‘Eat properly, Rosette,’ said Thierry. ‘Use your spoon.’
Rosette went on eating as if she hadn’t heard. There was a time I feared she was deaf; now I know she simply ignores what she feels to be unimportant. It’s a pity she does not pay more attention to Thierry; rarely laughs or smiles in his company; rarely shows her sweet side, or signs any more than absolutely necessary.
At home, with Anouk, she laughs and plays; sits for hours with her book; listens to the radio and dances like a dervish around the flat. At home, barring Accidents, she is well-behaved; at naptime we lie in bed together, as I used to with Anouk. I sing to her and tell her stories, and her eyes are bright and alert, lighter than Anouk’s, and green and clever as a cat’s. She sings along – after a fashion – to my mother’s lullaby. She can just hold a tune, but still relies on me for the words:
V’là l’bon vent, v’là l’joli vent,
V’là l’bon vent, ma mie m’appelle.
V’là l’bon vent, v’là l’joli vent,
V’là l’bon vent, ma mie m’attend.
Thierry speaks of her being ‘a little slow’, or ‘a late developer’, and suggests that I get her ‘checked out’. He has not yet mentioned autism, but he will – like so many men of his age, he reads Le Point and believes that this makes him an expert on most things. I, on the other hand, am only a woman, besides being a mother, which has addled my sense of objective judgement.
‘Say spoon, Rosette,’ Thierry says.
Rosette picks up the spoon and looks at it curiously.
‘Come on, Rosette. Say spoon.’
Rosette hoots like an owl and makes the spoon perform an impertinent little dance on the tablecloth. Anyone would think she is making fun of Thierry. Quickly I take the spoon from Rosette. Anouk pinches her lips to stop herself from laughing.
Rosette looks at her and grins.
Quit it, signs Anouk with her fingers.
Bullshit, signs Rosette with hers.
I smile at Thierry. ‘She’s only three—’
‘Nearly four. That’s old enough.’ Thierry’s face takes on the bland expression he adopts when he feels I am being uncooperative. It makes him look older, less familiar, and I feel a sudden sting of irritation – unfair, I know, but it can’t be helped. I don’t appreciate interference.
I am shocked at how close I come to actually saying it aloud – then I see the waitress – Zozie – watching me with a frown of amusement between her long blue eyes, and I bite my tongue and keep silent.
I tell myself that I have much to be grateful for in Thierry. It’s not just the shop, or the help that he has given us over the past year; or even the presents for myself and the children. It’s that Thierry is so much larger than life. His shadow covers the three of us; beneath it we are truly invisible.
But he seemed unusually restless today, fidgeting with something in his pocket. He looked at me quizzically over his blonde. ‘Something wrong?’
‘I’m just tired.’
‘What you need is a holiday.’
‘A holiday?’ I almost laughed. ‘Holidays are for selling chocolates.’
‘You’re going to keep on with the business, then?’
‘Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I? It’s less than two months to Christmas, and—’
‘Yanne,’ he interrupted me. ‘If I can help in any way – financial or otherwise—’ He reached out his hand to touch mine.
‘I’ll manage,’ I said.
‘Of course. Of course.’ The hand returned to his coat pocket. He means well, I told myself; and yet something in me rebels at the thought of intrusion, however well-meant. I have managed alone for so long that the need for help – any kind of help – seems like a dangerous weakness.
‘You’ll never run the shop alone. What about the kids?’ he said.
‘I’ll manage,’ I repeated. ‘I’m—’
‘You can’t do everything on your own.’ He was looking slightly annoyed now; shoulders hunched, hands jammed into his coat pockets.
‘I know that. I’ll find someone.’
Once more I glanced at Zozie, busy now with two platters of food in each hand, joking with the belote players at the back of the room. She looks so very much at ease, so independent, so very much herself as she hands out the plates, collects the glasses, fends off wandering hands with a laughing comment and a pretend-slap.
Why, I was like that, I told myself. That was me, ten years ago.
Well, not even that, I thought, because surely Zozie could not be so much younger than me, but so much easier in her own skin, more thoroughly Zozie than I was ever Vianne.
Who is Zozie? I ask myself. Those eyes see much further than dishes to be washed, or a banknote folded under the rim of a plate. Blue eyes are easier to read, and yet the trick of the trade that has served me so often – if not so well – along the years, for some reason fails to work at all with her. Some people are like that, I tell myself. But dark or light, soft-centred or brittle, bitterest orange or rose cream or Manon blanc or vanilla truffle, I have no idea whether she even likes chocolate at all, still less her favourite.
So – why is it I think that she knows mine?
I looked back at Thierry, to find that he was watching her too.
