I went to the library; asked for the archives. They have every issue of Ouest-France, stored on disk and microfilm. I began last night, at six o’clock. Searched for two hours, then went to work. Tomorrow I’ll do the same – and again – until I find whatever it is. That place is the key – Les Laveuses, by the Loire. And once I have it, who knows what secrets that key may unlock?
My mind keeps going back to Annie. I’ll ask, she promised me last night. But to ask for help, there must be a need – a genuine need far beyond the petty annoyances of the Lycée Jules Renard. Something to throw caution to the wind and to send both of them running into the arms of their good friend Zozie.
I know what they fear.
But what do they need?
This afternoon, alone in the shop while Vianne took Rosette for a walk, I went upstairs to explore her things. Delicately, you understand – my object is not simple theft, but something infinitely more far-reaching. As it turns out, she doesn’t have much: a wardrobe more elementary than my own; a framed picture on the wall (probably bought from the marché aux puces); a patchwork bedspread (I’d guess home-made); three pairs of shoes – all black, how dull is that? And finally, under the bed, gold: a wooden box the size of a shoe-box, filled with assorted junk.
Not that Vianne Rocher would think it so. I’m used to living out of boxes and bags; and I know that these people gather no moss. The things inside the wooden box are the jigsaw pieces of her life; things she could never leave behind; her past, her life, her secret heart.
I opened it with the greatest of care. Vianne is secretive, which makes her suspicious. She’ll know the precise arrangement of every piece of paper, every object, every thread, every scrap, every particle of dust. She’ll know if something has been disturbed; but I have an excellent visual memory, and I do not mean to disturb anything.
Out they come, one by one. Vianne Rocher in abridgement. First, a set of Tarot cards – nothing special, just the Marseille pack, but clearly well-used and yellowed with age.
Underneath, there are documents – passports in the name of Vianne Rocher and a birth certificate for Anouk of the same surname. So Anouk has become Annie, I thought; as Vianne became Yanne. No papers for Rosette, which is odd, but an out-of-date passport in the name of Jeanne Rocher, that I guess may have belonged to Vianne’s mother. From her photograph I can see that she doesn’t look a lot like Vianne – but then, Anouk doesn’t look much like Rosette. A piece of faded ribbon, on which hangs a lucky charm in the shape of a cat. A couple of photographs come next – barely a dozen in all. In them I recognize a younger Anouk; a younger Vianne; a younger Jeanne in black-and-white. All carefully stored and secured with a ribbon, along with some rather old letters and a thin wedge of newspaper clippings. Carefully flicking through, cautious of yellowed edges and brittle folds, I recognize an account of the chocolate festival in Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, taken from a local paper. Much the same as what I have already seen, but the photograph is larger, and shows Vianne with two other people – a man and a woman, she long-haired and wearing some kind of tartan coat, he smiling with discomfort in the camera’s eye. Friends, perhaps? There are no names in the article.
Next, a clipping from a Paris newspaper, crisp and brown as a dead leaf. I’m afraid to open it out, but I can already see that it concerns the disappearance of a young child, a Sylviane Caillou, snatched from her car seat more than thirty years ago. Next, a more recent clipping, an account of a freak tornado in Les Laveuses, a tiny village on the Loire. Strangely trivial things, you might think, but important enough to Vianne Rocher for her to bring them with her all this way, over so many years, and to hide them in this little box – untouched for some time, or so I’d guess from the layer of dust . . .
So these are your ghosts, Vianne Rocher. Strange, how very modest they seem. My own are more impressive; but then again, I find that modesty is a very second-rate virtue. You could have done so much better, Vianne. With my help, perhaps you still can.
I sat at my laptop for hours last night, drinking coffee, watching the neon lights from outside and going over the question again and again. Nothing more on Les Laveuses; nothing more on Lansquenet. I was beginning to believe Vianne Rocher as elusive a creature as myself, a castaway on the rock of Montmartre; without a past; impregnable.
