I had to tell her. This has to stop. It isn’t her fault; but I cannot allow it to go on. The Kindly Ones are still on our trail, blind as yet but horribly persistent. I can feel them coming through the mists; combing the air with their long fingers, alert to the smallest gleam and glamour.
‘I know you’re trying to help,’ I said. ‘But we can manage on our own . . .’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘You know what I mean.’ I couldn’t quite say it. Instead I touched a chocolate box, traced a mystic spiral on the lid.
‘Oh, I see. That kind of help.’ She looked at me curiously. ‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘We’re the same, you and I.’
‘We are not the same!’ My voice was too loud, and I was shaking. ‘I don’t do those things any more. I’m normal. I’m boring. Ask anyone.’
‘Whatever.’ It’s Anouk’s favourite word at present – punctuated by that whole-body shrug that teenage girls use to signify disapproval. It was deliberately comic – but I didn’t feel like laughing.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know you mean well. But children – they pick these things up. It starts as a game, then it gets out of hand.’
‘Is that what happened? Did it get out of hand?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, Zozie.’
She sat down beside me. ‘Come on, Vianne. It can’t be so bad. You can tell me.’
And now I could see the Kindly Ones; their faces; their grasping hands. I could see them behind Zozie’s face, hear their voices, coaxing, reasonable and so very kind—
‘I’ll manage,’ I said. ‘I always do.’
Oh, you liar.
Roux’s voice again, so clear that I almost looked for him. There are too many ghosts in this place, I thought. Too many rumours of other-when, other-where, and worst of all, what-else-might-have-been.
Go away, I told him silently. I’m someone else now. Leave me be.
‘I’ll manage,’ I repeated, with the ghost of a smile.
‘Well, if ever you need me . . .’
I nodded. ‘I’ll ask.’
6
Monday, 26th November
SUZANNE WASN’T IN school again today. She’s supposed to have flu, but Chantal says it’s because of her hair. Not that Chantal talks to me much, but since I made friends with Jean-Loup, she’s been nastier than ever, if that’s at all possible.
She talks about me all the time. My hair, my clothes, my habits. Today I wore my new shoes (plain, quite nice, but not Zozie) and she went on about them all day, asking me where I’d bought them, and how much they’d cost, and sniggering (hers are from some place along the Champs-Elysées, and I don’t believe even her mother would have paid that much), and asking where I had my hair cut, and how much that cost, and sniggering again—
I mean, what’s the point? I asked Jean-Loup, and he said she must be very insecure. Well, perhaps that’s true. But it’s been nothing but trouble since last week. Books going missing from out of my desk; my schoolbag knocked over and my things ‘accidentally’ kicked all over the floor. People I’ve always rather liked suddenly don’t want to sit next to me any more. And yesterday I saw Sophie and Lucie playing a stupid game with my chair, pretending there were bugs on it, trying to sit as far away from where I’d been sitting as possible, as if there was something disgusting there.
And then we had basketball, and I hung all my clothes in the locker room as usual, and when I got there afterwards, someone had taken my new shoes, and I looked for them all over the place, until at last Faridah pointed them out, all scuffed and dusty behind the radiator, and although I couldn’t prove it was Chantal, I knew.
I just knew.
Then she started on the chocolate shop.
‘I hear it’s very nice,’ she said. That snigger of hers, as if nice were some kind of secret code word that only she and her friends could understand. ‘What’s it called?’
I didn’t want to say, but I did.
‘Ooooo – nice,’ said Chantal, and they sniggered again, that little group of friends she has: Lucie and Danielle and the other hangers-on, like Sandrine, who used to be really nice to me, but who only talks to me now when Chantal isn’t around.
All of them look a bit like her now; as if being Chantal could be something catching, like a glamorous kind of measles. All of them have the same ironed hair, cut into layers with a little flick at the very ends. All of them wear the same scent (this week it’s Angel), and the same shade of pearly pink lipstick. I’ll die if they turn up at the shop. I know I will. I’ll actually die. To have them staring and giggling – at me, at Rosette, at Maman with her arms gloved in chocolate to the elbow and that hopeful look – are these your friends?
