‘Sit down,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll bring you some chocolate.’
Madame hesitated.
‘I shouldn’t,’ she said.
Anouk gave me a furtive glance, and I saw her pull out Madame’s peg-doll, marked with the seductive sign of Lady Blood Moon. A plug of modelling clay serves as a base, and in a second Madame Luzeron – or at least, her double – stands inside the Advent house, looking out on to the lake with its skaters and its chocolate ducks.
For a moment she seemed not to notice; and then her eye was strangely drawn – perhaps to the child with her bright, rosy face; perhaps to the object in the window, now glowing with a curious light.
Her disapproving mouth softened a little.
‘You know, I had a dolls’ house when I was a girl,’ she said, peering into the display window.
‘Really?’ I said, smiling at Anouk. It’s rare that Madame volunteers information.
Madame Luzeron sipped her chocolate. ‘Yes. It was my grandmother’s, and although it was supposed to come to me when she died, I was never allowed to play with it.’
‘Why not?’ said Anouk, fixing the little cotton-wool dog more firmly to the peg-doll’s dress.
‘Oh, it was too valuable – an antiquarian once offered me a hundred thousand francs for it – and besides, it was an heirloom. Not a toy.’
‘So you never got to play with it. That’s not fair,’ said Anouk, now carefully placing a green sugar mouse under a tissue-paper tree.
‘Well, I was young,’ said Madame Luzeron. ‘I might have damaged it or—’
She stopped. I looked up, and saw her frozen.
‘What a funny thing,’ she said. ‘I haven’t thought of it in years. And when Robert wanted to play with it—’
She put down her cup with a sudden brisk mechanical movement.
‘It wasn’t fair, was it?’ she said.
‘Are you all right, Madame?’ I said. Her thin face was the colour of icing-sugar, sculpted into sharp little wrinkles like the frosting on a cake.
‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Her voice was cool.
‘Would you like a piece of chocolate cake?’ That was Anouk, looking concerned; always wanting to give things away. Madame gave her a hungry look.
‘Thank you, my dear. I’d love one,’ she said.
Anouk cut a generous slice. ‘Robert – was that your son?’ she said.
Madame pecked out a silent yes.
‘How old was he when he died?’
‘Thirteen,’ said Madame. ‘A little older than you, perhaps. They never found out what was wrong with him. Such a healthy boy – I never let him eat sweets, even – then, suddenly, dead. You wouldn’t think it was possible, would you?’
Anouk shook her head, wide-eyed.
‘Today’s his anniversary,’ she went on. ‘Eighth of December, 1979. Long before you were born. In those days you could still get a plot in the big cemetery – if you were prepared to pay enough. I’ve lived here for ever. My family has money. I could have let him play with the dolls’ house if I’d wanted to. Have you ever had a dolls’ house?’
Once more, Anouk shook her head.
‘I have it still, somewhere in the attic. I even have the dolls it came with, and the little furniture. All hand-made in original materials. Venetian mirrors on the walls. Crafted before the Revolution. I wonder if any child ever got to play with the damn thing.’
She was looking slightly flushed now, as if her use of a forbidden word had infused her bloodless face with something approaching animation.
‘Perhaps you might like to play with it.’
Anouk’s eyes lit up at once. ‘Wow!’
‘You’re very welcome, little girl.’ She frowned. ‘You know, I don’t think I actually know your names. I’m Isabelle – and my little dog is Salammbô. You can stroke her if you like. She doesn’t bite.’
Anouk bent to touch the little dog, which frisked and licked enthusiastically at her hands. ‘She’s so sweet. I love dogs.’
‘I can’t believe I’ve been coming here for years and I never even asked your names.’
Anouk grinned. ‘I’m Anouk,’ she said. ‘And this is my good friend Zozie.’ And she went on fussing the little dog, and such was her absorption that she never even noticed that she’d given Madame the wrong name, or that the sign of Lady Blood Moon was shining out from the Advent house, shining with a radiance that filled the room.
