HIGH-PITCHED VOICE: “Hi, Miss Laplanche, my name’s Antonia Rashers, I’m an editorial assistant for i>Télé… Listen, I was wondering if you’d be up for answering a few questions by phone, as soon as possible really—my number is…”
CONFIDENT VOICE: “Hi there, I’m Guillaume Schwein, a reporter for Le Parisien. I got your number from a colleague of mine. I’m planning to write an article on that little trip of yours, so please call me on…”
HÉLÈNE LESNOUT (again): “Mireille, it’s Hélène. I have no idea where you are, but I’d like to talk to you, if that’s OK, so I can keep updating your story. We’ll probably switch to the print edition for tomorrow’s article. I also just wanted to make sure none of my fellow journalists have been trying to—well—I just wanted to make sure that—well, anyway, call me, please.”
I hang up. “Christ on a bike! I don’t know what’s been happening, but all of a sudden everyone’s paying attention.”
“Can’t get any signal,” Kader grumbles, fiddling with his phone. “I’m sorry, have you got Wi-Fi here?”
“Yes, just connect to ‘lakerousset’ and fill in the form with your credit-card details. It’s five euros an hour for daytime visitors.”
Kader flashes his most dazzling smile. “Listen, how about we do a deal—give us your private username and password for free, and we’ll mention Lake Rousset Campsite to all the journalists who ask. And say good things, of course.”
The woman, halfway through blowing a gigantic bubble, blushes violently, coughs, returns the deflated bubble to its rightful place in her mouth, and whispers, “Erm… OK, then—but don’t give it to anyone else, all right? The password is, er—J-C can keep it up for 45 mins—all lower case, with digits for forty-five.”
Astrid, curious: “Who’s J-C?”
“My husband, Jean-Claude. But don’t go thinking it’s true! It’s just that the broadband guy said we had to have letters and numbers.”
The Sun hums a little tune, pretending to have entirely missed that conversation, and taps his screen. Meanwhile, Hakima comes back, whispers something in Astrid’s ear, and both of them scuttle off together. Blessed be St Astrid of unending devotion; I can’t stand moaning and whining. Julius-Aurelian had better soldier bravely through his teething pains, or Mum and Philippe Dumont won’t be getting any babysitting out of me.
While Astrid “Florence Nightingale” Blomvall and her patient are away, I lean nonchalantly over the Sun’s shoulder to look at the news.
One search for the word “Piglettes” in Google News, and we start to understand the scale of what’s been happening.
“Twelve articles already this morning,” the Sun mutters. “Where did it all come from?”
We can’t tell, but the articles all say roughly the same thing: three little piglettes and a disabled man are cycling from Bourg-en-Bresse to Paris, selling sausages on the road. And wait for it: rumour has it they gatecrashed the Cluny Campus Ball. Is that all? Not quite! “The odyssey of these three very young women seems to be catching the imagination of social-media users, from Facebook to Twitter, who are discussing the unusual convoy,” Libération reports. Why? According to Metro, “This road trip, by three girls who look nothing like TV stars, is a quirky revenge story that appeals to the bullied teen in all of us.” Le Figaro goes further: “In contemporary youth culture, where harassment and beauty vlogging have replaced social cohesion and intellectual ambition, the self-proclaimed ‘Three Little Piglettes’, whose ultimate aims remain unknown, look set to make a big impression.”
Little by little we come to understand that an influential feminist blogger, the pseudonymous Simone Suffragette, sparked all of this earlier today, with a blog post shared by hundreds of her followers. She thinks we’re “exemplary”, “smart and slightly nutty”, and ends her post with a glorious flourish: “Yet more evidence, in case we really needed it after Malala Yousafzai, that young girls can be full of initiative.” She also slams Malo, “that macho, middle-class little boy, a pitiful heir of generations of chauvinist pigs who think their Y chromosome gives them the right to comment on, classify and rank the bodies and faces of all women who dare to enter their ‘territory’”.
