“That’s unusual,” I said. “Dad and I watched a TV programme about divorce the other day, but they didn’t mention that scenario.”

They seemed distracted – they weren’t themselves at all. It wasn’t a good day to talk to them about my decision regarding the concert. We began to play. I scratched at my guitar and shouted into the mike, but without much conviction:

“Don’t drive us crazy

This work it just ain’t easy

We feel like being lazy

Don’t drive us crazy

To hell with being busy

We’re so mad it makes us dizzy.”

“Your lyrics are really cool, especially the rhymes,” said Etienne, as if he was the expert.

He was just flattering me. I’d written the words when I was a revolutionary, and revolution sometimes makes you do or think things that later on mean nothing to you at all.

Marcel went one further.

“You should show them to the English teacher. I’m sure she’d read them out loud to the whole class.It’s like … you know who I mean…”

He wanted to compare me to a writer we’d studied in English.

“It’s like William Worthwords, that’s what it is.”

So then I said, “Don’t you think it’s really just a racket, our music?”

I realized straight away that I’d gone too far. They looked at each other and I thought they were going to vaporize. So I back-pedalled and as per usual I said the first thing that came into my head.

“No, I was joking! Anyway, having an instinct for it is all that counts!”

“What instinct?” asked Marcel, who understood nothing about symbolic imagery.

“It’s an expression,” said Etienne. “He means poetic instinct: when you have a passion for music, who gives a monkey’s about reading the notes! Isn’t that right?”

The great thing about saying any old rubbish to worm your way out of trouble is that there’s always someone around who’ll get the wrong end of the stick.

“Yes, that’s it!” I said, to put an end to it.

Compassion is a real pain, because it makes you talk nonsense. I thought about Marie, who would be having her music lesson, and all the years it took her to learn to play her instrument. Poetic and musical passion mostly come from hard graft, but how could I have explained that to Etienne and Marcel? Then we changed the subject, because Etienne had been to see the careers advisor about a new professional direction he wanted to take. He’d explained to her that he’d given up on the idea of being a chicken breast cutter and now wanted to be a proctologist. But she didn’t know what that was, so he’d explained that it was a doctor specializing in the anus. Well, of course, she thought he was making a fool out of her, so she blew her top. Then she wound up Lucky Luke, who gave him hours of detention and threatened to cancel the concert.