12
Sunday, 9th December
THE WEATHERMAN LIED. He said there’d be snow. He said there’d be a cold snap, but all we’ve had so far is mist and rain. It’s better in the Advent house – it’s proper Christmas there, at least, and outside it’s all frost and ice, like something in a story, with icing-sugar icicles hanging down from the roof and a fresh scatter of sugar snow over the lake. Some of the peg-dolls are skating there, all muffled up in hats and coats, and some children (they’re supposed to be Rosette, Jean-Loup and me) are building an igloo out of sugar cubes, while someone else (Nico, in fact) is dragging the Christmas tree up to the house on a matchbox sledge.
I’ve been making a lot of peg-dolls this week. I’m putting them round the Advent house, where everyone can see them without really noticing what they’re for. They’re really cool to make, you know; you can draw on the faces with felt-tip pen, and Zozie brought me a box of scraps of ribbon and cloth for making the clothes and the other stuff. So far I’ve got Nico, Alice, Madame Luzeron, Rosette, Roux, Thierry, Jean-Loup, Maman and me.
Some of them aren’t finished, though. You have to finish them with something that belongs to the person: a strand of hair; a fingernail; or something they’ve touched or worn. It isn’t always easy getting those things; and then you have to give them a name and a sign and whisper a secret into their ear.
With some people, that’s easy to do. Some secrets are easy to guess: like Madame Luzeron, who feels so sad about her son, even though he died so long ago; or Nico, who wants to lose weight, but can’t, or Alice, who can, but really shouldn’t.
As for the names and the symbols we use – Zozie says they’re Mexican. They could be anything, I guess, but we use these because they’re interesting, and the symbols are not too hard to remember.
There are a lot of symbols, though, and it may take a while to learn them all. Plus I don’t always remember which names to use – they’re so long and complicated, and of course I don’t know the language. But Zozie says that’s OK, as long as I can remember what the symbols mean. There’s the Ear of Maize, for good luck; Two Rabbit, who made wine from the maguey cactus; Eagle Snake, for power; Seven Macaw, for success; One Monkey, the trickster; the Smoking Mirror, that shows you things that regular people don’t always see; Lady Green Skirt, who looks after mothers and children; One Jaguar, for courage and to protect you from bad things, and Lady Moon Rabbit – that’s my sign – for love.
Everyone has a special sign, she says. Zozie’s sign is One Jaguar. Maman’s is Ehecatl, the Changing Wind. I suppose they’re like the totems we had, back in the days before Rosette was born. Rosette’s sign, Zozie says, is Red Tezcatlipoca, the Monkey. He’s a mischievous god, but a powerful one; and he can change his shape to that of any animal.
I like the old stories Zozie tells. But I can’t help feeling nervous sometimes. I know she says we don’t do any harm – but what if she’s wrong? What if there’s an Accident? What if I use the wrong kind of sign and make something bad happen without meaning to?
The river. The wind. The Kindly Ones.
Those words keep coming into my mind. And they’re all tied up somehow with the Nativity scene in Place du Tertre – the angels and the animals and the Magi – though I still don’t know what they’re doing there. Sometimes I think I can almost see, but never quite enough to be sure, like one of those dreams that makes perfect sense until the minute you wake up, when it just dissolves into nothing at all.
The river. The wind. The Kindly Ones—
What does that mean? Words in a dream.
But I’m still so afraid, though I don’t know why. What is there to be afraid of? Perhaps the Kindly Ones are like the Magi: wise men bearing gifts. It feels right, but it doesn’t stop me feeling scared, that something bad’s about to happen. That it’s somehow my fault—
Zozie says I shouldn’t worry. We can’t hurt anyone unless we want to, she says. And I don’t ever want to hurt anyone – not even Chantal, not even Suze.
I made Nico’s doll the other night. I had to pad it to make it look real, and I made his hair from the wiry brown stuff that was inside Zozie’s old armchair, upstairs in her room with her other things. Then you have to give it a symbol – I chose One Jaguar, for courage – and whisper a secret in its ear. So I said: Nico, you need to take control – which ought to do it, don’t you think? – and I’ll put it behind one of the doors in the Advent house, and wait until he comes along.
