Apocalypse Baby

Praise for
King Kong Theory

‘Despentes argues compellingly about women's guilt, men's power and the way that both are still abused three decades after the supposed triumph of feminism' Katy Guest,
Independent

‘A gloriously aggressive and fearless writer' Lisa Hilton,
TLS

‘A manifesto… part memoir, part political pamphlet, it is a furious condemnation of the “servility” of enforced femininity and was a bestseller in France – the title refers to her contention that she is “more King Kong than Kate Moss”' Elizabeth Day,
Observer

‘
King Kong Theory
is a free-ranging feminist manifesto… her writing has an undeniable edge and urgency' Lesley McDowell,
Independent on Sunday

VIRGINIE DESPENTES

TRANSLATED BY SIÂN REYNOLDS

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein.

A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the
British Library on request

The right of Virginie Despentes to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Copyright © 2010 Editions Grasset & Fasquelle
Translation copyright © 2013 Siân Reynolds

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real
persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publisher.

First published as
Apocalypse bébé
in 2010 by Grasset, Paris

First published in this translation in 2013 by Serpent's Tail,
an imprint of Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
website:
www.serpentstail.com

ISBN 978 1 84668 842 3
eISBN 978 1 84765 790 9

Designed and typeset by [email protected]
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

‘… como dos vampiros dormiremos sobre tu tumba,
calentaremos tus huesos, como dos vampiros vendremos a saciar
tu sed de sexo, de sangre y de testosterona'

Testo Yonqui

To B.P.

NOT SO LONG AGO, I WAS STILL THIRTY. ANYTHING
could happen. You just had to make the right choice at the right moment. I often changed jobs, my short-term contracts weren't renewed, I had no time to get bored. I didn't complain about my standard of living. I rarely lived alone. The seasons followed one another like packets of sweets: easy to swallow and differently coloured. I don't know quite when it was that life stopped smiling on me.

Today I have the same pay as ten years ago. Back then, I thought I was doing all right. Once I passed thirty, the spring went out of things, the impetus that carried me along seemed to ebb away. And I know that next time I find myself on the job market, I'll be a mature woman, without any qualifications. That's why I'm clinging on for dear life to the work I have now.

This particular morning, I arrive late. Agathe, the young receptionist, taps her watch with her finger and frowns. She's wearing fluorescent yellow tights and pink heart-shaped earrings. Easily ten years younger than me. I ought to take no notice of her impatient little sigh when she thinks I'm taking too long to take my coat off, instead of which I mutter an
indecipherable apology, head straight for the boss's door, and raise my hand to knock on it. From inside his office comes the sound of hoarse screaming. I step back, alarmed. I look at Agathe questioningly, she pulls a face and whispers, ‘It's Madame Galtan, she was waiting for you outside, before we opened this morning. Deucené's been getting it in the neck for twenty minutes now. Go in, go in now, it'll calm her down.' I'm tempted to turn on my heel and rush downstairs, without a word of explanation. But I knock at the door, and they hear me.

For once, Deucené doesn't need to glance down at the files strewn across his desk to remember my name.

‘Ah, this is Lucie Toledo, you've already met, she was just…'

He doesn't get to the end of the sentence. The client interrupts him with a shout. ‘So where were
you
, you stupid cow?'

She gives me two seconds to digest the verbal assault, then carries on, turning up the volume. ‘You know how much I pay you not to let her out of your sight? And then she dis-app-ears? In the metro! In the MET-RO, I don't believe it, you managed to lose her in the metro! Then you wait half the day before leaving me a message. The
school
let me know before you did. That seem normal to you? Could it be you think you've been doing your job properly?'

This woman is possessed by the devil. I can't have reacted enough in her view, she loses interest in me, and turns back on Deucené. ‘So why was this gormless halfwit the one you had following Valentine? You didn't have anyone brighter on your books?'

The boss looks daunted. Up against the wall, he covers for
me. ‘Let me assure you that Lucie is one of our best agents, she's got plenty of experience on the ground and…'

‘You think it's
normal
to lose a girl of fifteen, on the journey she does every morning?'

