I haven’t said how the rain put a sheen on the cobblestones that night of 10 May 1981, the night that gave Mitterrand the Élysée Palace. Montpellier had turned into a Chinese painting, all watery greys. There was a light, unpleasant wind. ‘All Shook Up’ was playing in a cafe where people were jiving. The dancers spilled out into a square that had a fountain and a tree. One of them was a woman with yellow taffeta petals around her head. Her skirt flew out like spray from the fountain. Pascal was flinging her about and pulling her near with polished ease. She still sends me a card every Christmas, Deb. It’s full of closely written news. Just as she’d planned, she got her pony and her three children – she got two of them with Angus and one with his best friend. She runs an organic farm in Kent and invites me to stay.

Late on election night, a crowd gathered at the lookout on the Promenade du Peyrou. When Lucio and I joined them, someone tapped my arm. I don’t think Felipe ever knew my name. The second time he spoke to me, it was as frank and impersonal as the first. I happened to be there, and the film that was always playing behind his eyes had been reversed at last. His sister was flying up from her well with her toes pointed, and Franco had never been born. ‘I’ve been waiting for this day all my life,’ Felipe said.

That was what the world looked like when I was twenty-two. We chanted, ‘They shall not pass!’ and believed that the monsters had been put to rout. All around me, people were striking matches and flicking on lighters that they raised high, hundreds of dithering little flames. ‘L’Internationale’ started up. Lucio sang in Italian, grandly off key. In the distance, tiny lights pinpricked a massive façade – the prisoners in Le Château were holding up matches at their windows. When I saw all those shaky lights answering one another across the dark, I thought of an orchard breathed into new life by white blossom. It was one of those puzzling connections suited to dreams, but I’ve never doubted that it was really there.

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COVER - LYLE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and lives in Sydney. Her fiction has attracted numerous awards. She is an honorary associate of the English Department at the University of Sydney, and Scary Monsters is her sixth novel.

The state is the coldest of all cold monsters.

Nietzsche

How does it feel to be a problem?

W.E.B. Du Bois

WHO DECIDES HOW TO READ A NOVEL?

This one can be read in two ways and this e-book provides you with both. In one version, LILI precedes LYLE. In the other, LYLE precedes LILI.