‘You can’t afford to hire any help. You’re barely making ends meet as it is.’
Once more, I felt a flash of annoyance. Who does he think he is? I thought. As if I’d never managed alone, as if I were a child playing shop with my friends. Certainly, business in the chocolaterie has not been good over the past few months. But the rent is paid till the New Year, and surely we can turn it around. Christmas is coming, and with luck—
‘Yanne, perhaps we need to talk.’ The smile had gone, and now I could see the businessman in his face; the man who had started out at fourteen with his father to renovate a single derelict flat near Gare du Nord, and had become one of the most successful property dealers in Paris. ‘I know it’s hard. But really, it doesn’t have to be. There’s a solution to everything. I know you were devoted to Madame Poussin – you helped her a lot, and I appreciate that—’
He thinks that’s true. Perhaps it was; but I’m also aware that I used her, too, as I used my imagined widowhood, as an excuse to delay the inevitable; the terrible point of no return—
‘But perhaps there’s a way forward from here.’
‘Way forward?’ I said.
He gave me a smile. ‘I see this as an opportunity for you. I mean, obviously we’re all sorry about Madame Poussin, but in a way, this liberates you. You could do whatever you wanted, Yanne – although I think I’ve found a place you’ll like—’
‘You’re saying I should give up the chocolaterie?’ For a moment his words sounded like a foreign language.
‘Come on, Yanne. I’ve seen your accounts. I know what’s what. It’s not your fault, you’ve worked so hard, but business is terrible everywhere and—’
‘Thierry, please. I don’t want this now.’
‘Then what do you want?’ Thierry said with exasperation. ‘God knows, I’ve humoured you long enough. Why can’t you see I’m trying to help you? Why won’t you let me do what I can?’
‘I’m sorry, Thierry. I know you mean well. But—’
And then I saw something in my mind. It happens sometimes, at unguarded moments: a reflection in a coffee-cup; a glimpse in a mirror; an image floating its clouds across the glossy surface of a batch of newly tempered chocolate.
A box. A little sky-blue box—
What was in it? I couldn’t say. But a kind of panic bloomed in me; my throat was dry, I could hear the wind in the alleyway and I wanted nothing more at that moment than to take my children and run and run—
Pull yourself together, Vianne.
I made my voice as bland as I could. ‘Can’t this wait till I’ve sorted things out?’
But Thierry is like a hunting dog, cheery, determined, and impervious to argument. His hand was still in his coat pocket, fiddli
ng with something inside.
‘I’m trying to help you sort it out. Don’t you see that? I don’t want you killing yourself with work. It isn’t worth it, just for a few miserable boxes of chocolates. Maybe it suited Madame Poussin. But you’re young, you’re bright, your life isn’t over—’
And now I knew what it was I’d seen. I could see it, quite clearly in my mind’s eye. A little blue box, from a Bond Street jeweller, a single gem, carefully chosen with the help of a female shop assistant, not too large but of perfect clarity, nestling against the velvet lining . . .
Oh, please, Thierry. Not here. Not now.
‘I don’t need any help right now.’ I gave him my most brilliant smile. ‘Now eat your choucroute. It’s delicious—’
‘You’ve hardly touched it,’ he pointed out.
I scooped a mouthful. ‘See?’ I said.
Thierry smiled. ‘Close your eyes.’
‘What, here?’
‘Close your eyes and hold out your hand.’
‘Thierry, please—’ I tried to laugh. But it sounded harsh in my throat; a pea in a gourd, rattling to escape.
‘Close your eyes and count to ten. You’ll like it. I promise. It’s a surprise.’
What could I do? I did as he said. Held out my hand like a little girl, felt something – small, the size of a wrapped praline – drop into my palm.
When I opened my eyes Thierry was gone. And the Bond Street box was there in my hand, just as I’d seen it a moment before, with the ring – an icy solitaire – gleaming out from its bed of midnight-blue.
5
Friday, 9th November
THERE, I TELL you. Just as I thought. I watched them throughout that tense little meal: Annie with her gleam of butterfly-blue; the other, red-gold, too young as yet for my purposes but no less intriguing; the man – loud, but of little account; and lastly the mother, still and watchful, her colours so muted that they hardly seem to be colours at all, but some reflection of the streets and the sky in water so troubled it defies reflection.
There’s definitely a weakness there. Something that might give me the edge. It’s the hunter’s instinct I’ve developed over the years; the ability to sense the lame gazelle without even opening half an eye. She’s suspicious, and yet some people want to believe so much – in magic, in love, in business proposals guaranteed to treble their investment – and it makes them vulnerable to one such as myself. These people fall for it every time, and how can I help it if they do?