Absurd, of course. Nothing’s impregnable. But with all the direct lines of enquiry exhausted, only one avenue remained, and this was what kept me wondering until late into the night.
It’s not that I was afraid, of course. But these things can be so unreliable, raising more questions than they answer – and if Vianne suspected what I’d done, then any chance I had of getting close to her was gone.
Still, taking risks is part of the game. It’s been a long time since I did any scrying – my System relies more on practical methods than bell, book and candle, and nine times out of ten you get quicker results from the internet. But this is a time for creativity.
A dose of cactus root, dried and powdered and infused in hot water, helps to achieve the required state of mind. This is pulque, the divine intoxicant of the Aztecs, reinvented a little for my own purpose. Then comes the sign of the Smoking Mirror, scrawled on the dusty floor at my feet. I sit down cross-legged with my laptop in front of me, turn on the screensaver to a suitably abstract theme, and wait for illumination.
My mother certainly wouldn’t have approved. She always favoured the traditional crystal ball in divination, though at a pinch she would accept the cheaper alternatives – magic mirrors or Tarot cards. Then again, she would – she stocked the things, after all – and if she ever experienced a genuine revelation from any of them, then I certainly never heard anything about it.
There are a number of popular myths about scrying. One is that you need special apparatus. You don’t. Just closing your eyes can be enough; although I rather like the images that come from watching a television set between stations, or the fractal patterns of my computer’s screensaver. It’s just a system like any other; a means of keeping the analytical left brain occupied with trivia, while the creative right brain looks for clues.
Then—
Just drift.
It’s a rather pleasant sensation; enhanced as the drug begins to take. It starts as a faint sense of dislocation; the air yawns around me, and although I do not avert my gaze from the screen I am aware that the room feels much larger than usual, the walls receding into the middle distance and booming, ballooning—
Breathing deeply, I think of Vianne.
Her face on the screen in front of me; sepia, like newsprint. Around me, a circle of lights, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. They draw me in, like fireflies.
What’s your secret, Vianne?
What’s your secret, Anouk?
What do you need?
The Smoking Mirror seems to shimmer. Perhaps this is the effect of the drug; a visual metaphor made real. A face appears on the screen ahead: Anouk, as clear as a photograph. Then Rosette, a paintbrush in hand. A faded postcard of the Rhône. A silver bangle, far too small for an adult to wear, with a dangling charm in the shape of a cat.
Now there comes a rush of air; a smash of applause; a swooping of invisible wings. I feel very close to something important. And now I can see it – the hull of a boat. A long, low boat, slow as they come. And a line of script, carelessly scrawled—
Who? I ask. Who, damn it?
No answer from the luminous screen. Only the sound of water, the hisshhh and hum of engines under the waterline, resolving slowly back into the dim whine of the laptop, the scroll of the screensaver, the incipient headache.
Hubble bubble, toil and—
As I said, as a method, it’s often unsound.
And yet, I have learnt something, I think. Someone’s coming. Someone’s getting closer. Someone from the past. Someone who means trouble.
One more strike should do it, Vianne. One more weakness to identify. Then the piñata will release its contents, and its treasures and secrets, Vian
ne Rocher’s life – not to mention that very talented child – will finally belong to me.
8
Wednesday, 28th November
THE FIRST LIFE I stole belonged to my mother. You always remember your first, you know; however inelegant the theft. Not that I thought of it as theft at the time; but I needed to escape, and my mother’s passport was lying unused, and her savings were wasting away in the bank—
I was barely seventeen. I could look older – and frequently did – or younger, if I needed to. People rarely see what they think they see. They see only what we want them to see – beauty, age, youth, wit, even forgettability, when the need arises – and I’d practised the art almost to perfection.
I took the hovercraft to France. They hardly glanced at my stolen passport. I’d planned it that way. A dab of make-up; a change of hairstyle and a coat belonging to my mother completed the illusion. The rest was all in the mind, as they say.
