‘Well, I know you want to run the shop, but surely you don’t need to be there all the time? There’d be all kinds of things to do instead. We’d be free to travel, to see the world . . .’
‘I’ve seen it,’ she said, a little too fast, and Thierry gave her a funny look.
‘Well, I hope you don’t expect me to move in above the chocolaterie,’ he said, with a grin to show he was joking. He wasn’t, though; I could tell from his voice.
Maman said nothing and looked away.
‘Well, what about you, Annie?’ he said. ‘I bet you’d like to travel the world. How about America? Wouldn’t that be cool?’
I hate it when he says ‘cool’. I mean, he’s old – he’s fifty at least – and I know he tries, but it’s just so embarrassing, don’t you think?
When Zozie says ‘cool’, it’s as if she means it. It’s as if she actually invented the word. America would be cool with Zozie in it. Even the chocolaterie looks cooler now, with the gilt mirror in front of the old glass case, and her lollipop shoes in the window like magic slippers filled with treasure.
If Zozie was here, she’d sort him out, I thought, remembering the Jeanne Moreau waitress in the English tea-shop. Then I felt bad – almost as if I’d done something wrong, as if just thinking about it might cause an Accident.
Zozie wouldn’t care about that, said the shadow-voice inside my head. Zozie would just do as she pleased. And would that be so bad? I thought. Well, of course it would. But all the same . . .
This morning as I was getting ready for school I caught Suze looking into the new shop window, nose pigged up against the glass. She ran off as soon as she saw me – we’re still not really talking right now – but for a minute I felt so bad that I had to sit down on one of the old armchairs Zozie brought in from somewhere, and imagine Pantoufle sitting there listening, with his black eyes shining in his whiskery face.
You know, it isn’t even that I like her that much. But she was so nice, when I was new; she used to come to the chocolaterie and we’d talk, or watch TV, or go to the Place du Tertre and watch the artists, and once she bought me a pink enamelled pendant from one of the stalls there, a little cartoon dog with Best Friend written on it.
It was only a cheap thing, and I’ve never liked pink, but I’d never had a Best Friend, either – not a real one anyway. It was nice; it made me feel good just having it, even though I haven’t worn it for ages.
And then Chantal came along.
Perfect, popular Chantal with her perfect blonde hair and her perfect clothes and that way she has of sneering at everything. Now Suze wants to be exactly like her, and I’m just the one who stands in when Chantal has something better to do, or, more often, I’m just a convenient stooge.
It isn’t fair. Who decides these things? Who was it decided that Chantal deserved to be the popular one, even though she never raised a finger for anyone, or cared about anyone but her little self? What makes Jean-Loup Rimbault more popular than Claude Meunier? And what about the others? Mathilde Chagrin, or those girls in their black headscarves? What is it about them that makes them freaks? What is it about me?
I was talking in my shadow-voice, and I didn’t notice Zozie come in. She can be very quiet sometimes, you know, quieter even than me, which was odd because today she was wearing the kind of clacky wooden-soled clog-things that you can’t help making a noise with. Except that these were fuchsia-pink, which made them kind of fabulous.
‘Who was that you were talking to?’
I hadn’t realized I’d said it aloud.
‘No one. Just me.’
‘Well, there’s no harm in that.’
‘I guess.’ I still felt awkward sitting there; very conscious of Pantoufle watching, quite real today actually with his stripy nose going up and down just like a proper rabbit’s. I see him more clearly when I’m upset – that’s why I shouldn’t talk to myself. Besides, Maman always says that it’s important to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. It’s when you can’t tell the difference that Accidents happen.
Zozie smiled and made a little sign, a bit like an ‘OK’ sign, with her thumb and index finger joined to make a circle. She looked at me through the circle, and then she dropped her hand again. ‘You know, I often talked to myself as a kid. Or rather, to my invisible friend. I used to talk to her all the time.’
I don’t know why I was so surprised. ‘You?’
