Instead I eat, and talk, and smile, and compliment the chef, and the chink of crockery goes through her head, and she feels slightly dazed, not quite herself. Well, pulque is a mysterious brew, and the punch is liberally spiked with it, courtesy of Yours Truly, of course, in honour of the joyful occasion. As comfort, perhaps, she serves more punch, and the scent of the cloves is like being buried alive, and the taste is like chillies spiced with fire, and she wonders, will it ever end?
The second course is sweet foie gras, sliced on thin toast with quinces and figs. It’s the snap that gives this dish its charm, like the snap of correctly tempered chocolate, and the foie gras melts so lingeringly in the mouth, as soft as praline truffle, and it is served with a glass of ice-cold Sauternes that Anouk disdains, but which Rosette sips in a tiny glass no larger than a thimble, and gives her rare and sunny smile, and signs impatiently for more.
The third course is a salmon baked en papillote and served whole, with a Béarnaise sauce. Alice complains she is nearly full, but Nico shares his plate with her, feeding her titbits and laughing at her minuscule appetite.
Then comes the pièce de résistance: the goose, long roasted in a hot oven so that the fat has melted from the skin, leaving it crisp and almost caramelized, and the flesh so tender it slips off the bones like a silk stocking from a lady’s leg. Around it there are chestnuts and roast potatoes, all cooked and crackling in the golden fat.
Nico makes a sound half-lust, half-laughter. ‘I think I just died and went to calorie heaven,’ he says, attacking a goose leg with relish. ‘You know, I haven’t tasted anything this good since my ma died. Compliments to the chef! If I wasn’t totally in love with the stick-insect here, I’d marry you just like that—’ And he waves his fork in a cheery way, almost putting out Madame Luzeron’s eye in his exuberance (she turns her face away just in time).
Vianne smiles. The punch must be taking effect by now, and she is flushed with her success. ‘Thank you,’ she says, standing up. ‘I’m so glad you’re all here tonight so I can thank you for all the help you’ve given us.’
That’s rich, I think to myself. Exactly what have they done, I ask?
‘For your custom, support, and friendship,’ she says, ‘at a time when all of us needed it.’ She smiles again, perhaps dimly aware now of the chemistries coursing freely through her veins, making her strangely talkative, strangely imprudent and almost reckless, like some much younger Vianne from some other half-forgotten life.
‘I had what you’d call an unstable childhood. It meant I never really settled down. I didn’t feel accepted anywhere I went. I always felt like an outsider. But now I’ve managed to stay here four years, and I owe it all to people like you.’
Yawn, yawn. Speech coming on.
I pour myself a glass of punch and catch my little Anouk’s eye. She’s looking a little restless, I see, perhaps because of Jean-Loup’s absence. He must be very ill, poor boy. They think it might have been something he ate. And with a delicate heart like his, anything can be dangerous. A cold, a chill, a cantrip, even—
Could it be that she feels guilty, somehow?
Please, Anouk. Perish the thought. Why should you feel responsible? As if you’re not already alert enough to every little negative. But I can see your colours, dear, and the way you’ve been looking at my little Nativity scene, with its magic circle of three standing under the light of electric stars.
Speaking of which, we’re missing one. Late as expected, but approaching fast, sneaking up the back streets of the Butte as sly as a fox around a henhouse. His place is still set at the head of the table; plates, glasses, all untouched.
Vianne thinks maybe she is a fool. Anouk herself is beginning to think that all her planning and invocations have been for nothing, that even the snow will change nothing, and that nothing is left to keep her here.
But there is time yet as the meal comes to an end, for red wines from the Gers, for p’tits cendrés rolled in oak-wood ash, for fresh unpasteurized cheeses, for old matured cheeses and aged Buzet and quince paste and walnuts and green almonds and honey.
And now Vianne brings out the thirteen desserts and the Yule log, thick as a strongman’s arm and armoured in inch-thick chocolate, and everyone who thought they might have had enough by now – even Alice – finds just a little more space for a slice (or two, or three, in Nico’s case) and although the punch is finished at last, Vianne opens a bottle of champagne and we drink a toast.
