‘You can’t,’ I said wildly. ‘We need you here.’
She shook her head. ‘You needed me. But look at you now – business is good, you’ve got lots of friends. You don’t need me any more. As for me – I have to move on. Ride that wind to wherever it goes.’
A horrible thought came to me. ‘This is about me, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘It’s about what we’ve been doing here. Our lessons, and the peg-dolls, and everything. She’s afraid that if you stay there’ll be another Accident—’
Zozie shrugged. ‘I won’t lie to you. But I didn’t think she’d be so jealous—’
Jealous? Maman?
‘Well, of course,’ said Zozie. ‘Remember, she used to be like us once. Free to go wherever she liked. But now she’s got other responsibilities. She can’t just do what she wants any more. And whenever she looks at you now, Nanou – well, maybe it just reminds her too much of everything she’s had to give up.’
‘But that’s not fair!’
Zozie smiled. ‘No one said it was fair,’ she said. ‘It’s about control. You’re growing up. You’re developing skills. You’re growing beyond your mother’s authority. It makes her anxious; makes her scared. She thinks I’m taking you away from her, giving you things she can’t give you herself. And that’s why I have to leave, Nanou. Before something happens we’ll both regret.’
‘But what about the party?’ I said.
‘If you want me, I’ll stay till then.’ She put her arms around me and hugged me tight. ‘Listen, Nanou. I know it’s hard. But I want you to have what I never had. A family. A home. A place of your own. And if the wind needs a sacrifice, then let it be me. I’ve nothing to lose. Besides—’ She gave a little sigh. ‘I don’t want to settle down. I don’t want to spend my life wondering what’s over the next hill. I would have left sooner or later – and now’s as good a time as any—’
She pulled the blanket over us both. I shut my eyes tight, not wanting to cry, but I could feel a lump in the back of my throat like I’d swallowed a little potato whole.
‘But I love you, Zozie—’
I couldn’t see her face (my eyes were still shut), but I felt her let out a long, deep sigh – like air that’s been trapped for a long time in a sealed box, or underground.
‘I love you too, Nanou,’ she said.
We stayed like that for a long time, sitting in bed wrapped up in the blanket. Outside, the wind started up again, and I was glad there were no trees on the Butte, because the way I was feeling just then, I think I could have let them all come crash-crashing down if that could have persuaded Zozie to stay, and made the wind take someone else.
9
Sunday, 23rd December
WHAT A PERFORMANCE. Told you so. In another life I’d have made a fortune in the movie business. It certainly had Anouk convinced – the seeds of doubt are germinating nicely – which should serve me well come Christmas Eve.
I don’t think she’ll mention our talk to Vianne. My little Nanou is secretive; she does not share her thoughts so easily. And her mother has let her down, of course; has lied to her on several points, and on top of all that, is evicting her friend—
She too can dissemble, when required. Today she looked a little withdrawn, though I doubt whether Vianne will have noticed that. She’s too busy planning tomorrow’s celebration to wonder at her daughter’s sudden lack of excitement, or to ask herself where she has been all day while cakes baked and spiced wine simmered.
Of course I too have plans to fulfil. But mine are rather less culinary in emphasis. Vianne’s kind of magic – such as it is – is far too domestic for my taste. Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing, Vianne. The place is alive with petty seductions: rose-scented treats, miracles and macaroons. And Vianne herself – in that red dress, with a red silk flower in her hair—
Who do you think you’re fooling, Vianne? Why bother, when I do it so much better?
I was out for most of the day. People to see; things to do. Today I ditched all that was left of my current identities, including Mercedes Desmoines, Emma Windsor and even Noëlle Marcelin. I have to admit, it caused me a pang. But too much ballast slows you down – and besides, I won’t be needing them.
After that it was time for a few social calls. Madame from Le Stendhal, who is coming on nicely; Thierry le Tresset, who has been watching the chocolaterie from nearby in the vain hope of a glimpse of Roux; and Roux himself, who has checked out of his digs by the cemetery and into the cemetery itself, where a small chapel-of-rest serves as his current home.