And then there’s Alice, who’s his opposite. I had to make her a bit fatter than she really is, because peg-dolls can only be so thin. I tried taking some wood off the sides of the doll, and that worked OK until I cut my finger with the penknife, and Zozie had to bandage it up. Then I made her a pretty little dress out of a piece of old scrap lace, and whispered, Alice, you’re not ugly and you need to eat more, and gave her the fish sign of Chantico the Fast Breaker, and put her next to Nico in the Advent house.
Then there’s Thierry, wrapped in grey flannel and with a wrapped sugar lump painted to look like his mobile phone. I couldn’t get hold of a strand of his hair, so instead I took a petal from one of the roses that he gave Maman and hoped that might work instead. Of course I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. I only want him to stay away.
So I gave him the sign of One Monkey and put him outside the Advent house, with his coat and scarf on (I made them out of brown felt) just in case it gets cold out there.
And then, of course, there’s Roux. His doll isn’t finished yet, because I need something of his, and there isn’t anything I can use – not even a thread – that belongs to him. But I’ve made it look like him, I think, all in black, with a piece of orange furry stuff glued on to look like his hair. I gave him the sign of the Changing Wind, and whispered Roux, don’t go away – though so far we haven’t seen him at all.
Not that it matters. I know where he is. He’s working for Thierry at Rue de la Croix. I don’t know why he hasn’t come back, or why Maman doesn’t want to see him, or even why Thierry hates him so much.
I talked to Zozie about it today, as we sat in her rooms as usual. Rosette was there, and we’d been playing a game – quite a noisy, silly game, and Rosette was excited and laughing like mad, with Zozie being a wild horse and Rosette riding on her back, and then suddenly, for no reason, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I looked up and saw a yellow monkey sitting on the mantelpiece, as clear as I sometimes see Pantoufle.
‘Zozie,’ I said.
She looked up. She didn’t seem all that surprised; it turns out she’s seen Bam before.
‘That’s a clever little sister you’ve got,’ she said, smiling at Rosette, who had got down from her back and was playing with the sequins on a cushion. ‘You don’t look at all alike, but I guess looks aren’t everything.’
I hugged Rosette and gave her a kiss. Sometimes she reminds me of a rag doll, or a flop-eared bunny, she’s so soft. ‘Well, we don’t have the same dad,’ I told her.
Zozie smiled. ‘I guessed,’ she said.
‘But that doesn’t matter,’ I went on. ‘Maman says you choose your family.’
‘She does?’
I nodded. ‘It’s better that way. Our family could be anyone. It’s not about birth, Maman says. It’s about how you feel for someone else.’
‘So – even I could be family?’
I smiled at her. ‘You already are.’
She laughed at that. ‘Your evil aunt. Corrupting you with magic and shoes.’
Well, that set me off. Rosette joined in. And above us, the yellow monkey danced and made everything on the mantelpiece dance too – all Zozie’s shoes, lined up like ornaments, but so much cooler than china figurines – and I thought how natural it seemed, the three of us, all together like that. And I felt a sudden pang of guilt about Maman downstairs, and about how, when we’re up here, it can sometimes be easy to forget she’s there at all.
‘Did you never wonder who Rosette’s father was?’ said Zozie suddenly, looking at me.
I shrugged. I’ve never seen the point. We always had each other, of course. We never wanted anyone else—
‘It’s just that you probably knew him,’ she said. ‘You would have been six or seven at the time, and I just wondered . . .’ She looked down at her bracelet, playing with the charms on it, and I got the feeling she was trying to tell me something, but something she didn’t want to say.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Well – look at her hair.’ She put a hand on Rosette’s head. Her hair is the colour of sliced mango, very curly and very soft. ‘Look at her eyes.’ Her eyes are a very pale green-grey, just like a cat’s, and as round as pennies. ‘Doesn’t that remind you of someone?’
I thought about that for a little while.
