“You’re just not going.”

Séverine realizes it’s really stupid to argue that Céline should stay. With any luck, Manuel will hang out with Patrick after work; she often gives him grief because of it but, in truth, she quite likes it – to be alone and then give him grief. She wonders if she still has the power to stop her daughter from doing anything whatsoever without the support of paternal threat. She knows the answer.

Tears of rage appear in the corners of the teenager’s eyes. “I’m sixteen!”

“You’re sixteen and you’re staying right here. Have you seen what you look like, with that belly?”

“So? Is it stopping me from partying and seeing people?”

“You’re staying here, that’s it.”

Deep down, both mother and daughter know that Céline will go out anyway, through the window if she needs to. But at least they’re pretending – it’s important. Séverine turns to Jo, who’s sitting on the bed, knees bent up, elbows resting on them. “Who are you going with?”

Jo wants to say they’re going to the party in Saïd’s car just to piss her mother off but she actually hasn’t spoken to Saïd since the last time. She can’t totally forgive him for having run away and left her alone with her father and Patrick. But, above all, even though she has trouble admitting it, she doesn’t want to mess things up. As it is she’s a bit worried about turning up there with her sister, but Saïd on top of that… She keeps telling herself that in any case he’d be bored, so no point in risking it. “Garance’s sister is coming to pick me up in the car.”

“Here?”

“No, in the village,” Jo almost cries out, and there’s anxiety in her reply.

Séverine is hurt by this, and remembers that at the same age she, too, preferred to wait for her friends at the bottom of the path rather than in the farm kitchen, under the old people’s eyes. She wonders if she, too, is old now, and tightens her ponytail by parting it into two strands and pulling on them. “Stay the night there, if everybody’s drinking.”

Before she leaves the room, in a surge of emotion she can’t explain, Séverine strokes one of the scarlet feathers dangling at her eldest daughter’s ears. “They’re pretty. They suit you.”