Yesterday, I told Zozie.
‘Well, you know what to do. It’s the only way, Nanou; you have to confront them. You have to fight back.’
I knew she’d say that. Zozie’s a fighter. But there are some things you can’t do just with attitude. Of course, I know I look a lot better since we talked. Most of it’s about standing up straight and practising that killer smile; but I wear what I like now, rather than what Maman thinks I ought to wear, and although I stand out from the others more, I feel so much better, so much more me.
‘Well, that’s OK as far as it goes. But sometimes, Nanou, it’s not enough. I learnt that in school. You have to show them once and for all. If they use dirty tricks, then – you’ll just have to do the same.’
If only I could. ‘Hide her shoes, you mean?’
Zozie gave me one of her looks. ‘No, I do not mean hide her shoes!’
‘Then what?’
‘You know, Annie. You’ve done it before.’
I thought of that time at the bus queue, and Suze and her hair, and what I’d said—
That wasn’t me. I didn’t do that.
But then I remembered Lansquenet, and all the games we used to play; and Rosette’s Accidents; and Pantoufle; and what Zozie did in the English tea-shop; and the colours; and that little village by the Loire, with the little school, and the war memorial, and the sandbanks on the river, and the fishermen, and the café with the nice old couple, and – what was its name?
Les Laveuses, whispered the shadow-voice in my mind.
‘Les Laveuses,’ I said.
‘Nanou, what’s wrong?’
I felt suddenly dizzy, all at once. I sat down on a chair – printed all over with Rosette’s little hands and Nico’s big ones.
Zozie looked at me closely, her blue eyes narrowed and very bright.
‘There’s no such thing as magic,’ I said.
‘But there is, Nanou.’
I shook my head.
‘You know there is.’
And – just for a minute – I knew there was. It was exciting, but somehow terrifying as well, like walking along a very narrow windy ledge along a cliff-face, with the ocean milling and churning below and nothing but empty space between us.
I looked at her. ‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
I yelled: ‘It was an accident!’ My eyes felt gritty; my heart was racing; and all the time that wind, that wind—
‘OK, Nanou. It’s fine.’ She put her arms around me, and I hid my hot face against her shoulder. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’ll look after you. It’s going to be cool.’
And it was so good, lying against her shoulder with my eyes closed and the smell of chocolate all around us that for a while I really believed her – that things would be cool, that Chantal and Co. would leave me alone and that with Zozie around, nothing too bad would ever happen.
I suppose I knew they’d turn up one day. Maybe Suze told them where to find me – or maybe I did it myself, in the days when I thought it might help me make friends. All the same, it was a kind of shock. To see them all in there like that – they must have come by Métro, raced up the Butte to beat me to it, and
—
‘Hey, Annie!’ It was Nico, just leaving, with Alice at his side. ‘It’s quite a little party in there – some friends of yours from school, I think.’
I noticed he was looking a bit red. He’s big, of course, and too much exercise leaves him breathless, but that was when I started to feel uneasy, that redness in his colours as well as on his face that told me something bad was about to happen.
I nearly turned round there and then. It had been a rotten day: Jean-Loup had to go home at lunchtime – some kind of doctor’s appointment, I think – and to make it worse, Chantal had been getting at me all day, sneering at me and saying where’s your boyfriend? and talking about money, and all the things she was getting for Christmas.
Perhaps it was her idea to come. In any case, there she was, waiting for me when I got home. There they all were – Lucie, Danielle, Chantal and Sandrine – sitting down with four Cokes in front of them and giggling like maniacs.
I had to go in. There was nowhere to hide, and besides, what kind of person runs away? I muttered I’m fabulous under my breath, but to tell you the truth I didn’t feel fabulous at all; just tired, dry-mouthed and a bit sick. I wanted to sit in front of the television, watch some silly kids’ thing with Rosette, maybe read a book—
Chantal was talking as I came in. ‘Did you see the size of him?’ she was saying in a high voice. ‘Like a truck—’
She pretended to look surprised when I came in. As if.
