her back and tell her that thanks to her we have a fight every night, she’ll be thrilled to bits, the bitch. It will give her the feeling that she exists.”

  Until that night Gloria had managed never to lose her temper on this subject, avoiding it as scrupulously as possible and never saying anything disobliging about Amandine. But once she’d stepped over the mark, she was going to bring it up every night from now on.

  THE PRODUCTION OFFICES are on a street off the Champs-Élysées, and the staircase leading to them is so huge a herd of cows could easily stampede up it. The banisters are highly polished, there’s a thick red carpet, the stair rods are gilded. Ridiculously fancy.

  The secretary is a pretty smiling blond with a slightly impertinent air, just fresh and chirpy enough to be this side of charming. Gloria sits and waits, hardly daring to look around at the posters of successful films. She leafs through Gala magazine, all about stars and their pregnancies, and the Officiel du cinéma, full of obscure articles, fantastic budgets, and unnatural couplings. People walk through the anteroom, papers in their hands, they make unfunny jokes to the secretary who shrieks with laughter. You can tell that they’re putting it on, forcing themselves to be in a good mood, but there isn’t much relaxation about it. They particularly like to make gags about sex, so that everyone can tell they’re cool with that. In fact, it spreads the unease, because the whole place stinks of false cleanliness and true frustration, which grips you by the throat and reduces the amount of pure air.

  Claire arrives in the hall, a good half hour late, big smile, outstretched hand. She’s wearing a sky-blue outfit today with white boots, replicas of a 1970s model. Classy. She shakes Gloria’s hand and takes her into her office. A room that’s way too big, with a sheet of glass at least two meters long perched on a black metal structure. The shelves are full of books, screenplays. And there are posters of films and photos taken with “friends” at Cannes. A huge portrait of Pasolini covers all of one wall.

  “For crying out loud,” Gloria says to herself, “is that really at home here?”

  “Your script’s terrific, very filmic, very rhythmic, the dialogue’s funny and the characters are attractive.”

  Gloria wonders how a screenplay can be anything other than filmic. She’s heard all this already on the phone. She presumes that if she’s been called here, it’s because her script really is okay. They must love it. Drowning under these vague compliments, she sinks into a little black armchair and the conversation carries on before slowing down. “I haven’t sweated so much over something since I was in school,” Gloria says, concluding it. Luckily, Claire suggests they have a beer, then another. Followed by vodka.

  The boss arrives, the little man with the hypocritical smile, the school geek with the timidity of a weasel, the inhibitions of someone who doesn’t have the courage to act on his aggressive feelings, but bides his time until he can strike, when, for instance, your back is turned. Gloria gets his number at once. He comes in, holding a screenplay across which he’s written BULLSHIT in big red letters. He holds it out to his colleague with a weary expression. “It’s just one damn thing after another, call him and tell him no way can I take it.” Gloria keeps quiet and looks somewhere else, sipping her beer. Then he starts to gripe about some “woman who came for a night out with us” and then complained she hadn’t enjoyed the evening. Evidently, this isn’t done, and he’ll never forget this faux pas, sooner or later she’ll pay for that. Gloria wonders whether in all this performance something is going on subtly, directed at her—she’s not sure about this—or whether the little producer genuinely hasn’t noticed her sitting there in the middle of the room, with an appointment to see him.

  In the end, he condescends to become aware of her presence and for the first time in her life, Gloria finds herself facing someone who has such power over her that she doesn’t listen to her instincts. Which would have told her to drink up her beer, pat him on the shoulder, and say good luck, sort it out, and take herself off home. Not get mixed up with them. Not to ask herself why Claire, sitting beside him, is looking at him as if he’s Baby Jesus. The power of power. Not to ask what the silences in this room are hiding, not to hang around. Only, she wants to know if she’s going to be paid. It’s like when you’ve sat down to play for money and started winning, and you want to see how far your luck will hold. So she pretends to be interested, simulates politeness, and already she’s telling herself off for plastering a smile on top of the nausea she spontaneously
feels, as she listens to the siren voices. After the compliments, the little producer is listening to his own voice as he drones on, gets mixed up, contradicts himself, spills out platitudes. Gloria listens to this meaningless speech for so long that it really feels like hard work, then she takes advantage of a pause to ask timidly: “How much?”

  The little producer gives a start. That seems to excite him, so after another half hour of platitudes, she plucks up the courage to ask him if he wants to buy her script, and for how much. She’s mentioned money. Madness. He goes bright red, he’s delighted, he’s in a real-life situation, dealing with this girl from working-class France, a girl who asks how much when she’s been told they like her script.

  Ah, but it’s not so simple, she’s told. People don’t just buy a screenplay “like that,” it has to be “polished.” Gloria looks around, holds back from making any comment, but doesn’t see what the point is of showing off how rich you are if you’re going to throw a tantrum at the first request for money. Or perhaps that’s just the point? So that she can sense that she’ll get some, but first of all she’ll have to crawl, that it’s within reach but she’ll have to do everything they ask her.

  Claire passes her a fifth beer, and Gloria asks again: “So when do you pay?”

  “When we sign the contract.”

  “And when do we draw up a contract?”

  “Once the screenplay has been perfected and we’re convinced it’s worth investing in.”

  “So until then, I have to work for nothing?”

  The little man smiles, that means yes, she’s got it. The secretary pops her head around the door and whispers he’s wanted on the phone. He gets up and goes off to his office. Gloria doesn’t realize this, but at least she’s had the good fortune to be in his presence for more than thirty minutes.

  THEY’RE SMOKING PIPES of pure hash on their balcony. She watches the streetwalkers coming and going on the pavement below. Eric is looking up at the moon, where the stars are shining.