It’s comfortable enough, I daresay. These tombs were built in the days when the wealthy dead were housed in a luxury undreamt-of by the living poor. And with the help of regular doses of misinformation, sympathy, rumour, flattery – not to mention cash and a steady supply of my very own specials – I have ensured, if not his trust and affection, at least his presence on Christmas Eve.
I found him at the back of the cemetery, near the wall that divides it from the Rue Jean Le Maistre. It’s the furthest place from the entrance lodge, where broken and abandoned graves lie among compost and rubbish bins, and that’s where the down-and-outs assemble round a fire that burns in a metal can.
Today there were half a dozen of them, dressed in coats too big for them and boots as scarred and cracked as their hands. Most were old – the young ones can earn their cash in Pigalle, where youth is always in demand – and one of them had a cough that started deep in his lungs and hacked its way out every minute or so.
They looked at me incuriously as I picked my way through the neglected graves towards the little circle of men. Roux met me with his usual lack of enthusiasm.
‘You again.’
‘So glad you’re pleased.’ I handed him a parcel of food – coffee, sugar, cheese, some sausages from the butcher’s around the corner and some buckwheat pancakes to wrap them in. ‘Don’t share it with the cats this time.’
‘Thanks.’ At last he deigned to smile. ‘How’s Vianne?’
‘She’s fine. She misses you.’ It’s a small flattery that never fails.
‘And Mr Big?’
‘He’s coming round.’
I’ve managed to convince Roux that Thierry calling the police is just a ploy to get Vianne back on his side. I have not gone into details of the charge; but I have led him to believe that it has already been dropped for lack of evidence. The only danger now, I have told him, is that Thierry, in a fit of pique, will evict Vianne from her home in the chocolaterie if she transfers her allegiance too quickly to Roux, and so he must be patient awhile, wait for the dust to settle, and trust me to make Thierry see sense.
Meanwhile, I pretend to believe in his boat, moored, he says, in the Port de l’Arsenal. Its existence (even fictional) makes him a man of property, a man of pride who, far from accepting charity from me in the shape of food parcels and loose change, is actually doing us all a favour by staying close by to watch over Vianne.
‘Been to check on the boat today?’
He shook his head. ‘Later, perhaps.’
This is another fiction I pretend to believe. That he goes over to the Arsenal every day to check on his boat. Of course I know he does no such thing. But I rather like to see him squirm. ‘If Thierry won’t see sense,’ I said, ‘it’s a comfort to think that Vianne and the kids could stay with you on the boat for a while. At least till they find another place – never easy at this time of year—’
He glared at me. ‘That’s not what I want.’
I gave him my sweetest smile. ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘It’s just nice to know there’s the option, that’s all. So how are you set for tomorrow, Roux? Need any clothes washing?’
Once more he shook his head, and I wondered how he’d managed so far. There’s a laundrette round the corner, of course, and some public showers off the Rue Ganeron. That’s probably where he goes, I thought. He must think I’m an imbecile.
Still, I need him – for a little longer. After tomorrow it won’t matte
r any more. After that he can go to perdition any way he likes.
‘Why are you doing this, Zozie?’ It’s a question he has asked before, with a growing suspicion that only increases with every attempt I make at seduction. Some men are just like that, I think – impervious to my kind of charm. Still, it rankles. He owes me so much, and scarcely a word of gratitude—
‘You know why I’m doing it, Roux,’ I said, allowing a trace of asperity to enter my voice. ‘I’m doing it for Vianne and the kids. For Rosette, who deserves a father. For Vianne, who has never got over you. And – I’ll admit it – for myself, because if Vianne goes, I go, and I’ve come to like that chocolaterie, and I don’t see why I should have to leave.’
That convinced him. I knew it would. A suspicious type like Roux mistrusts anything close to altruism. Well, he would – Roux, who acts out of self-interest – who is only here now because he sees some profit in it for himself; some share in Vianne’s lucrative business, perhaps, now that he knows Rosette is his child—
It was three o’clock when I returned to the chocolaterie, and already it was getting dark. Vianne was serving a customer, and she looked at me sharply as I came in, although her greeting was pleasant enough.