‘Her name was Mindy,’ Zozie said. ‘My mother said she was a spirit guide. Of course, my mother believed in all those things. In fact, she believed in pretty much everything – crystals, dolphin magic, alien abduction, the Yeti – you name it, my mother was a believer.’ She grinned. ‘Still, some of it works – doesn’t it, Nanou?’
I didn’t know what to say to that. Some of it works – what did that mean? It made me feel uncomfortable – but a little excited at the same time. Because this wasn’t just a coincidence, or an Accident, like what had happened in the English tea-shop. Zozie was talking about real magic, talking quite openly, as if it was really true and not some kids’ game I’d had to grow out of.
Zozie believed.
‘I have to go.’ I picked up my bag and made for the door.
‘You say that so often. What is it? A cat?’ She shut one eye and looked at me once more through the circle of her thumb and forefinger.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said.
‘Little guy, big ears.’
I looked at her. She was still smiling.
I knew I shouldn’t talk about it. Talking only makes things worse – but I didn’t want to lie to Zozie. Zozie never lies to me.
I sighed. ‘He’s a rabbit. He’s called Pantoufle.’
‘Cool,’ said Zozie.
And that was that.
3
Friday, 16th November
STRIKE TWO. AND I’m in again. All it takes is a well-placed blow, and the piñata begins to weaken and split. The mother is the weak link; and with Yanne on my side, Annie follows as sweetly as summer follows spring.
That lovely child. So young, so bright. I could do great things with such a child – if only her mother were out of the way. But one thing at a time, eh? The mistake now would be to push my advantage too far. The child is still cautious, and may still withdraw if I press too hard. And so I’ll wait, and work on Yanne, and to tell the truth I’m enjoying it. A single mother, with a business to run and a young child constantly underfoot – trust me to become indispensable, to become her confidante, her friend. She needs me; Rosette, with her endless curiosity and her knack for getting into all the wrong places, will give me all the excuse I need.
Rosette intrigues me more and more. So small for her age, with that pointed face and widely spaced eyes, she might almost be a kind of cat, scuttling about the floor on her hands and knees (a technique she prefers to walking upright), poking her fingers into holes in the wainscoting, repeatedly opening and closing the kitchen door, or making long and complicated arrangements of small objects on the floor. She must be watched at all times, for although she is usually quite good, she seems to have no sense of danger, and when she becomes upset or frustrated, may sometimes indulge in violent (though often soundless) tantrums, swaying wildly from side to side, sometimes to the point of striking her head against the floor.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ I asked Annie.
She looked at me warily, as if calculating whether it was safe to tell. ‘No one really knows,’ she said. ‘A doctor saw her once, you know, when she was just a little baby. He said it might be something called cri-du-chat, but he wasn’t sure, and we never went back.’
‘Cri-du-chat?’ It sounds like a mediaeval affliction, something brought on by the cry of a cat.
‘She made this noise. Just like a cat. I used to call her the Cat Baby.’ She laughed, and quickly looked away, almost guiltily, as if just talking about it might be somehow dangerous. ‘She’s all right really,’ said Annie. ‘She’s just different, that’s a
ll.’
Different. That word again. Like Accident, it seems to hold a special resonance for Annie, something more than its everyday meaning. Certainly, she is accident-prone. But I sense that this means something other than pouring paint-water into her wellingtons, or putting toast slices into the video player, or poking her fingers into the cheese to make holes for invisible mice.
Accidents happen when she’s around. Like the Murano dish that I could swear was broken, though now I’m not sure at all. Or the lights that sometimes switch on and off, even when there’s no one there. Of course, that might simply be the eccentric wiring of a very old house. I may have imagined the rest of it. Then again, may and might never made a wrong thing right, as my mother used to say, and I’m not in the habit of imagining things.
The past few days have been busy for us. A bustle of cleaning, restructuring and ordering of stock, with all Yanne’s copper pans and moulds and ceramics to bring out of storage – in spite of her careful packing many of the pans were tarnished and spotted with verdigris, and as I looked after the front of the shop, Yanne spent hours in the kitchen, polishing and cleaning until at last every piece was done.
