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she has to stop coming into the living room). Everyone on the couches is kissing.
    The music is saying: everybody’s gotta love some time, doum doum doum, everybody’s gotta to love some time. Not her. It will never happen to her. No one will kiss her. She’ll never go out with anyone. Doum doum doum .
    Raphaël Bidegarraï and Nathalie are kissing, with their tongues, as if they were eating slugs out of each other’s mouths. Concepción and one of the Lavinasse boys are at it. Even two young kids from Grade Five. Rose and Christian aren’t kissing but they’re sitting side by side and they’re talking. And all the others are dancing, turning slowly, heads on each other’s shoulders, arms around waists.
    She is standing near the record player, rocking from one foot to the other. The music is enticing, but she’s better off stopping herself, better off drinking a tenth glass of orange juice, than dancing all by herself with the invisible man.
    Her father’s dick, that’s what they’re talking about right now, everyone there is whispering into each other’s hair about it. Her father’s dick sticking out like his nose in the middle of his face. The world is spinning around this dick, microgroove by microgroove. Everybody’s gotta love some time , in a spiral around the little spindle in the centre of the turntable, everyone , everyone , no one is looking at her but everyone is thinking about it. The little spindle finds its way into her retinas and covers the wobbling, impossible, white spot of her father’s dick at the carnival at quarter to twelve under the church tower, to the sound of the oompahpah music, everyone, everyone but you .
    The only thing left is to go into exile or to disappear. Far from this ridiculous village that is spinning right now, while it’s stuck so ridiculously in this place on the Earth’s crust. Far from her ridiculous body that no one would want even if she put it up for sale, even if she swapped it for a dog’s body, no one would bid for it just to get the ball rolling.
    â€˜Mr and Mrs Fark have a son. What is his name? Roland. Roll and Fuck!’ Raphaël Bidegarraï is telling the joke and Roland Boursenave is laughing so much that his face is all crinkled, his eyes are like a furious cat.
    â€˜Faggot!’ hiccups Roland.
    â€˜Fuck you! Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!’
    There’s also that rhyme that she heard at the carnival: Keen to do the deed, I’m all out of luck, All I need, all I need, Is the chance for a fuck.
    What is fuck ?
    Monsieur Bihotz is busy weeding the corner under the canna lilies, where the moss keeps coming back, like alien moss, no matter what he does, whether he digs it over, burns it, pours boiling water on it, covers it with salt, acid, bicarbonate of soda or weedkiller.
    In the Nouveau Larousse universel there is just a line space between fry and fudge .
    â€˜It’s a very vulgar word,’ Monsieur Bihotz explains.
    Just what she would have got from her parents.
    â€˜Especially from the mouth of a young girl,’ he adds.
    Up until now, when he spoke about her, he said ‘a little girl’. She remembers a fairy tale in which, instead of words, pearls came out of the mouth of a princess. She can feel the little hard beads, like cherry pips, ptt, ptt, ptt, between her lips.
    She sits on his knees so they can play Giddey up, Horsey and he can jump her up in the air.
    Today he says, ‘Stop.’
    What does fuck mean ?
    â€˜Stop.’
    She puts her arms around his neck, watching out for his teeth, for that scary wolf thing he does with his teeth.
    But Monsieur Bihotz gets up; he’s strong and heavy and she nearly falls. He goes into his bedroom and she thinks he’s going to have a coffee meltdown. But no, he comes out again with a little cup and ball game in his hand. He holds the ring delicately between his thumb and index finger,