“Blimey,” the Sun murmurs, “we didn’t see that coming…”
Indeed. I’m a happy shade of pink, and I can hear the blood pounding in my ears (although the Sun’s left shoulder being in direct contact with my forearm may have something to do with that too). Still, nothing to get big-headed about, oh no, not me. I don’t aspire to celebrity, you see; I want a quiet little life, maybe one or two Nobel Prizes, that’s all.
Well, I suppose I wouldn’t mind Klaus Von Strudel signing an official scroll of parchment admitting to, first, his shameful desertion of me in my embryonic state, and second, the fact that he has in no way contributed to my becoming Mireille Laplanche, the eminent twenty-first-century intellectual.
Maybe, when I get awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, I’ll even tearfully thank Philippe Dumont, just to piss off Klaus.
In a beautifully nonchalant tone, I say, “Yes, it’s interesting, isn’t it. Journalists! We all know what they’re like. Anyway, let’s find a plug for that fridge. Madame, if our two friends come back, could you tell us we’ve gone to our spot?”
“Yes, no problem. And what if any journalists come?”
“They don’t know where we are. We’re not supposed to be here.”
The owner, a bit awkwardly: “Ah. But let’s say, for instance, that I had… let’s say I’d tweeted, for instance, something like…”
Rousset Campsite @roussetcampsite
The #3littlepiglettes are selling sausages at #lakerousset
#campsite!!!
“Mireille, I need to talk to you.”
“Just a minute, Astrid. I’m in the middle of a sale.”
“Yes, but it’s important and Hakima doesn’t want her brother to hear us.”
“What sauce would you like, sir?… Onion, great, no problem! Why, what’s wrong with Hakima? Hey, you know what, people are loving your apple compote.”
“Mireille, seriously, I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Hang on—sorry, Madame, what was that?… Yes, it’s vegetarian, so by definition it’s kosher… Yeah, like falafels… Of course, in a separate pan! And we store them separately, too!”
“Mireille! Hakima’s on her period!”
“She hadn’t worked out that it’d come in the middle of the trip?”
“For the first time, you idiot…”
Hakima’s sitting on a bench, looking as if she’s been afflicted with some existential crisis, her hands around her belly. It’s like she’s just been told she’ll never be allowed to drink hot chocolate again for the rest of her life.
“Hey, Hakima, big day! Congratulations!”
“Hmmmgnnhmm.”
“Have you taken any ibuprofen?”
“Yes, Astrid gave me some.”
“You got tampons?”
Whoops, wrong word: her black eyes widen, affording me a glimpse of a cerebral antechamber containing all the horror in the world: I see ferocious battles, with people skewering each other with bayonets, and spiky-tailed demons slamming heavy rocks onto the fingers of the damned.
“Well, either that or pads.”
“Yeah, Astrid bought me some from the vending machine in the toilet.”
I sit down next to her. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d got your period?”
“Dunno. I was afraid you might be like, Oh, for goodness’ sake, she’s so annoying, with all her problems.”
I start laughing, but it turns into a weird tearful thing. “Goodness, am I that scary?”
She shakes her head, but doesn’t seem 100 per cent sure.
“No… but I knew I would better tell Astrid.”
“I had better tell Astrid. Or, I would rather tell Astrid. Or, at a stretch, I would be better off telling Astrid.”
“Does it always hurt like that?”
“Gra
mmar? Yes, it’s very painful.”
“No, periods.”
“Periods? Always at the end of a sentence; semicolons, however, are a far more elegant punctuation sign; they can be used repeatedly; good sentences, in fact, should never end.”
“Stop making fun at me!”
“Making fun of me, or laughing at me.”
“Stop it! See, that’s why you’re scarier than Astrid.”
“Maybe, but you’re smiling now.”
“Yeah, a bit…”
“Come on, let’s go for a swim—erm, well, not you, I guess, but you can watch.”
“Can I call my mum on your mobile phone to tell her? I don’t want Kader to know—promise me you won’t tell Kader.”
“Cross my heart, hope to die. I won’t say a thing.”
(Ten minutes earlier:
“My sister’s got her period, hasn’t she?”