Of course in those days, security was lax. I crossed over with nothing of my own but a coffin and a pair of shoes – the first two charms on my bracelet – and found myself on the other side, speaking hardly any French, with no money but the six thousand pounds I’d managed to remove from my mother’s account.
I approached it as a challenge. I found myself a job in a small textiles factory on the outskirts of Paris. I shared a room with a co-worker: Martine Matthieu, from Ghana, aged twenty-four and awaiting her six-months’ work permit. I told her I was twenty-two; that I was Portuguese. She believed me – or I thought she did. She was friendly; I was alone. I trusted her. I dropped my guard. That was the one mistake I made. Martine was curious; went through my things and discovered my mother’s documents, hidden in my bottom drawer. I don’t know why I’d kept them at all. Carelessness, perhaps; or laziness or some misplaced sense of nostalgia. I certainly hadn’t meant to use that identity again. It was too closely linked to St Michael’s-on-the-Green – and it was my bad luck that Martine remembered it from some newspaper she’d read, and linked the photograph with me.
I was young, you understand. The very threat of the police was enough to send me into a panic. Martine knew it – and exploited the fact, to the tune of half my salary per week. It was extortion, pure and simple. I endured it – what else could I have done?
Well, I could have run away, I suppose. But even then I was stubborn. And most of all, I wanted revenge. So I paid Martine her weekly dues; was docile and cowed; bore her tempers; made her bed, cooked her dinner and generally bided my time. Then when her papers came through at last, I called in sick to work, and, in her absence, cleared the flat of everything that might be of use to me (including money, passport and ID), before reporting her, the sweatshop (and my other co-workers) to the Immigration Services.
Martine gave me my third charm. A silver pendant in the shape of a solar disc, which I easily adapted to my bracelet. By then I had the beginnings of a collection, and for every life I’ve collected since, I’ve added a new ornament. It’s a small vanity that I allow myself – a reminder of how far I’ve come.
I burnt my mother’s passport, of course. Quite apart from the unpleasant memories it brought back, it was far too incriminating for me to do otherwise. But that was my first recorded success, and if it taught me one thing, it’s this. There’s no room for nostalgia when lives are at stake.
Since then, their ghosts have pursued me in vain. Spirits can only move in straight lines (or so the Chinese believe), and the Butte de Montmartre is an ideal refuge with its steps and stairways and little winding streets, through which no phantom could find its way.
At least, that’s what I’m hoping. Once again last night’s evening paper showed a picture of Françoise Lavery. The picture was enhanced, perhaps; in any case it looks less grainy, although it still bears little resemblance to Zozie de l’Alba.
Enquiries, however, have since revealed that the ‘real’ Françoise died some time last year, in circumstances that now seem suspicious. Clinically depressed after her boyfriend left her, she died of an overdose that was judged accidental, but which may of course have been otherwise. Her flatmate, a girl by the name of Mercedes Desmoines, vanished soon after Françoise’s death, but she’d been gone for quite a long time before anyone suspected foul play.
Well, you know. There’s no helping some people. And really, I’d thought better of her. Those mousy types can often show unexpected inner strength – though not in her case. Poor Françoise.
Still, I don’t miss her. I like being Zozie. Everyone likes Zozie, of course – she is so much herself, you see – she doesn’t care what anyone thinks. So different from Miss Lavery that you could sit next to her on the Métro and never even see a hint of resemblance.
Still, just to be sure, I’ve dyed my hair. Black hair suits me, anyway. It makes me look French – or perhaps Italian – gives my skin a pearly quality and emphasizes the colour of my eyes. It’s a good look for who I am now – and it doesn’t hurt that men like it, too.
Passing the artists huddled beneath their umbrellas on the rainy Place du Tertre, I waved at Jean-Louis, who greeted me in his usual style.
‘Hey, it’s you!’
‘You never give up, do you?’ I said.
He grinned. ‘Would you? You’re gorgeous today. How about a quick profile? It’d look nice on the wall of your chocolate shop.’
I laughed. ‘Well, for one, it isn’t my shop. And for another – I might just consider sitting for you – but only if you try my hot chocolate.’