‘Oooh, Annie. Was that your boyfriend?’
Sniggers all round.
‘Oooh, nice.’
I shrugged. ‘He’s a friend.’
Zozie was sitting behind the counter, pretending not to listen. She glanced at Chantal, then flicked me a questioning look with her eyes – Is this the one?
I nodded, relieved. I don’t know what I expected her to do – send them packing, maybe, or make them spill their drinks, as she had with the waitress in the English tea-shop, or just tell them go away—
And so I was astonished when, instead of staying to help, she just got up and said, ‘You sit and talk to your friends. I’ll be in the back if you want me. Have a lovely time. OK?’
And with that she left me – with a grin and a wink, as if she thought being thrown to the wolves was my idea of a lovely time.
7
Tuesday, 27th November
STRANGE, THAT RELUCTANCE to acknowledge her skills. You would have thought that a child like her would have given anything to be what she is. And that use of the word accident . . .
Vianne uses it too, referring to things unwanted or unexplained. As if there were any such thing in our world, where everything is linked to everything else, everything touching in small mystic ways, like skeins of silk in a tapestry. Nothing is ever an accident; nobody is ever lost. And we special ones – the ones who can see – moving through life collecting the threads, bringing them together, weaving little deliberate patterns of our own in the borders of the big picture—
How fabulous is that, Nanou? How fabulous, and subversive, and beautiful, and grand? Don’t you want to be a part of it? To find your own destiny in that tangle of threads – and to shape it – not by accident, but by design?
She found me in the kitchen five minutes later. By then she was pale with suppressed rage. I know how it feels; that sick-to-the-stomach, sick-to-the-soul, lurching sense of helplessness.
‘You have to make them go,’ she said. ‘I don’t want them here when Maman gets back.’
What she meant was I don’t want to give them any more ammunition.
I looked sympathetic. ‘They’re customers. What can I do?’
She looked at me.
‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘They’re your friends.’
‘They’re not!’
‘Oh. Then—’ I pretended to hesitate. ‘Then it wouldn’t be so much of an Accident if you and I – interfered a little.’
Her colours flared at the very thought. ‘Maman says it’s dangerous . . .’
‘Maman has her reasons, perhaps.’
‘What reasons?’
I shrugged. ‘Well, Nanou, adults sometimes withhold knowledge from their kids when they’re trying to protect them. And sometimes they’re not so much protecting the child as protecting themselves from the consequences of that knowledge . . .’
She looked puzzled at that. ‘You think she lied to me?’ she said.
It was a risk, I knew that. But I’ve taken my fair share of risks – and besides, she wants to be seduced. It’s the rebel in the soul of every good child; the desire to flaunt authority; to overthrow those little gods that call themselves our parents.
Annie sighed. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Oh, yes I do. You’re scared,’ I said. ‘You’re scared of being different. You think it makes you stand out.’
She thought about that for a while.
‘That’s not it,’ she said at last.
‘Then what?’ I said.
She looked at me. Behind the door to the shop I could hear the glassy, squealing voices of teenage girls up to no good.
I gave her my most sympathetic smile. ‘You know, they’re never going to leave you alone. They know where you are now. They could come back anytime. They’ve already had a go at Nico—’
I saw her flinch. I know how much she likes him.
‘Do you want them back here every night? Sitting there, laughing at you?’
‘Maman would make them go away,’ she said, though she didn’t sound too sure.
‘And then what?’ I said. ‘I’ve seen it happen. It happened to my mother and me. First the small things, the things we thought we could cope with – the practical jokes, the shoplifting, the graffiti on the shutters at night. You can live with those things if you have to, you know. It isn’t nice, but you can live with them. But it never stops there. They never give up. Dogshit on the doorstep; odd phone calls in the middle of the night; stones through the windows; and then one day, it’s petrol through the letter-box and everything goes up in smoke . . .’
