Part one

Every Monday, he put forty euros on the kitchen table, in a white envelope on which he had written “Shopping” in his beautiful slanting handwriting.

Forty euros for the week. Bread, milk, fruit, the ham for his sandwiches. Everything else he paid for himself, with his card. On Friday evening, I had to give him back the envelope with the receipts inside and the change. He counted it all again on the table, his glasses on the end of his nose. If a euro was missing, he asked why.

My name is Véronique. I live in Dinant, on the left bank, in a house overlooking the Meuse and the collegiate church. I’m forty-six. And until October last year, I had never had a bank card in my own name.

My husband’s name is Philippe. Everyone in Dinant likes him. He’s been a town councillor for twelve years, chairman of the football club, he knows the first name of every shopkeeper on Rue Grande. When we walk along the riverside together, it takes us twenty minutes to cover a hundred metres, because everyone wants to shake his hand.

He never hit me. Not once in twenty-two years. That’s what I answered, in my head, whenever a little voice told me something wasn’t right.

At first, it was almost romantic.

We had married young. I was a sales assistant in a clothes shop in Namur, and he was starting out at an insurance broker’s. When Manon was born, he said: “Stay at home, I earn enough for two. And you’ve never been good with numbers, darling. Let me handle it, it’s to protect you.”

It’s true that I didn’t like numbers. So I said yes. I signed a few papers at the bank without reading them. He closed my old account “to make things simpler”. He kept my identity card in his desk drawer, “so you don’t lose it”.

And then, little by little, my life went into a white envelope.

If I wanted to buy a jumper, I had to ask. He often said yes. But he came with me, he chose the colour, and he paid. If I wanted to give my sister a present, he said: “We can’t afford it this month.” Then he went off for three days on a training camp with the club in Blankenberge.

Once, I bought a six-euro book at the bookshop on Place Reine Astrid with the shopping money. On Friday, he saw the receipt. He didn’t shout. Philippe never shouts. He just put the receipt on the table, looked at me for a long time, and said softly:

“I work ten hours a day, Véronique. And you buy novels.”

I cried in the bathroom. Then I apologised. I was the one who apologised.

Manon is nineteen. She’s studying social work in Namur. She comes home to Dinant at weekends.

One Saturday in October, the two of us were in the kitchen. I was peeling apples for a compote. I didn’t have enough money in the envelope to buy sugar, so I’d taken some rather sour apples from the garden and was going to do without.

Manon watched me. Then she said, very calmly:

“Mum. You do know that what Dad does to you is abuse?”

I nearly cut myself.

“What are you talking about? Your father has never laid a finger on me.”

“I know. We had a lecture about it this week. It’s called economic abuse. Controlling someone’s money, stopping them having an account, checking every expense, isolating them. The lecturer made a list on the board, Mum. I ticked everything. Everything.”

She took a piece of paper out of her pocket, folded in four. A number was written on it: 0800 30 030.

“It’s free, it’s anonymous. You don’t have to call. But keep it.”

I didn’t answer. I put the paper in my apron pocket. When Philippe came back from the match, I served the compote without sugar. He pulled a face and said: “You could have made an effort.”

That night, I didn’t sleep. I kept repeating Manon’s words to myself. Abuse. That word couldn’t be for me. I had a lovely house, a respected husband, a wonderful daughter.

But I didn’t have a single euro of my own.

The following Tuesday, I called the number from my sister’s phone, in Anseremme. I didn’t dare use mine: Philippe managed the contract and could see every call.

A woman listened to me for forty minutes. She didn’t tell me what to do. She just asked me one question at the end:

“Madame, do you know what’s in your name?”

I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything.

On Thursday, Philippe had a council meeting. I knew he’d be home late. I waited until he’d gone, opened his desk drawer, took my identity card, and walked to a bank where he had no account, near the Charles de Gaulle bridge. I was so frightened I was shaking. I thought everyone in the street could see what I was doing.

The adviser was called Madame Hubin. A woman my age, with red glasses and a tired smile. I told her I wanted to open an account. An account in my name, just mine. With a card.

“Of course,” she said. “Is this your first account?”

“No. I had one, twenty years ago. My husband closed it.”

She looked up at me. She didn’t say anything, but I could see she had understood. She took my identity card and typed my national number into her computer. To check, she said, that I wasn’t on the National Bank’s register. A simple formality.

Then she stopped smiling.

She looked at the screen for a long time. She scrolled down. She took off her red glasses and put them back on.

“Madame,” she said very quietly. “I can’t open an account for you today.”

She turned the screen towards me.

“There’s something you need to see.”