‘So she isn’t photogenic. So what? Not everyone is.’
‘There’s more,’ said Jean-Loup. ‘Just look at this.’ And he pulled out a folded piece of newspaper, a clipping from one of the Paris newspapers with a blurry picture of a woman’s face. Her name, it said, was Françoise Lavery. But the picture was just like those prints of Zozie, tiny eyes and twisted mouth, even down to that weird smudge . . .
‘What’s it supposed to prove?’ I said. It was just a picture, kind of blown-up and grainy like most pictures you see in the paper. A woman who might have been any age, with hair in a kind of plain bob and little glasses under her long fringe. Nothing like Zozie at all. Apart from that smudge and the shape of her mouth—
I shrugged. ‘It could be anyone.’
‘It’s her,’ said Jean-Loup. ‘I know it can’t be, but it is.’
Well, that was just ridiculous. And the clipping didn’t make much sense either. It was all about a teacher in Paris, who disappeared some time last year. I mean, Zozie was never a teacher, was she? Or is he suggesting she’s a ghost?
Even Jean-Loup wasn’t sure. ‘You read about these things,’ he said, carefully replacing the clipping inside the envelope. ‘Walk-ins, I think they call them.’
‘Whatever.’
‘You can laugh, but there’s something wrong. I can feel it when she’s around. I’m going to bring my camera tonight. I want some close-ups – some kind of proof—’
‘You and your ghosts.’ I was feeling annoyed. He’s only a year older than me – who the hell does he think he is? If he knew half of what I know now – about Ehecatl and One Jaguar or the Hurakan – he’d probably have a seizure, or something. And if he knew about Pantoufle, or about me and Rosette invoking the Changing Wind, or about what happened in Les Laveuses – he’d probably lose his mind.
And so I did something perhaps I shouldn’t have done. But I didn’t want us to quarrel again, and I knew we would if he kept on talking. So slyly, with my fingers, I drew the sign of One Monkey, the trickster. And then I flicked it out at him like a little pebble from behind my back.
Jean-Loup frowned and touched his head.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘Dunno,’ said Jean-Loup. ‘Just felt – kind of – blank. What were we talking about just now?’
I mean, I like him. I really do. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him. But he’s what Zozie calls regular people, as opposed to people like us. Regular people follow rules. People like us make new ones instead. There are so many things I can’t tell Jean-Loup, things he wouldn’t understand. I can tell Zozie anything. She knows me better than anyone.
So as soon as Jean-Loup had gone, I burnt the clipping and the photographs – he’d forgotten to take them with him – in the fireplace in my room, and watched the flakes of ash turn white and settle like snow in the grate.
There. All gone. I feel better now. Not that I’d ever suspect Zozie; but that face made me uncomfortable, with its twisted mouth and mean little eyes. I couldn’t have seen her before, could I? In the shop, or the street, or perhaps on the bus? And that name – Françoise Lavery. Have I heard it somewhere else? It’s quite a common name, of course. But why does it make me think of—
A mouse?
4
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 5.20 p.m.
WELL, I NEVER liked that boy. A useful tool, that’s all he was, to prise her away from her mother’s influence and make her more receptive to mine. But now he has overstepped the mark – has dared to try and undermine me – and I’m afraid he’ll have to go.
I saw it in his colours as he prepared to leave the shop. He’d been upstairs with Anouk – listening to music, or playing games, or whatever those two get up to these days – and he greeted me politely enough as he picked up his anorak from the coat-stand behind the door.
Some people are easier to read than others; and Jean-Loup Rimbault, for all his guile, is still only a twelve-year-old. There was something too candid about that smile, something I’d seen more than once in my teaching days as Françoise. It’s the smile of a boy who knows too much and thinks he can get away with it. And what was in that paper file that he left with Anouk in her bedroom just now?
Could it perhaps have been – photographs?
‘Coming to the party tonight?’
He nodded. ‘Sure. The shop looks great.’