‘It’s only for fun,’ she keeps saying, as if slightly ashamed of her enjoyment, as of some childish habit she should have outgrown. ‘It’s not really serious, you know.’
Well, it looks serious enough from where I’m standing. No game could be so meticulously planned.
She buys only the best couverture, from a fair trade supplier down near Marseille, and pays for it all in cash. A dozen blocks of each kind, to begin with, she says; but I already know from her eager response that a dozen blocks will not be enough. She used to make all her own stock, so she tells me, and though I’ll admit I didn’t quite believe it at first, the way she has thrown herself back into the business tells me that she was not exaggerating.
The process is deft and peculiarly therapeutic to watch. First comes the melting and tempering of the raw couverture: that process which enables it to leave its crystalline state and take on the glossy, malleable form necessary to make the chocolate truffles. She does it all on a granite slab, spreading out the melted chocolate like silk and gathering it back towards her using a spatula. Then it goes back into the warm copper, the process to be repeated until she declares it done.
She rarely uses the sugar thermometer. She has been making chocolates for so long, she tells me, that she can simply sense when the correct temperature has been reached. I believe her; certainly over the past three days I have been watching her, she has never produced a less than flawless batch. During that time I have learnt to observe with a critical eye: to check for streaks in the finished product; for the unappealing pale bloom that denotes incorrectly tempered chocolate; for the high gloss and sharp snap that are the indicators of good-quality work.
Truffles are the simplest to make, she tells me. Annie could make them when she was four, and now it is Rosette’s turn to try, solemnly rolling out the truffle balls across the cocoa-dusted baking sheet, face smeared, a bright-eyed racoon in melted chocolate . . .
For the first time, I hear Yanne laughing aloud.
Oh, Yanne. That weakness.
Meanwhile, I’m practising some tricks of my own. It’s in my interest for this place to do well, and I have worked hard to enhance its appeal. In view of Yanne’s sensitivity, I have had to be discreet; but the symbols of Cinteotl, the Ear of Maize, and the Cacao Bean of Lady Blood Moon, scratched under the lintel of the doorway and embedded into the front step, should ensure that our little business thrives.
I know their favourites, Vianne. I can read it in their colours. And I know that the florist’s girl is afraid; that the woman with the little dog blames herself; and that the fat young man who never shuts up will be dead before he is thirty-five if he does not make an effort to lose some weight.
It’s a gift, you know. I can tell what they need. I can tell what they fear; I can make them dance.
Had my mother done the same, she would never have struggled as she did; but she mistrusted my practical magic as ‘interventionist’, and hinted that such misuse of my skills was at best selfish, and, at worst, doomed to bring terrible retribution on both of us.
‘Remember the Dolphin Creed,’ she said. ‘Meddle ye not, lest the Way be forgot.’ Of course the Dolphin Creed was awash with this kind of sentiment – but by then my own System was well under construction, and I had long since decided that not only had I forsaken the Dolphin Way, but also that I was born to be a meddler.
The question is, where to begin? Will it be with Yanne or Annie? Laurent Pinson or Madame Pinot? There are so many lives here, intertwined; each one with its secrets, dreams, ambitions, hidden doubts, dark thoughts, forgotten passions, unspoken desires. So many lives just there for the taking; there for the tasting, for someone like me.
The girl from the florist’s came in this morning. ‘I saw the window,’ she whispered. ‘It looks so nice – I couldn’t help just looking in.’
‘It’s Alice, isn’t it?’ I said.
She nodded, looking round with small-animal wariness at the new displays.
Alice, we know, is painfully shy. Her voice is a wisp; her hair, a shroud. Her kohl-rimmed eyes, which are rather beautiful, peep out from beneath a mass of white-bleached fringe, and her arms and legs poke out awkwardly from a blue dress that might once have belonged to a ten-year-old.
Her shoes are enormous platform boots that look far too heavy for her little stick-legs. Her favourite is milk chocolate fudge, though she always buys the plain dark squares because they contain only half the calories. Her colours are gilded with anxiety.
