peasants know their place. Picaut has been the blot on its landscape from the moment Luc’s mother gave her the deeds as a wedding present.
The wedding itself was a fiasco. Hélène Bressard had so carefully underdressed, not to outdo the bride, that she could have walked naked into church and made less of a sensation. To give her due credit, she kept away from the crowds, but the paparazzi still caught on camera the moment when she cornered Picaut and kissed her on the cheek, pressing the envelope into her hands.
The images didn’t record the conversation, but they caught the look on Picaut’s face as Luc’s mother said, ‘You’re one of the Family now.’
She wasn’t. She wasn’t ever likely to be, but she understands now, as she didn’t then, that this was their way of buying her in. They didn’t know her, nor she them. Her doubt was obvious enough for Hélène to tuck an arm beneath her elbow and press her head close. ‘Landis drew up the deeds. They’re watertight.’
Picaut didn’t know Uncle Landis then, either, but she knew his reputation. The cameras caught her blistering smile and that was the image that graced the magazines and made her a celebrity for the whole of the next week so that her friends walked on eggshells in her presence, thinking her lost to them for ever.
She, of course, thought she was bringing Luc to the light, that he was a wild and radical maverick who had dared to step out of his family’s reactionary straitjacket for the love of ideals based on worth, not on gold, for equality, for grace, for understanding: for her.
Here, now, five years on, this apartment is the morgue in which lies her self-delusion. In the kitchen, where the smell of fresh coffee sharpens the air, is the early row over the morning papers that broke open the sham of Luc’s politics. It took her longer than it should have done to realize that he had never walked free of the Family, never could, never would, never wanted to. He is, was and will always be a dyed in the wool conservative, more dangerous, more insidious than any member of Le Pen’s
Front National
, because he knows how to cloak his extremism in the language of reason.
She carries her coffee to the bedroom, where lies the oversized bed in which it became painfully clear that her role was to bear the next generation of Bressard men – and that conceiving a girl would be as much of a failure as failing to conceive at all.
She had her pills, and never stopped taking them. No children, ever; she had said that from the start. Luc had not believed her. She wasn’t the only one who had grown to regret their early self-delusion.
Leaning into the walk-in wardrobe which still contains her clean clothes, she selects a winter shirt, clean jeans, socks, underwear, trainers. Her leather jacket remains; it always remains. She hasn’t taken it off yet. She closes the bedroom door behind her. She couldn’t sleep here if she tried.
There’s a pile of post in the hallway. She lifts it on to a side table, sorting the bills from the circulars and leaving both for later.
She does not – will not – go into the living room, but she pauses in passing, much as she did just after midnight on New Year’s Eve when she overheard the mellow, man-to-man conversation in which Luc and Uncle Landis rehearsed the detail of her husband’s proposed ascent to power: election to Mayor of Orléans in 2014 and from there to the presidency in 2016.
Hollande, however much they loathe him, proved this route was possible, and the Family is ready to stretch its wings. For generations beyond counting, it has spread its influence across the south of France, into Germany, Switzerland, trans-Alpine Italy. In every conflict, it has posted people on either side: for the English, against the English; for the Spanish, against the Spanish; for Napoleon, against him; for the revolution, for the king … actually, rather more for the king than against him, but that has been massaged
The wedding itself was a fiasco. Hélène Bressard had so carefully underdressed, not to outdo the bride, that she could have walked naked into church and made less of a sensation. To give her due credit, she kept away from the crowds, but the paparazzi still caught on camera the moment when she cornered Picaut and kissed her on the cheek, pressing the envelope into her hands.
The images didn’t record the conversation, but they caught the look on Picaut’s face as Luc’s mother said, ‘You’re one of the Family now.’
She wasn’t. She wasn’t ever likely to be, but she understands now, as she didn’t then, that this was their way of buying her in. They didn’t know her, nor she them. Her doubt was obvious enough for Hélène to tuck an arm beneath her elbow and press her head close. ‘Landis drew up the deeds. They’re watertight.’
Picaut didn’t know Uncle Landis then, either, but she knew his reputation. The cameras caught her blistering smile and that was the image that graced the magazines and made her a celebrity for the whole of the next week so that her friends walked on eggshells in her presence, thinking her lost to them for ever.
She, of course, thought she was bringing Luc to the light, that he was a wild and radical maverick who had dared to step out of his family’s reactionary straitjacket for the love of ideals based on worth, not on gold, for equality, for grace, for understanding: for her.
Here, now, five years on, this apartment is the morgue in which lies her self-delusion. In the kitchen, where the smell of fresh coffee sharpens the air, is the early row over the morning papers that broke open the sham of Luc’s politics. It took her longer than it should have done to realize that he had never walked free of the Family, never could, never would, never wanted to. He is, was and will always be a dyed in the wool conservative, more dangerous, more insidious than any member of Le Pen’s
Front National
, because he knows how to cloak his extremism in the language of reason.
She carries her coffee to the bedroom, where lies the oversized bed in which it became painfully clear that her role was to bear the next generation of Bressard men – and that conceiving a girl would be as much of a failure as failing to conceive at all.
She had her pills, and never stopped taking them. No children, ever; she had said that from the start. Luc had not believed her. She wasn’t the only one who had grown to regret their early self-delusion.
Leaning into the walk-in wardrobe which still contains her clean clothes, she selects a winter shirt, clean jeans, socks, underwear, trainers. Her leather jacket remains; it always remains. She hasn’t taken it off yet. She closes the bedroom door behind her. She couldn’t sleep here if she tried.
There’s a pile of post in the hallway. She lifts it on to a side table, sorting the bills from the circulars and leaving both for later.
She does not – will not – go into the living room, but she pauses in passing, much as she did just after midnight on New Year’s Eve when she overheard the mellow, man-to-man conversation in which Luc and Uncle Landis rehearsed the detail of her husband’s proposed ascent to power: election to Mayor of Orléans in 2014 and from there to the presidency in 2016.
Hollande, however much they loathe him, proved this route was possible, and the Family is ready to stretch its wings. For generations beyond counting, it has spread its influence across the south of France, into Germany, Switzerland, trans-Alpine Italy. In every conflict, it has posted people on either side: for the English, against the English; for the Spanish, against the Spanish; for Napoleon, against him; for the revolution, for the king … actually, rather more for the king than against him, but that has been massaged
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