I began to feel increasingly impatient. There was something associated with this man, something that I needed to know. I could feel it, so close that it raised the hairs on the back of my neck, and yet—
Think, damn it.
A river. A bangle. A silver cat charm. No, I thought. That wasn’t quite right. A river. A boat. Anouk, Rosette—
‘You haven’t eaten your chocolate,’ I said. ‘You should try it, you know. It’s one of our specials.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’ He picked it up. The cactus sign of Xochipilli gleamed invitingly between his fingers. He lifted the truffle to his mouth; paused a moment, frowning, perhaps at the acrid scent of the chocolate, the dark, woodsy perfume of seduction—
Try me.
Test me.
Taste—
And then, just then as he was almost mine, there came a sound of voices at the door.
He dropped the chocolate and stood up.
The wind-chimes rang. The door opened.
‘Vianne,’ said Roux.
And now it was she who just stood and stared, the colour slipping from her face, her hands held out as if to avert some terrible collision.
Behind her, Thierry stood bewildered, sensing perhaps that something was wrong, but too self-absorbed to see the obvious. At her side, Rosette and Anouk, hand-in-hand, Rosette staring with fascination, Anouk’s face suddenly alight—
And Roux—
Taking everything in – the man, the child, the look of dismay, the ring on her finger – and now I could see his colours again, fading, dwindling, going back to that gas-jet blue of something turned down to its lowest flame.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just passing through. You know. My boat . . .’
He isn’t accustomed to lying, I thought. His pretence at lightness sounded forced, and his fists were clenched deep in his pockets.
Yanne just stared, her face a blank. No movement, no smile; just a mask, behind which I could glimpse the turbulence of her colours.
Anouk saved it. ‘Roux!’ she yelled.
That broke the tension. Yanne stepped forward, the smile on her face now part-fear, part-fake, part something else that I didn’t quite recognize.
‘Thierry, this is an old friend.’ She was flushing now, quite prettily, and the pitch of her voice might well have been excitement at meeting an old acquaintance (though her colours told me otherwise), and her eyes were bright and anxious. ‘Roux, from Marseille – Thierry, my – hm—’
The unspoken word hung between them like a bomb.
‘Pleased to meet you – Roux.’
Another liar. Thierry’s dislike of this man – this interloper – is immediate, irrational and wholly instinctive. His over-compensation takes the form of a terrible heartiness not unlike that which he adopts towards Laurent Pinson. His voice booms like Santa Claus; his handshake cracks bone; in a moment he will be calling the stranger mon pote.
‘So you’re a friend of Yanne’s, eh? Not in the same business, though?’
Roux shakes his head.
‘No, of course not.’ Thierry grins; taking in the other man’s youth and balancing it against everything he himself has to offer. The moment of jealousy subsides; I can see it in his colours, the blue-grey thread of envy taking on the burnished coppery hue of self-satisfaction.
‘You’ll have a drink, won’t you, mon pote?’
There. You see. I told you so.
‘How about a couple of beers? There’s a café just down the road.’
Roux shakes his head. ‘Just chocolate, thanks.’
Thierry shrugs his cheery contempt. Pours chocolate – a gracious host – never taking his eyes from the interloper’s face.
‘So exactly what business are you in?’
‘No business,’ says Roux.
‘You do work, don’t you?’
‘I work,’ says Roux.
‘In what?’ says Thierry, grinning a little.
Roux shrugs. ‘Just work.’
Thierry’s amusement now knows no bounds. ‘And you’re living on a boat, you say?’
Roux just nods. He smiles at Anouk – the only one here who seems genuinely happy to see him – while Rosette watches him in continued fascination.
And now I can see what I missed before. Rosette’s small features are still unformed, but she has her father’s colouring – his red hair, his green-grey eyes – as well as his troublesome temperament.
Nobody else seemed to notice, of course. Least of all the man himself. At a guess, I’d say that Rosette’s physical and mental lack of development has led him to think that she is much younger than she really is.