‘Something smells good,’ she said, sniffing the air.
‘Yanne’s making chocolates,’ I told her.
‘Making them? She can do that?’
I sat her down in the old armchair I found in a skip down Rue de Clichy. It’s shabby, but quite comfortable; and like the shop, I intend to make something of it within the next few days.
‘Try one,’ I said. ‘It’s on the house.’
Her eyes gleamed. ‘I shouldn’t, you know.’
‘I’ll cut it in half. We’ll share it,’ I said, perching on the arm of the chair. So easy to scratch the seductive sign of the Cacao Bean with my fingernail; so easy to watch her through the Smoking Mirror as she pecked at her truffle like a baby bird.
I know her well. I’ve seen her before. An anxious child; always aware of not being good enough, of not being entirely like the others. Her parents are good people, but they are ambitious, they are demanding; they make it plain that failure is not an option, that nothing can ever be too good for them and for their little girl. One day, she misses dinner. It makes her feel good – emptied, somehow, of all the fears that weigh her down. She misses breakfast, dizzy with that new, exhilarating feeling of control. She tests herself and finds herself wanting. Rewards herself for being so good. And here she is now – such a good girl, trying so hard – twenty-three and still looks thirteen, and still not quite good enough, still not quite there—
She finished the truffle. ‘Mmmm,’ she said.
I made sure she saw me eat one too.
‘It must be so hard, working here.’
‘Hard?’ I said.
‘I mean, dangerous.’ She flushed a little. ‘I know that sounds stupid, but that’s how I’d feel. Having to look at chocolates all day – handling chocolates – and always with the smell of chocolate . . .’ She was losing some of her shyness now. ‘How do you do it? How come you’re not just eating chocolates all day long?’
I grinned. ‘What makes you think I don’t?’
‘You’re thin,’ said Alice. (In fact I could easily give her fifty pounds.)
I laughed. ‘Forbidden fruits,’ I said. ‘So much more tempting than the ordinary kind. Here, have another.’
She shook her head.
‘Chocolate,’ I said. ‘Theobroma cacao, the food of the gods. Make it with pure ground cocoa beans, chil
lies, cinnamon and just enough sugar to take away the bitterness. That’s how the Mayans used to make it, over two thousand years ago. They used it in ceremonies to give themselves courage. They gave it to their sacrificial victims just before they ripped out their hearts. And they used it in orgies that lasted for hours.’
She stared at me with widened eyes.
‘So you see – it can be dangerous.’ I smiled. ‘Better not to have too much.’
I was still smiling when she left the shop with a box of twelve truffles in her hand.
Meanwhile, from another life—
Françoise Lavery made the papers. Seems I was wrong about the bank’s camera footage: the police got a fairly good set of pictures of my last visit, and some colleague or other recognized Françoise. Of course, further investigation proved that there was no Françoise and that her story was fake from beginning to end. The results are somewhat predictable. A rather grainy staff photograph of the suspect appeared in the evening paper, followed by several editorials, suggesting that she might have had more sinister motives for her imposture than money. It was even possible, gloated Paris-Soir, that she may have been a sexual predator, targeting young boys.
As if, as Annie would say. Still, it makes for a good headline, and I expect to see that photograph several times more before its newsworthiness fades. Not that it troubles me at all. No one would see Zozie de l’Alba in that mousy little piece of work. In fact most of my colleagues would have been hard-put to see Françoise herself – glamours don’t transfer well to celluloid, which is why I never tried for a career in the movies, and the photograph looks less like Françoise and more like a girl I used to know, the girl who was always It at St Michael’s-on-the-Green.
I don’t often think about that girl now. Poor girl, with her bad skin and her freak mother with the feathers in her hair. What chance did she have?
Well, she had the same chance everyone has; the chance you’re dealt the day you are born, the only chance. And some spend their lives making excuses, and blaming the cards, and wishing they’d had better ones, and some of us just play the hand, and up the stakes, and use every trick, and cheat where we can—
The Lollipop Shoes Page 11