‘Think, Nanou. Red hair, green eyes. Can sometimes be a pain in the arse.’
‘Not Roux?’ I said, and began to laugh, but all at once I was feeling jittery inside and I wished she wouldn’t say any more.
‘Why not?’ said Zozie.
‘I just know.’
As a matter of fact I’ve never really thought much about Rosette’s dad. I suppose that at the back of my mind there’s still the idea she never had one at all; that the fairies brought her, just like the old lady always said.
Fairy baby. Special baby.
I mean, it’s not fair what people think – that she’s stupid, or retarded, or slow. Special baby, we used to say. Special, as in different. Maman doesn’t like us to be different – but Rosette just is, and is that so bad?
Thierry talks about getting help for her. Therapy, speech coaching and all kinds of specialists – as if there might be a cure for being special that a specialist would be bound to know.
But there’s no cure for being different. Zozie’s taught me that already. And how could Roux be Rosette’s dad? I mean, he’s never seen her before. Didn’t even know her name—
‘He can’t be Rosette’s dad,’ I said, although by then I wasn’t sure.
‘Well, who else could it be?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. Not Roux, that’s all.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’d have stayed with us, that’s why. He wouldn’t have let us go away.’
‘Well, maybe he didn’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe your mother never told him. After all, she never told you.’
I started to cry then. Stupid, I know. I hate it when I have to cry, but I couldn’t make it stop, somehow. It was like an explosion inside of me, and I couldn’t work out if I hated Roux now, or whether I loved him even more—
‘Shhh. Nanou.’ Zozie put her arms around me. ‘It’s OK.’
I put my face into her shoulder. She was wearing a big old chunky sweater, and the cable knit pressed into my cheek hard enough to leave marks. It isn’t OK, I wanted to tell her. That’s just what adults always say when they don’t want kids to know the truth; and most of the time it’s a lie, Zozie.
Adults always seem to lie.
I gave a great big shuddery sob. How can Roux be Rosette’s dad? She doesn’t even know him. She doesn’t know that he takes his hot chocolate black, with rum and brown sugar. She hasn’t seen him make a fish-trap out of willow, or a flute out of a length of bamboo, or know that he hears the call of every bird on the river and can copy them so that even the birds can’t tell the difference—
He’s her father, and she doesn’t even know.
It’s not fair. It should have been me—
But now I could feel something else coming back. A memory – a familiar sound – a scent of something
far away. It was getting closer now, moving in like the pointing star in a Nativity scene. And I could almost remember now – except that I didn’t want to remember. I closed my eyes. I could hardly move. I was suddenly sure that if I moved even a little bit, then all of it would come rushing out, like a fizzy drink when someone’s been shaking the bottle, and that once opened, there’d be no going back—
I started to tremble.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Zozie.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.
‘What are you afraid of, Nanou?’
I could hear the charms on her bracelet moving and the sound was almost exactly the same as that of the wind-chimes above our door.
‘The Kindly Ones,’ I said in a whisper.
‘What does that mean? The Kindly Ones?’ I could hear the urgency in her voice. She put her hands on my shoulders then, and I could feel how much she wanted to know, it was trembling all through her like lightning in a jar.
‘Don’t be afraid, Nanou,’ she said. ‘Just tell me what it means, OK?’
The Kindly Ones.
The Magi.
Wise men bearing gifts.
I made the kind of noise you make when you’re trying to wake up from a dream, but can’t. There were too many memories crowding me, pushing me, all wanting to be seen at once.
That little house by the side of the Loire.
They’d seemed so kind, so interested.
They’d even brought gifts.
And at that moment I opened my eyes very sudden and very wide. I didn’t feel afraid any more. At last I remembered. I understood. I knew what had happened to change us; to make us run away, even from Roux; to make us pretend we were regular people when we knew at heart we could never be.
‘What is it, Nanou?’ said Zozie. ‘Can you tell me now?’
‘I think so,’ I said.
‘Then tell me,’ she said, beginning to smile. ‘Tell me everything.’
The Lollipop Shoes Page 25