‘Staying long in Paris?’ says Thierry. ‘Because some might say we’ve got enough boat people here already.’ He laughs again, a little too loudly.
Roux just looks at him, empty-faced.
‘Still, if you’re looking for a job round here, I could use some help doing up my flat. Rue de la Croix, down there . . .’ He nods to indicate the direction. ‘Nice big flat, but it needs gutting – plastering – flooring – decorating – and I’m hoping to finish it all in the next three weeks, so that Yanne and the kids don’t need to spend another Christmas in this place.’
He puts a protective arm around Yanne, who shrugs it off in quiet dismay.
‘You’ll have gathered we’re getting married, of course.’
‘Congratulations,’ says Roux.
‘You married yourself?’
He shakes his head. Nothing in his face betrays the slightest emotion. A flicker in the eyes, perhaps, though his colours flame with unrestrained violence.
‘Well, if you decide to try it,’ Thierry said, ‘just come and see me. I’ll find you a house. You can get something surprisingly decent for half a million or so . . .’
‘Listen,’ says Roux. ‘I have to go.’
Anouk protests. ‘But you just got here!’ She shoots an angry look at Thierry, who does not notice in the least. His dislike of Roux is visceral, rather than reasonable. No thought of the truth has crossed his mind, and yet he suspects the stranger of something – not because of anything he has said or done, but simply because he looks the type.
What type? Well, you know the look. It has nothing to do with his cheap clothes or his too-long hair, or his lack of social skills. There’s just something about him; a left-handed look, like that of a man from the wrong side of the tracks. A man who might do anything: clone a credit card or set up a bank account using nothing but a stolen driver’s licence or acquire a birth certificate (maybe even a passport) on behalf of some person long deceased, or steal away a woman’s child and vanish like the Pied Piper, leaving nothing but questions in his wake.
Like I said.
My kind of trouble.
2
Saturday, 1st December
OH, BOY. WELL, hello stranger. Standing there in the chocolate shop, just like he’d been away for an afternoon and not for four whole years of time; four years of birthdays and Christmases with hardly a word, never a visit and now—
‘Roux!’
I wanted to be angry with him. I really did; but my voice wouldn’t let me, somehow.
I shouted out his name, louder than I’d intended.
‘Nanou,’ he said. ‘You’re all grown-up.’
There was a kind of sadness in the way he said it, as if he was sorry that I’d changed. But he was just the same old Roux – hair longer, boots cleaner, different clothes, but just the same, slouching with his hands in his pockets, the way he does when he doesn’t want to be somewhere, but smiling at me to show that it wasn’t my fault, and that if Thierry hadn’t been there, he would have picked me up and swung me around, just like the old days in Lansquenet.
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m eleven and a half.’
‘Eleven and a half sounds pretty grown-up to me. And who’s the little stranger?’
‘That’s Rosette.’
‘Rosette,’ said Roux. He waved at her, but she didn’t wave back, or sign any
thing. She rarely does with strangers; instead she just stared at him with those big cat’s eyes until even Roux had to look away.
Thierry offered him chocolate. Roux always liked it, way back when. Drank it black, with sugar and rum, while Thierry talked to him about business, and London, and the chocolaterie, and the flat—
Oh yes. The flat. Turns out Thierry’s fixing it up, making it nice for when we move in. He told us about it while Roux was there; how there’d be a new bedroom for me and Rosette, and new decorations, and how he wanted it all to be ready by Christmas, so that his girls would be comfortable—
But all the same there was something mean about the way he said it. He was smiling, you know, but not with his eyes; the way Chantal does when she’s talking about her new iPod, or her new outfit, or her new shoes, or her Tiffany bracelet, and I’m just standing there listening.
Roux was there, looking as if he’d been hit.
‘Listen,’ he said, when Thierry shut up. ‘I’ve got to go. I just wanted to see how you were, you know, just passing by on my way somewhere—’
Liar, I thought. You cleaned your boots.
‘Where are you staying?’