Well, that was that, as Anouk might say. Another victory for the chocolaterie. Jean-Louis and Paupaul both came in; bought chocolate and stayed for an hour, during which time Jean-Louis had not only finished my portrait, but also two more – one of a young woman who came in to buy truffles and quickly succumbed to his blandishments, the second a portrait of Alice, commissioned on impulse by Nico, dropping in for his usual.
‘Any room for an artist in residence?’ said Jean-Louis as he stood up to leave. ‘This place is amazing. It’s changed so much.’
I smiled. ‘I’m glad you like it, Jean-Louis. I hope everyone feels the same.’
Well, of course, I haven’t forgotten that Thierry comes back from his trip on Saturday. I’m afraid he’ll find things very different – poor, romantic Thierry, with his money and his quaint ideas about women.
It’s the orphan quality in Vianne that first attracted him, you know; the brave young widow fighting alone. Fighting, but not successfully; spirited, but ultimately vulnerable, Cinderella waiting for her prince to come.
That’s what he loves about her, of course. He fantasizes about rescuing her – from what, exactly? Does he know? Not that he would ever say so, or admit it, even to himself. It’s there in his colours: a supreme self-confidence – a good-natured but unshakeable belief in the combined power of his money and his charm – that Vianne mistakes for humility.
I wonder what he’ll make of it, now that her chocolaterie is a success?
I hope he won’t be disappointed.
9
Saturday, 1st December
TEXT MESSAGE FROM Thierry last night.
I’ve seen 100 fireplaces, but not 1 of them has warmed my heart. Could it B that I’m missing U?
See you tomorrow,
Love, T xx
It’s raining today; a fine ghostly rain turning to mist on the skirts of the Butte, but Le Rocher de Montmartre looks almost fairylike, gleaming out from the still, wet streets. Sales today surpassed all expectations, topping a dozen customers in a single morning, most of them occasionals, but with a few of our regulars as well.
It’s happened so fast – barely a fortnight – and already the change is astonishing. Perhaps it’s just the shop’s new look; or the scent of melting chocolate; or the window display that catches the eye.
In any case, our clientèle has multiplied, bringing in locals and tourists alike, and what began as an exercise to keep myself in practice is starting to become a serious occupation as Zozie and
I try to meet the growing demand for my range of hand-made chocolates.
We made close to forty boxes today. Fifteen of truffles (still selling well), but also a batch of coconut squares, some sour cherry gobstoppers, some bitter-coated orange peel, some violet creams and a hundred or so Lunes de miel, those little discs of chocolate made to look like the waxing moon, with her profile etched in white against the dark face.
It’s such a delight to choose a box; to linger over the shape – will it be heart-shaped, round or square? To select the chocolates with care; to see them nestled between the folds of crunchy mulberry-coloured paper; to smell the mingled perfumes of cream, caramel, vanilla and dark rum; to choose a ribbon; pick out a wrapping; to add flowers or paper hearts; to hear the silky whisssh of rice paper against the lid—
I’ve missed it so much since Rosette was born. The heat of the copper on the stove. The scent of melting couverture. The ceramic moulds, their shapes as familiar and well-loved as a family’s Christmas ornaments, passed down over generations. This star; this square; this circle. Each object has significance; each action, so many times repeated, contains a world of memories.
I have no photographs. No albums, no keepsakes, except for the few things in my mother’s box: the cards, some papers, the little cat charm. My memories are kept elsewhere. I can remember every scar, every scratch on a wooden spoon or a copper pan. This flat-sided spoon is my favourite; Roux carved it from a single piece of wood, and it fits my hand perfectly. This red spatula – it’s only plastic, but I’ve had it since I was a child – was a gift from a greengrocer in Prague; this small enamel pan with the chipped rim is the one I always used for Anouk’s hot chocolate, in the days when we could no more have forgotten that twice-daily ritual than curé Reynaud could have missed Communion.
The Lollipop Shoes Page 17