Aux absents.
8
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 10.30 p.m.
ROSETTE IS GETTING sleepy now. She’s been so good throughout this meal, eating with her fingers, but clean enough, not dribbling much, and talking (well, signing) a lot to Alice, who’s sitting beside her little chair.
She loves Alice’s fairy wings, which is good because Alice has brought her a pair of her own, wrapped up under the Christmas tree. Rosette’s too little to wait for midnight – she really ought to be in bed by now – and so we thought she could open her presents now. But she stopped right there at the fairy wings, which are purple and silver and kind of cool – in fact I’m hoping Alice might have brought me a pair, which looks kind of likely from the shape of the package. So now Rosette’s a flying monkey, which she thinks is hilarious, and she’s crawling all over the place in her purple wings and monkey suit, laughing at Nico from under the table, a chocolate biscuit in her hand.
But now it’s late and I’m feeling tired. Where’s Roux? Why didn’t he come? I can’t think about anything else; not food; not even presents. I’m too wound up. My heart feels like a clockwork toy spinning around, out of control. For a minute I close my eyes, and there’s the scent of coffee now, and the spiced hot chocolate that Maman drinks, and the sound of plates being cleared away.
He’ll come, I think. He has to come.
But it’s so late, and he isn’t here. Didn’t I do everything right? The candles, and the sugar, and the circle, and the blood? The gold and frankincense? The snow?
So why isn’t he here by now?
I don’t want to cry. It’s Christmas Eve. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Is this the payoff Zozie mentioned? Get rid of Thierry – but at what cost?
Then I hear the chimes, and I open my eyes. There’s someone standing at the door. For a moment I see him quite clearly; all in black, with his red hair loose—
But I look again, and it isn’t Roux. It’s Jean-Loup at the door, and the red-haired woman next to him must be his mother, I guess. She’s looking kind of sour-faced and embarrassed, but Jean-Loup seems OK, a bit pale perhaps, but then he always looks pale—
I jump out of my chair. ‘You made it! Hooray! Do you feel all right?’
‘Never better,’ he says, grinning. ‘How lame would it be if I missed your party after all the work you’ve done?’
Jean-Loup’s mother tries to smile. ‘I don’t want to intrude,’ she says. ‘But Jean-Loup insisted—’
‘You’re welcome,’ I say.
And as Maman and I hurry to find a couple of extra chairs in the kitchen, Jean-Loup puts a hand in his pocket and pulls out something. It looks like a present, wrapped in gold paper, but it’s small, about the size of a praline.
He gives it to Zozie. ‘I guess they’re not my favourites, after all.’
She’s standing with her back to me, so I don’t see her face, or what the little packet contains. But he must have decided to give Zozie a chance, and I’m so relieved I could almost cry. Things are really working out. All we need is for Roux to come back, and for Zozie to decide to stay—
Then she turns and I see her face, and for a second it doesn’t look like Zozie at all. Must be a trick of the light, I guess, but just for a moment there she looked angry – angry? No, furious – her eyes like slits, her mouth full of teeth, her hand clenched so hard around the half-open packet that chocolate oozes out like blood . . .
Well, like I said, it’s getting late. My eyes must be playing tricks
on me. Because half a second later she’s back again, all smiling and gorgeous in her red dress and red velvet shoes, and I’m just about to ask Jean-Loup what the little package was when the wind-chimes ring again, and another someone comes in, a tall figure in red and white with a furry hood and a big fake beard—
‘Roux!’ I yell, and I jump to my feet.
Roux pulls away the fake beard. Underneath, he’s grinning.
Rosette is almost at his feet. He picks her up and swings her into the air. ‘A monkey!’ he says. ‘My favourite. Better still, a flying monkey!’
I give him a hug. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’
‘Well, I’m here.’
A silence falls. He’s standing there, Rosette clinging on to one arm. The room’s full of people, but they might as well not be there at all, and although he seems relaxed enough, I can tell from the way he’s watching Maman—
I look at her through the Smoking Mirror. She’s playing it cool, but her colours are bright. She takes a step forward.