Certainly, Vianne has been busy today. There are clusters of silver stars hanging from the ceiling and branches of candles ready to be lit. There is no dining-table here, so she has pushed the small tables together to make a single long one, covering them with the customary three tablecloths – one green, one white, one red. A wreath of holly hangs from the door, and cedarwood and fresh-cut pine fills the air with a foresty scent.
Around the room, the traditional thirteen desserts of Christmas are stacked on glass dishes like pirates’ treasure, gleaming and lustrous in topaz and gold. Black nougat for the devil, white nougat for the angels, and clementines, grapes, figs, almonds, honey, dates, apples, pears, quince jelly, mendiants all jewelled with raisins and peel, and fougasse made with olive oil and split like a wheel into twelve parts—
And of course there is the chocolate – the Yule log cooling in the kitchen; the nougatines, the celestines, the chocolate truffles piled on to the counter in a fragrant scatter of cocoa dust.
‘Try one,’ I say, handing them out. ‘You’ll see, they’re your favourites.’
He takes the truffle dreamily. Its aroma is pungent and slightly earthy, like mushrooms picked at the full moon. In fact there may actually be some mushroom in there – my specials are full of mysterious things – but this time the cocoa powder has been artfully doctored to deal with importunate little boys, and besides, the sign of the Hurakan scratched in cocoa on the counter-top is more than enough to do the trick.
‘See you at the party,’ he says.
Actually, I don’t think you will. My little Nanou will miss you, of course; but not for very long, I think. In a very short time, the Hurakan is going to descend on Le Rocher de Montmartre, and when that happens—
Well, who knows? And wouldn’t knowing spoil the surprise?
5
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 6.00 p.m.
SO NOW AT last the chocolaterie’s shut, and there’s nothing but the poster on the door to suggest that anything’s happening here.
Christmas Party 7.30 tonight! it says over a pattern of stars and monkeys.
Fancy Dress Recommended.
I still haven’t seen Zozie’s fancy dress. I guess it’s something fabulous, but she hasn’t told me what it is. So after watching the snow for nearly an hour, I got impatient and went to her room to see what she was doing.
But when I went in, I got a surprise. It wasn’t Zozie’s room any more. The sari-curtains had been taken down; the Chinese dressing-gown was gone from the back of the door, the ornaments from the lampshade. Even her shoes had vanished from the top of the mantelpiece, and that’s when it really sank in, I think.
Seeing them gone.
Her fabulous shoes.
There was a suitcase on the bed, a small one, leather, that looked as if it had seen a lot of travelling. Zozie was just closing it up, and she looked at me when I came in, and I knew what she’d say without even having to ask.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘I was going to tell you. Really I was. But I didn’t want to spoil your party for you—’
I couldn’t believe it. ‘You’re going tonight?’
‘I’d have to go some time,’ she said reasonably. ‘And after tonight it won’t matter so much.’
‘Why not?’
She shrugged. ‘Didn’t you call the Changing Wind? Don’t you want to be a family, you and Roux and Yanne and Rosette?’
‘That doesn’t mean you have to leave!’
She threw a stray shoe into the case. ‘You know that’s not the way it works. There’s a payoff, Nano
u. There has to be.’
‘But you’re family too!’
She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t work. Not with Yanne. She disapproves of me too much. And maybe she’s right to disapprove. Things don’t go as smoothly when I’m around.’
‘But that’s not fair! Where will you go?’
Zozie looked up from her packing and smiled.
‘Wherever the wind takes me,’ she said.
6
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 7.00 p.m.
JEAN-LOUP’S MOTHER PHONED just now to say that her son has fallen ill rather suddenly, and won’t be coming after all. Anouk is naturally disappointed, and slightly worried about her friend, but the excitement of the party is too much to keep her down for long.
In her red cape and hood she looks more than ever like a Christmas bauble, skipping from here to there in a frenzy of activity. ‘Are they here yet?’ she repeats, although the invitations said seven-thirty and the church bell has barely rung the hour. ‘Can you see anyone outside?’
