Page 53 of Where Do We Go From Here?
By December Wendy reckons Manon knows her quite well, too, because Wendy has told her how it felt being pregnant, what it was like giving birth, and how she sometimes has hot flushes she fears are the beginning of the menopause.
It strikes Wendy, one evening after Manon has left, that in some ways they know each other better than she and Harry do these days. The thought is absurd, because, of course, she and Haz know each other in ways that she and Manon simply never could.
But it’s also true that she really does know things about Manon that she has never known about Harry, things shedoesn’t even know about her kids. She and Manon, for example, have spoken at length about their first sexual experiences, and these are conversations that she doesn’t think anyone really has with their husband, let alone their own children.
Could the answer to her relationship problems with Harry be nothing more, nothing less, than proper in-depth conversation? Certainly, as far as she can see, most of the couples she knows would benefit far more from an hour a day talking to each other than the three hours of Netflix they’re getting by on.
On 4 December, Manon arrives far later than usual – just before 7 p.m. As it’s been dark for almost two hours, she finds Wendy firmly ensconced in aperitif time.
‘Vous arrivez plus tard, aujourd’hui,’Wendy tells her, feeling proud of her perfectly constructed phrase even though she has had the last hour to think about it.
‘I know!’ Manon says. ‘I start work very late this morning. My brother. Big problems. Again!’ She proceeds to explain how her father phoned her first thing to tell her he’s thinking of paying for a private detox clinic for her brother. The clinic being incredibly expensive, and her brother having already gone through three previous detox sessions only to start using almost the second he got out each time, the discussion had gone on for some time.
‘I start very late. So, I end very late,’ Manon explains.
‘And what did you decide?’ Wendy asks. ‘About your brother?’
Manon shrugs. ‘Oh, Papa will pay. He always pay,’ she says. ‘Because if he don’t pay…’
‘If he doesn’t pay,’ Wendy corrects.
‘Yeah, if he doesn’t pay, and Bruno is…’ she makes a brutal slashing gesture across her throat here, ‘then… whose fault can it be? Theculpabilité… the guilt? for Papa will be terrible.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Wendy tells her, genuinely touched by the girl’s emotion every time she talks about her brother. ‘That must be very difficult for you all.’
‘It is,’ Manon says. ‘But it is a family problem, so we are used to this.’
‘But I’m glad you feel you can share it with me.’
Manon laughs. ‘I shareeverythingwith you. So you, now. What do you want to talk about, in French?’
‘Oh, gosh, I honestly have no idea today. Nothing happens in my life except seeing you and going to the bakery.’
‘In French,’ Manon insists.
‘Vraiment, je ne sais pas,’Wendy says.
‘Vous parlez de quoi d’habitude, en Angleterre ?’
‘What do the English talk about?’
‘Oui. Si vous voulez…’
‘The weather mainly,’ Wendy says.‘Le météo.’
‘La météo !’Manon corrects. ‘The weather is a girl. This is probably why she is so unpredictable!Est-ce que vous avez vu qu’il va neiger en fin de semaine ?’
‘Neiger ?’Wendy repeats. ‘It’s going to snow?’
‘Oui. Beaucoup.’
‘Oh my God!’ Wendy says, her eyes widening. ‘When?’
‘En français !’
Wendy laughs.‘Oh, mon Dieu !’she says, laughing at how much funnier it sounds in French.‘Quand ?’
‘You see,’ Manon says. ‘You can when you try.’