“How do you know?”
“When a girl says her belly’s hurting, then she locks herself in the loo with an older girl for ages, and then all three girls start whispering to each other in conspiratorial tones…”
“I don’t know, it could have been a very discreet abortion.”)
17
We left around 2 p.m., after going for a swim in Lake Rousset. Well, Astrid and I went, while the Sun kept Hakima company. We waded into the green water, and happily splashed around with the other swimmers. We felt like sisters, all complexes forgotten.
OK, that’s a lie. The truth is, we went for a swim very, very far from the campsite, so as not to offer to the eyes of passers-by the spectacle of our tubby pink bellies, our far-too-close-together thighs and our pearshaped bums.
To be clear: it’s not that I don’t like my body! It’s just that I hate it.
I looked at Astrid out of the corner of my eye and compared myself to her. I nodded appreciatively to see that she really is much fatter than I am. But her boobs, to be fair, stand up on their own, whereas mine are permanently napping.
Yeah, I know. But what can you do? You can’t always be happy to be a pig. I’m fifteen and a half. At my age, girls don’t look like that. Not to me, anyway. Most of them look like elongated aliens from a science-fiction film, defying the laws of gravity with their mysteriously slim ankles.
When we got out of the water, a bunch of boys our age shouted at us that we’d better dive straight back in, since it’s the natural environment for whales like you, for fucking huge sea elephants like you.
Thankfully, they didn’t recognize us or take any pictures: no #bikinipiglettes for us.
“When you think about it, though,” Astrid whispered, “we must have burnt a lot of calories today.”
“That’s not why we’re doing this!” I barked at the superficial Swede.
“Oh, I know, I know, we don’t care about that. I was just saying.”
“It’s inner beauty that counts,” I said, wagging my index finger under her nose, busy counting in my head how many calories we might have burnt.
Luckily, I’m rubbish at mental arithmetic.
We leave without bumping into any journalists. The Sun tells us there’re already two Facebook fan pages for us, both of which are very concerned with where we might be, who we are and why we’re doing all this. And, apparently, Montceau-les-Mines is preparing a welcome for us.
Me, through clenched teeth: “What’s that motorbike doing? Why isn’t it overtaking?”
Astrid, look quickly to the side: “Seems like he’s waving.”
Hakima: “Maybe it’s the police?”
“Let’s slow down. Kader! We’re slowing down!”
We stop by the kerb, next to a wheat field. But under the helmet, it isn’t a police officer. It’s a journalist.
“Audrey!” the journalist bleats into his phone. “I’ve found them! Yes, yes, definitely them.” He pockets the phone, and tries (in vain) to shake our hands. “Very nice to meet you all. Mathieu Cauchon, of Ouest-France…”
“Sorry,” Kader says, “we’re not doing any interviews.”
“I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to the little ladies.”
“What little ladies? Can you see any little ladies? I can’t see any little ladies,” I say, and the four of us lean down to examine the gravel in the hope of spotting what I imagine to be a swarm of tiny women in Victorian dresses.
“Miss Laplanche,” says the journalist in a slightly perplexed tone, “you’re the spokesperson for the group, aren’t you? May I ask you a few questions? When do you think you’ll get to Paris?”
“Never, if we keep getting stopped on the way by journalists. Come on, team—back in the saddle!”
We cycle off, but it doesn’t deter Cauchon, who follows us on the left side of the road, pulling back only to let the occasional car through. So we endure an hour of pedalling in the afternoon heat with a journalist incessantly yelling questions at us. Why are you going to Paris? How do you feel about the media craze around you? Do you think it’s right that the police aren’t interfering? Are you trying to lose weight by cycling such a long way, or would it only be a welcome side effect?
“Are you ever going to leave us alone?” I finally break down. “This isn’t the Tour de France! We’re just trying to get to our next stop.”
“Which is?”
I sigh, and look at the GPS. “Gueugnon. Wait for us there? Honestly, you’re making this afternoon’s ride a bit trying. And you’re going to give us all asthma attacks with that exhaust pipe.”
