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Marie-Thérèse and Raymond have just retired from a life-long career as nurses in Psychiatric Institutes. This should tell you a lot about them, not becauseof their former profession, but because it's the first thing I mentioned. Like describing a girl by starting by saying she's a blonde. Blondes are not statistically dumber than other girls, but by pointing out this particularity
when describing someone, this usually means that the person in question fits the usual stereotype associated with that particularity. This does apply here : they have spent way too much time in the company of the mentally unstable, and with free access to psychotropic medication.
This couple is so stupid, crass and ugly that if I hadn't had the misfortune of meeting them "in the flesh", I could easily believe that they were a creative invention of Roald Dahl. They remind me of the Twits, one of his short stories. But scarier and grosser because they actually exist. Marie-Thérèse is my husband's aunt, his mother's sister, and I have never seen two sisters so completely different. Paulette, the younger of the two, is soft, sweet and simple, she will believe whatever people tell her, do whatever is asked of her, and this is her bane, in a way, as her husband makes the most of this. But that is a whole separate story. Her older sister is an alcoholic, a pathological liar, and a cleptomaniac, she's selfish and manipulative, and above all, she's jealous of everything and everyone. She married Raymond, who turned out to be a perfect match, and they moved away from the family home in the south west of France for the suburbs of Paris, leaving her parents alone with Paulette. Of course, this was a situation that Marie-Thérèse was incredibly jeaolous of, although it was her decision, as Paulette then got all the attention. When she in turn married and left home for a nearby village, there was no end to the reproaches she would rain dowxn on her younger sister. She had no right to be nearer, it was not fair, she was spoilt and of course she only had her eyes on the inheritance... All this was completely lost on Paulette, not only because she had married out of love and nothing more, but also because her parents had nothing much to leave behind, they did not own a house, or even a car... Over the years, Marie-Thérèse's bitterness grew and grew. She phoned her sister every week or so (and stil does), to criticize her and put her down, gloating when her husband's farm went bankrupt, and when he was admitted to rehab for alcoholism. Quarrels about her divided the family up into those who were still speaking to her and those who weren't and therefore weren't speaking to those who still were. All this went on in a very adult and mature fashion, obviously. The first time I met her was one blisteringly hot summer at her parents' (my husband's grandparents) house in the Lot. Every time she visited them, they spent weeks recovering from acute fatigue, because her favourite occupation when there was rummaging through everything as soon as her parents turned their backs, apparently searching for the "stash" where all the gold bars and tons of cash must be hidden. That and drinking herself senseless before lunch. Over one week, between her husband and herself they emptied 6 crates of 12 bottles of red wine, not counting the bottles of spirits. So, having foolishly not checked if she was there before arriving, my husband and I ended up having to force a smile and not run away right away. Being English, I was granted a friendly "Oh, so you speak English eh, you do know that's not a real language, right ?" and other lovely things (did I forget to mention that they are both patented racists ?) and then they moved on to small talk. They were on holiday with two of their grandchildren, twins boys, aged 11 and... 11. We were actually quite glad of that, as it meant we were able to steer the conversation on to Pokémon instead of listening to their drivel. At one point, we remarked on the trial of driving long distances with two lively kids in the back. She gave a big smile and said that with her, they were always good and quiet. She then added that with a couple of Tranxene each, they were a lot more manageable. We left shortly after that, and later heard that she had tried to cure her 80-year-old father's summer cold with a couple of Valium pills. When the ambulance arrived, they said she very nearly killed him.
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