‘We saved you a place.’
He looks at her. ‘You sure?’
She nods.
And everybody stares at him then, and for a moment I think maybe he’s going to say something, because Roux doesn’t like it when people stare – in fact Roux isn’t too comfortable around people at all—
But then she takes another step and kisses him softly on the mouth, and he puts down Rosette and holds out his arms—
And I don’t need the Smoking Mirror to know. No one could ignore that kiss, or the way they fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, or the light in her eyes as she takes his hand and turns to smile at everyone—
Go on, I tell her in my shadow-voice. Tell them. Say it. Say it now—
And for a second she looks at me. And I know she’s got my message somehow. But then she looks round at our circle of friends, and Jean-Loup’s mother still standing up and looking like a sucked lemon, and I can see her hesitate. Everyone is watching her – and I know what she’s thinking. It’s obvious. She’s waiting for them to get the Look; the look we’ve seen so many times; the look that says: you don’t belong here – you’re not one of us – you’re different . . .
Around the table, no one speaks. They watch her in silence, all rosy-faced and well-fed, except for Jean-Loup and his mother, of course, who stares at us like we were a den of wolves. There’s Fat Nico holding hands with Alice in her fairy wings; Madame Luzeron, incongruous in her twinset and pearls; Madame Pinot in her nun’s outfit, looking twenty years younger with her hair undone; Laurent with a gleam in his eye; Richard and Mathurin, Jean-Louis and Paupaul sharing a smoke; and none of them – none of them has the Look—
And it’s her face that changes. It softens, somehow. As if a weight has come off her heart. And for the first time since Rosette was born she really looks like Vianne Rocher; the Vianne who blew into Lansquenet and never cared what anyone said—
Zozie gives a little smile.
Jean-Loup grabs hold of his mother’s hand and forces her to sit down on a chair.
Laurent’s mouth drops open a notch.
Madame Pinot goes strawberry-pink.
And Maman says, ‘Folks, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Roux. He’s Rosette’s father.’
9
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 10.40 p.m.
I HEAR THE collective sigh go round; something that in different circumstances might have been disapproval, but in this case, after food and wine, mellowed by the season and the unaccustomed glamour of snow, seems like the ahhh! that follows a particularly spectacular firework.
Roux looks wary, then he grins, accepts a glass of champagne from Madame Luzeron and raises it to all of us—
He followed me into the kitchen as the conversation started again. Rosette came with him, still crawling in her monkey suit, and I remember now how fascinated she was the first time he walked into the shop, as if even then she had recognized him.
Roux bent down to touch her hair. The resemblance between them was sweetly poignant, like memories and lost time. There are so many things he hasn’t seen; when Rosette first held up her head; her first smile; her animal drawings; the spoon dance that so angered Thierry. But I already know from the look on his face that he’ll never blame her for being different; that she will never embarrass him; that he will never compare her to anyone else, or ask that she be anything other than herself—
‘Why did you never tell me?’ he said.
I hesitated. Which truth should I tell? That I was too afraid, too proud, too stubborn to change, that, like Thierry, I’d been in love with a fantasy that, when it finally came within my grasp, revealed itself to be, not gold, but nothing more than wisps of straw?
‘I wanted us to settle down. I wanted us to be ordinary.’
‘Ordinary?’
I told him the rest; told of our flight from town to town, the fake wedding ring, the change of name, the end of magic, Thierry; the pursuit of acceptance at any cost, even my shadow, even my soul.
Roux stayed silent for a while, then he laughed softly in his throat. ‘All this for a chocolate shop?’
I shook my head. ‘Not any more.’
He always said I tried too hard. Cared too much – and now I can see that I didn’t care enough for the things that really matter to me. A chocolaterie is, after all, just sand and mortar, stone and glass. It has no heart; no life of its own except for what it takes from us. And when we have given that away—
Roux picked up Rosette, who did not squirm as she usually does when approached by a stranger, but gave a silent crow of delight and signed something with both her hands.