“Can I wait for you there with a photographer?”
“With a whole TV crew, if it makes you happy. On the main square. We’ll get there in two, two and a half hours.”
“See you then!”
And vroooooom! The motorbike roars off.
Phew.
At last.
Ah, silence!… The quiet, dark-grey, sun-roasted ribbon of the road, swirling through the hollows between the hills…
“We’re turning right at the next junction.”
“Right? But that sign said to go left for Gueugnon!”
“Yeah, Hakima, I know. Precisely.”
A few hours later, Hakima’s belly starts to ache again, and Astrid starts complaining about a shooting pain in her back, and even the Sun half-heartedly alludes to a sore hand (oh! Sun! How I would nurse those hands, bathe them in ointments and precious balms, if you let me—and if the very thought weren’t enough to burn me from the inside!)…
…and out of nowhere, a fairy-tale castle appears in front of us.
We’ve left the trailer and the bikes at the bottom of the road.
“What is that thing?”
“The castle of Longuemort, according to the GPS.”
“Of Voldemort?” Hakima quivers. “Oh, let’s not stay, then.”
The Sun laughs, and pulls his little sister, exhausted by pedalling and puberty, onto what’s left of his lap.
Astrid has lost her tongue. She’s staring at the castle. At the top, slender turrets and elegant balconies climb to the skies. At the bottom sits a sturdy, red medieval fortress. It looks mismatched, a bit like a young lady with a hairy man’s feet.
“The castle of Longuemort isn’t open to visitors.”
Although we’d have been forgiven for thinking otherwise, these words were not bleated by a goat, but by a very old person (man or woman? Who knows?) pushing a wheelbarrow full of flowers.
“We don’t care, we didn’t want to visit it,” says Astrid.
The old person looks offended. (I spot some earrings under tufts of grey hair—a woman, then, maybe?) “Shame. The gardens and the building are magnificent.”
“You’ve just told us we can’t visit it, and now you’re saying it’s a shame?”
“It’s a shame to miss out on so much beauty.”
Nice. The old probably-lady opens a wrought-iron gate, leading to the gardens. The view is indeed sumptuous: parrot-green lawns, trees swarming with birds, and behind it all bushes and flower beds all tightly cropped in the Fr
enchest of styles, set against the white walls of the castle.
Before closing the gate, the old lady eyes us up. “What are you doing here at this time, anyway?”
“We’re cycling from Bourg-en-Bresse to Paris,” I explain. “The Three Little Piglettes. You haven’t heard of us?”
Oh, a sudden raising of an eyebrow. Of course she watches TV, like all old people.
“No idea why,” I keep going, “but it fascinates journalists. And we’re trying to avoid them. So we ended up here. We’re going to look for a place to have dinner and then set off again. We weren’t lurking, we were just looking at your castle because it’s pretty, that’s all.”
The old lady frowns. “It’s not my castle—I’m just the warden. Come on, you might as well have dinner at mine. The owners aren’t here, anyway.”
“Oh, that’s kind of you, but we really weren’t trying to wangle an invite.”
“No, please do come.” Her face lights up. “It’d be a pleasure.”
So we follow her, through the little gate and into the gardens of the castle of Longuemort.
“Are you sure?” Hakima asks us weakly. “We shouldn’t follow people we don’t know…”
“You’re right, she might be a Death Eater.”
“Stop making fun at me, Mireille!”
We fall silent as we walk by the dizzyingly deep moat, which is carpeted with grass. The low afternoon light is crayoning the castle walls pure white, in contrast with the stark black arrow slits at its top. A mosaic of perfectly manicured lawns, neat flower beds and sculpted bushes, the garden resonates with the buzzing of bees, which fly back and forth, bumping into roses and sipping nectar mid-flight from tiny, white, trumpet-shaped flowers whose name I don’t know.
“Are there really people living here?” Kader asks.
“Not often. The family comes and goes. Most of the time, the only people here are the ones who work here and give guided tours.”
Piglettes Page 11