‘On a boat,’ he said.
Well, that makes sense. He’s always liked boats. I remembered the one in Lansquenet; the one that was burnt. I remember his face when it happened, too; that look you get when you’ve worked hard for something you really care about, and then someone mean takes it all away.
‘Where?’ I said.
‘On the river,’ said Roux.
‘Well, duh,’ I said, which should have made him smile. And I realized then that I hadn’t even kissed him, hadn’t even hugged him since I arrived, and that made me feel bad, because if I did it now it would look like I’d just remembered, and didn’t really mean it at all.
Instead I took his hand. It was rough and scratchy from working.
I thought he looked surprised; then he smiled.
‘I’d like to see your boat,’ I said.
‘Maybe you will,’ said Roux.
‘Is it as nice as the last one?’
‘You’ll have to decide that for yourself.’
‘When?’
He shrugged.
Maman looked at me in that way that she has when she’s annoyed, but won’t say so because other people are around. ‘I’m sorry, Roux,’ she told him. ‘If you’d called before – I wasn’t expecting . . .’
‘I wrote,’ he said. ‘I sent a card.’
‘I never got it.’
‘Oh.’ I could tell he didn’t believe her. And I knew she didn’t believe him. Roux is the world’s worst letter-writer. He means to write, but rarely does; and he doesn’t like to talk on the phone. Instead, he sends little things in the post – a carved oak-leaf on a string; a striped stone from the seaside; a book – sometimes with an accompanying note, but often with no word at all.
He looked at Thierry. ‘I’ve got to go.’
Yeah, right. Like there was anywhere he had to be; Roux who always pleases himself; who never lets anyone tell him what to do. ‘I’ll be back.’
Oh, you liar.
I was suddenly so angry with him that I almost spoke the words aloud. Why did you come back, Roux? Why did you bother to come back at all?
I told him so, but in my mind, in my shadow-voice, as hard as I could, the way I’d spoken to Zozie on that first day outside the chocolaterie.
Coward, I said. You’re running away.
And Zozie heard. She looked at me. But Roux just stuck his hands even deeper into the pockets of his jeans, and didn’t even wave as he opened the door and walked away without looking back. Thierry went right after him – just like a dog chasing off an intruder. Not that Thierry would ever fight Roux – but even the thought of it made me want to cry.
Maman was going to go after them both, but Zozie stopped her.
‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘They’ll be all right. You wait here with Annie and Rosette.’
And off she went into the dark.
‘Go upstairs, Nanou,’ said Maman. ‘I’ll be with you right away.’
And so we went upstairs, and waited. Rosette fell asleep, and in a while I heard Zozie come up, then Maman a few minutes later, walking very quietly so as not to disturb us. And after a while I went to sleep, but the sound of the creaky floorboard in Maman’s room woke me up a couple of times, and I knew she was still awake in there, standing by the window in the dark, listening to the sound of the wind and hoping – just once – it would leave us alone.
3
Sunday, 2nd December
THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS went on last night. Now the whole quartier is illuminated; not in colours, but in simple white, like a hedge of stars over the city. In the Place du Tertre, where the artists stand, the traditional Nativity scene has been erected, with the Christ child smiling in the straw and the mother and father looking into the crib, and the Magi standing by with gifts. It fascinates Rosette, who asks to see it again and again.
Baby, she signs. Go see baby. So far she has seen it twice with Nico; once with Alice; countless times with Zozie; with Jean-Louis and Paupaul, and of course, with Anouk, who seems almost as fascinated by it as she is, repeating the story to Rosette of how the baby (who has changed sex in Anouk’s version) was born in a stable in the snow, and how the animals came to see her, and the three Wise Men, and how even a star stopped overhead—
‘Because she was a special baby,’ Anouk says, to Rosette’s delight. ‘A special baby, just like you, and soon it’ll be your birthday, too . . .’
Advent. Adventure. Both words suggest the coming of some extraordinary event. I’d never considered the similarity before; never celebrated the Christian calendar; never fasted, repented or confessed.