I had met Jacqueline Galtan when we opened the file, ten days or so earlier. Impeccable blonde bob, stiletto heels with red soles, she was a cold woman, well-preserved for her age, very precise with her instructions. I hadn't guessed that as soon as she was crossed, she'd develop Tourette's syndrome. In her anger, lines start to appear on her forehead. The Botox is fighting a losing battle. A drop of white froth appears at the corner of her lips. She's marching round the office now, her bony shoulders shaking with rage.

‘So just HOW did you lose her, you bloody idiot, in the METRO???'

The word seems to excite her. Facing her, Deucené cowers in his chair. I feel pleasure watching him shrink back, since he never loses a chance to act the hard man in company. Jacqueline Galtan improvises a monologue, delivered at machine-gun speed: it's directed at my ugly mug, my scruffy clothes, my total inability to do my job, which heaven knows is not very difficult, and the lack of intelligence that marks every damn thing I do. I concentrate on Deucené's bald head, speckled with obscene brown spots. Short and paunchy, the boss isn't very sure of himself, which tends to make him ruthless towards his subordinates. Right now, he's paralysed with panic. I push forward a chair and sit down at the side of his desk.

The client stops to draw breath, and I seize the chance to join in the conversation.

‘It happened so fast… I had no idea Valentine was likely to disappear. You think she's run away?'

‘Ah, how helpful, now we're actually talking about it! It's precisely because I'd like to know the answer that I'm paying you.'

Deucené has spread out a number of photographs and reports on his desk. Jacqueline Galtan picks up a page of a report at random, between two fingers, as if it were a dead insect, glances quickly at it and drops it again. Her nails are impeccable too, bright red polish.

I try to justify myself. ‘You asked me to
follow
Valentine, to report on where she went. Who she met, what she was up to… But I wasn't at all expecting anything would happen to her. It's not the same kind of assignment, do you see what I mean?'

Now she bursts into tears. That's all we needed to put us totally at ease.

‘It's just so awful, not knowing where she is.'

Deucené, looking apologetic, avoids her eyes, and stammers, ‘We'll do everything we can to help you find her… But I'm sure the police…'

‘The police! You think the police give a damn? All they're interested in is getting the media involved. They just have one idea – talk to the press. You really think Valentine needs that sort of publicity? Think that's a good way to begin her life?'

Deucené turns to me. He'd like me to invent some line of enquiry. But I was the first to be surprised that morning, when I didn't find her sitting in the café opposite the school. The client is off again.

‘Right, I'll pay. We'll do it my way, a special contract. Five thousand euros bonus if you bring her back in two weeks. But the other side of the bargain is, if you
don't
find her, I'll make your life a hell on earth. We have connections, and I imagine an agency like yours doesn't want to have a lot of, let's say,
unwelcome
inspections. Not to mention the bad publicity.'

As she utters the last words, she raises her eyes to look straight at Deucené, quite slowly, a very elegant movement, like in a black and white film. She must have been practising that gesture all her life. She looks again at the page from the report. The files on the table are all mine. Not just the ones I put together all day and all evening yesterday, but ones they must have gone to fetch themselves from my computer. They can do what they like to someone like me: obviously they've been checking to see I've brought everything out, and haven't forgotten or hidden anything. I spent hours selecting the most important documents and sorted them into categories, and they've made a total mess of it, of course everything's out there now: from the bill at the café where I waited to the least interesting photo I took of her, including ones where all you can see is a bit of her arm… It's their way of telling me that even if I spend twenty-four hours on a dossier making sure it's cast iron when it's asked for, I'm deemed incapable of judging what's important and what isn't. Why should they be deprived of the pleasure of being sadistic to someone, when I'm right there, available, at the bottom of the food chain? She's right to call me a halfwit, the old hag. If it makes her feel better. Yes, I'm the halfwit, who gets paid peanuts, and has just been on duty for almost a fortnight trailing a
nymphomaniac teenager, who's hyperactive and coked up to the eyeballs. Just for a change. I've been working almost two years for Reldanch, and that's the only kind of assignment I ever get: snooping on teenagers. I was doing it as efficiently as anyone else, up to the moment Valentine disappeared.