In fact the snow is so dense now that I can barely see the street-lamp across the square, but Anouk keeps pressing her face to the window, making a ghost of herself on the glass.
‘Zozie!’ she calls. ‘Are you ready yet?’
There comes a muffled reply from Zozie, who has been upstairs for the past two hours.
‘Can I come up?’ calls Anouk.
‘Not yet. I told you. It’s a surprise.’
There is something fey about Anouk tonight; an animation that is one part joy and three parts delirium. One moment she looks barely nine years old; the next she is half-adult and troubling, lovely in her red cloak, her hair like stormclouds around her face.
‘Calm down,’ I tell her. ‘You’ll wear yourself out.’
She hugs me impulsively, the way she used to when she was a child, but before I can hug her back, she has gone, flitting restlessly from dish to dish, glass to glass, rearranging holly leaves, ivy twists, candlesticks, napkins tied with scarlet string, multicoloured cushions on chairs, a cut-glass bowl from a charity shop now filled with a spiced garnet-red winter punch rich with nutmeg and cinnamon, spiked with lemon and a gasp of cognac and with a clove-studded orange suspended in the crimson depths.
Rosette, by contrast, is unusually calm. Swaddled in her monkey suit, she watches everything with wide eyes, but is most fascinated by the Advent house, with her very own Nativity scene with its falling snow lit up in a halo of light, with a group of monkeys standing by (Rosette insists that the monkey is a Christmas animal) in the place of the more customary ox and ass.
‘D’you think he’ll come?’
Of course she means Roux. Anouk has asked me so many times; and it hurts me to think of her disappointment if he does not. After all, why should he come? Why should he still be in Paris at all? But Anouk seems quite convinced that he is – has she seen him, I ask myself? – and the thought makes me feel dangerously light-headed, as if being Anouk could be catching, somehow, and that snow at Yule might not be a chance weather phenomenon, but a magical event that could wipe out the past—
‘Don’t you want him to come?’ she says.
I think of his face; of the patchouli-machine-oil scent of him; the way his head dips when he’s working on something; his rat tattoo; his slow smile. I’ve wanted him now for so long. And I’ve fought him too – his diffidence, his scorn for convention, his stubborn refusal to conform—
And I think of all the years we fled, as we ran from Lansquenet to Les Laveuses to Paris and Boulevard de la Chapelle with its neon sign and the mosque nearby; to Place des Faux-Monnayeurs and the chocolaterie, trying vainly at every stopping-place to fit in, to change, to be average—
And I wonder – in all that travelling, in hotel-rooms and boarding-houses and villages and towns; across those years of longing and fear—
Who was I really running from? The Black Man? The Kindly Ones? My mother? Myself?
‘Yes, Nou. I want him to come.’
Such a relief to say the words. To admit it at last, against all reasonable argument. Having tried and failed to find, if not love, then a kind of contentment with Thierry, to admit to myself that some things simply cannot be rationalized; that love is not a matter of choice; that sometimes you can’t escape the wind—
Of course Roux never believed I’d settle down. He always said I was fooling myself; expected, in his quiet arrogance, that some day I would admit defeat. I want him to come. But all the same, I won’t run away – not if Zozie brings the whole place down in ruins on my head. This time, we stand. Whatever it takes.
‘Someone’s here!’ The wind-chimes ring. But the figure at the door in its curly wig is far too bulky to be Roux.
‘Careful, folks! Wide load coming through!’
‘Nico!’ cries Anouk, and throws herself at the large figure – frogged coat, knee boots and jewellery to shame a king. He is carrying an armful of presents, which he drops under the Christmas tree, and although I know the room is not large, he seems to fill it with his giant good cheer.
‘Who are you supposed to be?’ says Anouk.
‘Henri IV, of course,’ says Nico grandly. ‘The culinary king of France. Hey—’ He stops for a moment to sniff the air. ‘Something smells good. I mean – really good. What’s cooking, Annie?’