I know what she’s thinking. Folk like Zozie. To advertise her hostility now would be damaging only to Vianne herself. Already she is wondering if my threats of the other night were designed to lure her into an ill-considered attack, to show her colours too soon and thereby lose the safe ground.
The battle begins tomorrow, she thinks. Canapés and frivolities, sweet enough to tempt the saints. They will be her weapons of choice – and how naïve of her to imagine that I will respond in kind. Domestic magic is such a bore – ask any child, and you’ll see how they prefer the villains to the heroes of the books they read, the wicked witches and hungry wolves to the plain-vanilla princes and princesses.
Anouk is no exception, I’ll bet. Still, we’ll have to wait and see. Go ahead, Vianne. Attend to your pots. See what domestic magic can do, while I work on my own recipe. According to popular tradition, the way to the heart is through the stomach.
Personally, I prefer a more direct approach.
PART EIGHT
Yule
1
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 11.30 a.m.
IT’S SNOWING AT last. It’s been snowing all day. Big fat fairytale flakes like whirligigs from the winter sky. Snow changes everything, so says Zozie, and already the magic’s beginning to work: changing shops, houses, parking-meters into soft white sentinels as the snow falls, grey against the luminous sky, and little by little, Paris disappears; every flake of soot, every discarded bottle, crisp packet, dog turd and sweet wrapper reclaimed and made new again under the snow.
That isn’t really true, of course. But all the same it looks true, as if things could really change tonight, and everything be put right, instead of just covered over like icing on a cheap cake.
The last door in the Advent house opened up today. Behind it, there’s a Nativity scene: mother, father and baby in the crib – well, not quite a baby any more, but sitting up with a smile on her face and a yellow monkey by her side. Rosette loves it – and so do I – but I can’t help feeling a little sorry for my peg-doll, left outside in the party room, while the three of them celebrate alone.
That’s stupid, I know. I shouldn’t feel bad. You choose your family, Maman says, and it doesn’t matter that Roux isn’t my real father, or that Rosette is only my half-sister, or perhaps not even a sister at all . . .
Today I’ve been working on my fancy dress. I’m coming as Little Red Riding Hood, because all I need for my outfit is a red cape – with a hood, of course. Zozie helped me finish it, with a piece of cloth from a charity shop and Madame Poussin’s old sewing machine. It looks pretty good for home-made, with my basket with the red ribbons, and Rosette’s coming as a monkey in her brown jumpsuit with a tail sewn on.
‘What are you coming as, Zozie?’ I asked her for the hundredth time.
She smiled. ‘Wait and see, or you’ll spoil the surprise.’
2
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 3.00 p.m.
THE LULL BEFORE the hurricane. That’s how it feels now, with Rosette upstairs having her nap and the snow outside claiming everything with its quiet gluttony. Snow comes so relentlessly; it swallows sound, kills scent, steals light right out of the sky.
It’s settling now along the Butte. Of course there’s no traffic to challenge its progress. People pass by with hats and scarves all barnacled with the driving snow, and the bells from St-Pierre-de-Montmartre come mutedly and from afar, like something under an evil charm.
I’ve hardly seen Zozie all day. Deep in my plans for the party tonight, between kitchen, costumes and customers, I have had very little time to observe my opponent, who keeps to her room, giving nothing away. I wonder when she’ll make her move.
My mother’s voice, the storyteller, says it will be at dinner tonight, like in the tale of the widow’s daughter; but it unnerves me that so far I have not seen her make any preparations, or bake even a single cake. Could it be that I have it wrong? Is Zozie somehow bluffing me, trying to force me to show a hand she knows will injure my standing here? Could it be that she means to do nothing at all, while I bring down the Kindly Ones all unsuspecting on my own head?