Almost never, anyway.
But when Anouk was little, we celebrated Yule: lit fires against the coming dark; made wreaths of holly and mistletoe; drank spiced cider and wassails and ate smoking-hot chestnuts from an open brazier.
Then Rosette was born, and things changed again. Gone were the wreaths of mistletoe, the candles and the frankincense. Nowadays we go to church and buy more presents than we can afford, and leave them under the plastic tree, and watch TV, and get anxious about the cooking. The Christmas lights may look like stars, but closer inspection shows them to be fake: heavy garlands of wires and cables fix them across the narrow streets. The magic has gone – and isn’t that what you wanted, Vianne? says that dry voice inside my head, the voice that sounds like my mother, like Roux, and now just a little like Zozie; who reminds me of the Vianne I was, and whose patience is a kind of reproach.
But this year again will be different. Thierry loves the traditional ways. The church, the goose, the chocolate log – a celebration, not only of the season, but of the seasons we have shared together, and will continue to share—
No magic, of course. Well, is that so bad? There’s comfort and safety and friendship – and love. Isn’t that enough for us? Haven’t we been down the other road? Brought up on folk-tales all my life, why do I find it so hard to believe in the happy-ever-after? Why is it, when I know where he leads, that I still dream of following the Pied Piper?
I sent Anouk and Rosette to bed. Then I went after Roux and Thierry. A small enough delay – three minutes, perhaps, or five at most – but as I stepped out into the still-crowded street I already half knew that Roux would be gone, vanished into the warren of Montmartre. All the same, I had to try. I started towards the Sacré-Coeur – and then among the groups of visitors and tourists I caught sight of Thierry’s familiar figure walking down towards Place Dalida, hands in pockets, head thrust forward like a fighting cock’s.
I held back, took a left up a cobbled street and into Place du Tertre. Still no sign of Roux. He was gone. Of course he was – why would he stay? – and yet I lingered at the edge of the square, shivering (I’d forgotten my coat) and listening to the sounds of night-time Montmartre: music from the clubs below the Butte, laughter, footsteps,
children’s voices from the Nativity scene across the square, a busker playing the saxophone, fragments of talk snatched on the wind—
It was his stillness that finally caught my attention. Parisians are like shoals of fish – if they stop moving, even for a moment, they die. But he was just standing there, half-hidden in the harlequin light of the red neon sign in a café window. Watching in silence, waiting for something. Waiting for me—
I ran across the square to him. Threw my arms around him, and for a moment feared he would not respond. I could feel the tension in his body, see the crease between his brows – and in that harsh light he looked like a stranger.
And then he put his arms around me, reluctantly at first, I thought, then with a fierceness that belied his words. ‘You shouldn’t be here, Vianne,’ he said.
There’s a place in the curve of his left shoulder that matches my forehead perfectly. I found it again, and rested my head. He smelt of the night, and of engine oil, and cedarwood and patchouli and chocolate and tar and wool and the simple unique scent of him, something as elusive and familiar as a recurring dream.
‘I know,’ I said.
And yet I couldn’t let him go. A word would have done it; a warning; a frown. I’m with Thierry now. Don’t mess things up. To try to suggest anything else would be pointless and painful and doomed from the start. And yet—
‘It’s good to see you, Vianne.’ His voice, though soft, was curiously charged.
I smiled. ‘You too. But why now? After all this time?’
A shrug from Roux conveys many things. Indifference, contempt, ignorance, even humour. In any case it dislodged my forehead from its cradle and brought me back to earth with a jolt.
‘Would knowing make a difference?’
‘It might.’
He shrugged again. ‘No reason,’ he said. ‘Are you happy here?’
‘Of course.’ It’s all I’ve ever wanted. The shop; the house; schools for the children. The view from my window every day. And Thierry—
‘It’s just that I never imagined you here. I thought it was just a matter of time. That one day, you’d—’
The Lollipop Shoes Page 19