‘Oh, lots of things.’
Behind him, Alice has come as a fairy, complete with tutu and sparkly wings, although traditional fairies don’t often wear such big boots. She is vivid and laughing with enjoyment, and although she is still slender, her face seems to have lost some of its sharpness, making her prettier, less fragile—
‘Where’s Shoe Lady?’ says Nico.
‘She’s getting ready,’ says Anouk, dragging Nico by the hand to his place at the laden dinner-table. ‘Come on, get a drink, there’s everything.’ She dips a ladle into the punch. ‘Don’t go nuts on the macaroons. There’s enough to feed an army here.’
Next comes Madame Luzeron. Far too dignified for fancy dress, but festive in her sky-blue twinset, she drops her presents under the tree and accepts a glass of punch from Anouk and a smile from Rosette, who is playing with her wooden dog on the floor.
The chimes ring again, and it’s Laurent Pinson, all shiny shoes and with fresh shaving-marks on his face, then Richard and Mathurin, Jean-Louis and Paupaul – Jean-Louis wearing the most garish yellow waistcoat I have ever seen – then Madame Pinot, who has come as a nun, then that anxious-looking lady who gave Rosette the doll (invited by Zozie, I think), and suddenly we are a jamboree of people, drinks, laughter, canapés and sweets, and I watch with one eye to the kitchen while Anouk plays hostess in my place and Alice nibbles a mendiant, and Laurent takes a handful of almonds and puts them in his pocket for later, and Nico calls again for Zozie, and I wonder when she will make her move—
Tak-tak-tak come her shoes down the stairs.
‘So sorry I’m late,’ she says, and smiles, and for a moment there’s an ebb; a silence as she enters the room, all fresh and glowing in her red dress, and now we can all see that she has cut her hair to shoulder-length, exactly like mine, tucked back behind her ears, like mine, with my straight fringe and that little kick at the back that nothing ever seems to tame—
Madame hugs Zozie as she comes down. I must find out her name, I think, although for the moment I cannot take my eyes from Zozie, who now moves into the centre of the room, to laughter and applause from the guests.
‘So who have you come as?’ says Anouk.
But it is to me that Zozie speaks, with that knowing smile that only I see.
‘Well, Yanne, isn’t this fun? Can’t you see? I’ve come as you.’
7
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 8.30 p.m.
WELL, YOU KNOW, there’s no pleasing some people. But wasn’t it worth it just for the look on her face, that sudden, sorry, stricken pallor, the tremor that goes through her body as she sees herself coming down the stairs—
I have to say it’s a good job. Dress, hair, jewellery, everything but her shoes, all reproduced to eerie perfection and worn with just that hint of a smile . . .
‘Hey, it’s like you’re twins, or something,’ says Fat Nico with childish delight as he helps himself to more macaroons. Laurent twitches nervously, as if caught out in some private fantasy. Of course people can still tell us apart – you can do so much with glamours, but outright transformation is the stuff of fairytale – and yet it is uncanny, how easily I take to the role.
The irony is not lost on Anouk, whose excitement has reached near-manic proportions as she flits in and out of the chocolaterie – to see the snow, or so she says, but she and I know she is waiting for Roux – and I guess that the sudden flashes of iridescence in her colours are born, not from pleasure, but from an energy that must be discharged, or risk burning her up like a paper lantern.
Roux is not here. Not yet, at least – and now it is time for Vianne to serve dinner.
With some reluctance, she begins. It’s early yet, and he may still come – his place is set at the end of the table, and if anyone asks, she will say that this is the place set to honour the dead, an old tradition that echoes the Día de los Muertos, quite appropriate for this evening’s celebration.
We begin with an onion soup as smoky and fragrant as autumn leaves, with croutons and grated Gruyère and a sprinkle of paprika over the top. She serves and watches me throughout, waiting, perhaps, for me to produce from thin air an even more perfect confection that will cast her effort into the shade.
The Lollipop Shoes Page 38
