My mother-in-law is really something. I don’t mind that she’s fat, ugly, eccentric and her taste in clothes might best be described as garish. It’s quite funny watching her play at being the diva. My problem is she has a poisonous tongue and a stare that could turn a nest of rattlesnakes to stone. When she’s around, I can’t breathe without her thinking the worst.

‘I’m very disappointed in you, Rachel, you’ve really changed, you’ve completely let yourself go. In my house, we don’t . . .’

‘Well, I’m delighted to say that you clearly haven’t changed at all. But may I remind you that we are not in your house, this is my house . . .’

With that, dinner came screeching to a halt. My mother-in-law stormed off spluttering, her daughter threw her napkin in my face and went after her. A minute later, the front door banged as though a hurricane had ripped it from its hinges, the whole house shook. I sat on my own, finishing my dinner, delighted at the thought that I had spared at least a few rattlesnakes.

The next morning, there was a shitstorm waiting for me at the office. Another one. It never rains but it pours. I was summoned to see the boss and, from his secretary’s tone, I knew he was going to tear me off a strip. I’d been expecting it. It was all over the office, people had been talking behind my back for months. Whenever I walked into a room, everyone suddenly changed the subject. I was worried, but not too worried. My boss, Monsieur Candela, is a friend, he’s like a brother, he was the one who hired me, who showed me the ropes, and whenever this magnificent money-making machine kicked me in the balls, he was the one who helped me up again. We had two things in common: Nantes, where both of us had studied and where he had once taught fluid mechanics, and Algeria, his birthplace and that of all his tribe going back generations to some distant Basque forefather. He decided to hire me the minute he saw my CV. He needed a fellow student, a fellow countryman to help him run his kingdom: the largest sales force in Europe and Africa. And he needed a talented engineer, something I believed I could become. I was twenty-four, I had a brand-new degree and a head full of new ideas. The job was a gift, I had made a good friend and had the prospect of travelling a lot. Six months later, I moved into our dream house and – with her mother’s rose-tinted blessing – I married Ophélie, the only girl I’ve ever loved. They were good times, our feet only ever touched the ground when we needed to walk somewhere.