‘What did she say?’
‘She says you look like a monkey,’ I said, laughing. ‘From Rosette, that’s a compliment.’
He grinned at that and put his arms around us both. And for a moment we stood entwined, Rosette clinging to his neck, the soft sound of laughter from next door and the scent of chocolate on the air—
And then a silence falls over the room, and the wind-chimes ring, and the door blows wide and through the opening I can see another hooded figure all in red, but bigger, bulkier, and so familiar beneath his false beard that I don’t have to see the cigar in his hand—
And in the silence Thierry comes in, with a lurch in his step that speaks of drink.
He fixes Roux with a malevolent stare and says: ‘Who is she?’
‘She?’ says Roux.
Thierry crosses the room in three strides, clipping the Christmas tree in his path and scattering presents over the floor. He thrusts his white-bearded face towards Roux.
‘You know,’ he says. ‘Your accomplice. The one who helped you cash my cheque. The one the bank’s got on CCTV – and who by all accounts has ripped off more than one sucker in Paris this year—’
‘I don’t have an accomplice,’ says Roux. ‘I never cashed your—’
And now I can see something in his face, a dawning of something, but it’s too late.
Thierry grabs him by the arm. They’re so close now, reflections in a distorted mirror, Thierry wild-eyed, Roux very pale—
‘The police know all about her,’ Thierry says. ‘But they’ve never been so close before. She changes her name, see? Works alone. But this time she made a mistake. She hitched up with a loser like you. So who is she?’ He’s shouting now, his face as red as Santa’s own. He fixes Roux with his drunken glare. ‘Who the hell is Vianne Rocher?’
10
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 10.55 p.m.
WELL, ISN’T THAT the million-dollar question?
Thierry is drunk. I can see that at once. He reeks of beer and cigar-smoke, which clings to his Santa Claus costume and that absurdly festive cotton-wool beard. Beneath it his colours are murky and threatening, but I can tell he’s in poor shape.
Across from him, Vianne is white as an ice statue, her mouth half-open, her eyes ablaze. She shakes her head in helples
s denial. She knows Roux would not give her away; and Anouk is speechless, twice stricken, first by the touching little family scene she has glimpsed behind the kitchen door, second by this ugly intrusion when everything seemed so perfect at last—
‘Vianne Rocher?’ Her voice is blank.
‘That’s right,’ says Thierry. ‘Otherwise known as Françoise Lavery, Mercedes Desmoines, Emma Windsor, to name but a few—’
Behind her, I see Anouk recoil. One of those names has struck a chord. Does it matter? I think not. In fact, I think the game is mine—
He fixes her with that measuring stare. ‘He calls you Vianne.’ Of course, he means Roux.
Silently, she shakes her head.
‘You mean you’ve never heard that name?’
Once more she shakes her head, and oh!—
The look on her face as she sees the trap; sees how neatly she has been manoeuvred to this very point; understands how her only hope is to deny herself for the third time—
Behind them, no one is watching Madame. Quiet during the festive meal, speaking mostly to Anouk, she now watches Thierry with an expression of stark and uncomplicated horror. Oh, I have prepared Madame, of course. With gentle hints, subtle charm and good old-fashioned chemistry I have brought her to this moment of revelation and now all it takes is a single name and the piñata cracks open like a chestnut on the fire . . .
Vianne Rocher.
Well, that’s my cue. Smiling, I stand, and I have time for a last quick celebratory sip of champagne before all eyes are upon me – hopeful, fearful, furious, worshipful – as now at last I claim the prize—
I smile. ‘Vianne Rocher? That would be me.’
11
Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 11.00 p.m.
SHE MUST HAVE found my papers, of course, hidden in my mother’s box. After that, it’s easy enough to open an account in my name; to send off for a new passport, a driving licence, everything she requires to become Vianne Rocher. She even looks just like me now; easy again, using Roux as bait, to use my stolen identity in a way that will at some time incriminate us—
The Lollipop Shoes Page 39