I should know. It nearly happened. An occult bookshop attracts attention, especially when it’s out of the city centre. Letters to the local press; leaflets condemning Hallowe’en; even a small demonstration outside the shop, with hand-written placards and half a dozen right-thinking members of the parish campaigning like mad to close us down.
‘Didn’t that happen in Lansquenet?’
‘Lansquenet was different.’
Her eyes flickered towards the door. I could feel her working it out in her mind. It was close, I could feel it, like static in the air—
‘Do it,’ I said.
She looked at me.
‘Do it. I promise there’s nothing to be afraid of.’
Her eyes were bright. ‘Maman says—’
‘Parents don’t know everything. And sooner or later you’re going to have to learn to look after yourself. Go on. Don’t be a victim, Nanou. Don’t let them make you run away.’
She thought about that, but I could tell my words had not yet struck home.
‘There’s worse things than running away,’ she said.
‘Is that what your mother says? Is that why she changed her name? Is that why she’s made you so scared? Why won’t you tell me what happened in Les Laveuses?’
That struck closer. But not close enough. Her face took on the stubborn, self-contained look that adolescent girls do so well; the look that says, you can talk and talk—
So I gave her a nudge. Just a little one. Made my colours iridesce; reached for the secret, whatever it was—
And then I saw it – but fleetingly – a series of pictures like smoke on water.
Water. That’s it. A river, I thought. And a silver cat, a little cat charm – both of them lit with a Hallowe’en light. I reached again, almost touching it now – then—
BAM!
It was like leaning against an electrified fence. A jolt went through me, knocking me back. The smoke dispersed; the image brok
e up; every nerve in my body seemed to jangle with electricity. I sensed that it was quite unplanned – a release of pent-up energy like that of a child stamping its foot – but if I’d had even half that power when I was her age . . .
Annie was looking at me, fists clenched.
I smiled at her. ‘You’re good,’ I said.
She shook her head.
‘Oh, yes you are. You’re very good. Maybe better than me. A gift—’
‘Yeah, right.’ She spoke in a low, tense voice. ‘Some gift. I’d rather be good at dancing, or watercolours.’ A thought occurred to her, and she flinched. ‘You won’t tell Maman?’
‘Why should I?’ I said. ‘What? You think you’re the only one who can keep a secret?’
She studied my face for a long time.
Outside, I heard the wind-chimes ring.
‘They’ve gone,’ said Annie.
She was right; looking inside, I could see that the girls were gone, leaving only their scattered chairs, their half-empty Coke cans and a faint aroma of bubble gum and hairspray and the biscuity scent of teenage sweat.
‘They’ll be back,’ I said softly.
‘They might not,’ said Annie.
‘Well, if you need help . . .’
‘I’ll ask,’ she said.
Ask, ask. What am I, a fairy godmother?
I searched for Les Laveuses, of course, starting with the internet, and got nothing; not even a tourist information site, not the slightest reference to a festival or a chocolate shop. Looking further, a single mention of a local crêperie, quoted in a food magazine. The owner, a widow: Françoise Simon.
Could she have been Vianne under another name? It’s possible; though there is no mention in the piece of the woman herself. But a phone call later, and the thread has already run out. Françoise herself answers the phone. Her voice on the phone is dry and suspicious; the voice of a woman in her seventies. I tell her I am a journalist. She tells me that she has never heard of Vianne Rocher. Yanne Charbonneau? Likewise. Goodbye.
Les Laveuses is a tiny place, barely a village, I understand. It has a church, a couple of shops, the crêperie, the café, the war memorial. The land around is mostly farmland: sunflowers, maize and fruit trees. The river runs beside it like a long brown dog. A nothing place, or so you’d think – yet there’s something about it that resonates. Some gleam of memory – some squib in the news . . .
The Lollipop Shoes Page 16