Since Friday night there has been no apparent conflict between us – though now I can see the mocking looks and the sly winks she gives me that no one else sees. Still cheery as ever, still beautiful, still strutting in her extravagant shoes – but to me she now seems a parody of herself; too knowing beneath that conspicuous charm, enjoying the game in a jaded way, like an elderly whore dressed up as a nun. It is perhaps that enjoyment that offends me most – the way she plays to a balcony of one. There’s nothing at stake for her, of course. But I am playing for my life.
One last time, I draw the cards.
The Fool; the Lovers; the Magus, Change.
The Hanged Man; the Tower—
The Tower is falling. Stones tumble from its crown as it topples into darkness. From the parapet, tiny figures hurl themselves, gesticulating, into the void. One is wearing a red dress – or is it a cloak, with a little hood?
I do not look at the final card. I’ve seen it too many times before. My mother, ever the optimist, interpreted it in many ways – but to me that card means only one thing.
Death grins out from the woodcut design; jealous, joyless, hollow-eyed, hungry – Death the insatiable; Death the implacable; Death the debt we owe to the gods. Outside, the snow has settled thickly, and although the light has begun to fade, the ground is weirdly luminous, as if street and sky had exchanged places. It’s a far cry from the pretty picture-book snow of the Advent house, although Anouk loves it, and keeps finding excuses to check the street. She’s out there now; from my window I can see her bright figure against that baleful white. She looks very small from where I’m standing; a little girl lost in the woods. Of course, that’s absurd; there are no woods here. That’s one of the reasons I chose this place. But everything changes under snow, and magic comes into its own again. And the winter wolves come slinking down the alleys and streets of the Butte de Montmartre . . .
3
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 4.30 p.m.
JEAN-LOUP CAME ROUND this afternoon. He phoned this morning to say he was bringing some of the photographs he took the other day. He develops them himself, you know – at least, in black-and-white he does – and he’s got hundreds of prints at home, sorted and labelled in all kinds of files, and he sounded excited and out-of-breath, like there was something special that he wanted to show me.
I thought maybe he’d been in the cemetery, that he’d finally managed to take a picture of those ghost-lights he’s always talking about.
But it wasn’t his cemetery pictures he’d brought. Nor was it his prints from the Butte, the Nativity house and th
e Christmas lights and the cigar-chewing Santa. These were all photos of Zozie – the digital snaps he’d taken in the chocolaterie, plus some new ones in black-and-white, some of them taken from outside the shop, and some with Zozie in a crowd as she walked across the square to the funicular, or stood in a queue outside the bakery on the Rue des Trois Frères.
‘What’s this?’ I said. ‘You know she doesn’t like—’
‘Look at them, Annie,’ he said.
I didn’t want to look at them. The only time we ever fell out was over those stupid pictures of his. I didn’t want that to happen again. But why had he taken them at all? There must have been some reason, I thought—
‘Please,’ said Jean-Loup. ‘Just look at them. Then if you think there’s nothing weird about them, I promise you I’ll throw them away.’
Well, looking at them – there were thirty or so – made me feel quite uncomfortable. The thought that Jean-Loup had been spying on Zozie – stalking her – was bad enough, but there was something about those photographs; something that made it even worse.
You could see they were all of Zozie, all right. You could see her skirt with the bells on the hem, and her funky boots with the three-inch soles. Her hair was the same, and her jewellery, and the raffia bag she carries her shopping in.
But her face—
‘You’ve done something to these prints,’ I said, pushing them back towards Jean-Loup.
‘Cross my heart, I haven’t, Annie. And everything else on the film was OK. It’s her. She’s doing it, somehow. How else can you explain this?’
I wasn’t sure how to explain it myself. Some people take a good photograph. The word for this is photogenic, and Zozie definitely wasn’t that. Some people take an OK photograph, and I don’t know if there’s a word for it, but Zozie wasn’t that, either. All of those pictures were terrible, with her mouth an odd kind of shape somehow, and a look in her eyes, and a sort of smudge around her head, like a halo gone wrong—
The Lollipop Shoes Page 37