I first began to see the colours when I was nine. Just a little gleam at first; a sparkle of gold from the corner of my eye, a silver lining where there was no cloud, a blur of something complex and coloured in amongst a crowd. As my interest grew, so did my ability to see these colours. I learnt that everyone has a signature, an expression of their inner being that is visible only to a certain few, and with the help of a fingering or two.
Mostly there isn’t a lot to see; the majority of folk are as dull as their shoes. But occasionally you can glean something worthwhile. A flare of anger from an expressionless face. A rose banner flying over a pair of lovers. The green-grey veil of secrecy. It helps when dealing with people, of course. And it helps at cards, if money runs short.
There’s an old finger-sign known by some as the Eye of Black Tezcatlipoca, by others as the Smoking Mirror, that helps me to focus on the colours. I learnt to use it in Mexico; and with practice and knowledge of right fingerings I could tell who was lying; who was afraid; who was cheating on his wife; who was anxious about money.
And little by little I learnt to manipulate the colours that I saw; to give myself that rosy glow, that gleam of something special. Or – when a certain discretion was required – the opposite: the comforting cloak of unimportance that allows me to pass unseen and unremembered.
It took me a little longer to recognize these things as magic. Like all children, reared on stories, I’d expected fireworks: magic wands and broomstick rides. The real magic of my mother’s books seemed so dull, so fustily academic, with its silly incantations and its pompous old men, that it hardly counted as magic at all.
But then, my mother had no magic. For all her study, for all her spells and candles and crystals and cards, I never saw her turn so much as a cantrip. Some people are like that; I saw it in her colours long before I told her so. Some people just don’t have what it takes to make a witch.
But my mother had the knowledge, if not the skill. She ran an occult bookshop in the suburbs of London, and all kinds of people came and went. High magicians, Odinists, Wiccans by the score, and the occasional would-be satanist (invariably acne-ridden, as if adolescence had never quite passed them by).
From her – from them – I finally learnt what I needed to know. My mother was certain that by allowing me access to all forms of occultism, I would eventually choose my own path. She herself was a follower of an obscure sect who believed dolphins to be the enlightened race, and who practised a kind of ‘earth magic’ which was as harmless as it was ineffective.
But everything has its uses, I found, and over the years, with excruciating slowness, I was able to pick out the crumbs of practical magic from the useless, ludicrous and outright fake. I found that most magic – when it’s there at all – is hidden beneath a suffocating drift of ritual, drama, fasting and time-consuming disciplines devised to give a sense of mystery to what is basically just a matter of finding what works. My mother loved the ritual – I just wanted the recipe book.
So I dabbled in runes, in cards, in crystals and pendulums and herbology. I steeped myself in the I Ching; cherry-picked the Golden Dawn; rejected Crowley (but for his Tarot pack, which is rather beautiful), pored earnestly over my Inner Goddess and laughed myself into convulsions over Liber Null and the Necronomicon.
But most fervently I studied Meso-American beliefs: those of the Maya, the Inca and, above all, the Aztec. For some reason these had always held a special appeal, and from them I learnt about sacrifice, and the duality of the gods, and the malice of the universe, and the language of colours, and the horror of death; and how the only way to survive in the world is to fight back as hard and as dirty as you can.
The result was my System, minutely gleaned over years of trial and error and consisting of: some solid herbal medicine (including some useful poisons and hallucinogens); some fingerings and magical names; some breathing and limbering exercises; some mood-enhancing potions and tinctures; some astral projection and self-hypnosis; a handful of cantrips (I’m not fond of spoken spells, but some of them work); and a greater understanding of the colours. Including the ability to manipulate them further: to become, if I chose, what others expected; to cast glamour over myself and others; to change the world according to my will.
Throughout it all, and to my mother’s concern, I remained unaffiliated to any group. She protested; felt that it was somehow immoral for me to winnow what I liked from so many lesser, flawed beliefs, and would have liked me to join a nice, friendly, mixed-gender coven – where I would have a social life and meet unthreatening boys – or to embrace her own aquatic school of thought, and follow the dolphins.
‘But what do you actually believe?’ she would say, worrying at her strings of beads with a long, nervous finger. ‘I mean, where’s the soul of it; where’s the avatar?’
I shrugged. ‘Why does there have to be a soul? I care what works; not how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or what colour candle to burn for a love spell.’ (Actually, I’d already discovered that in the seduction department, coloured candles are vastly overrated when compared to oral sex.)
My mother just sighed in her sweetest way, and said something about following my own path. So I did, and I have been following it ever since. It has led me to many interesting places – here, for example – but never have I encountered evidence to suggest that I am not unique.
Until now, perhaps.
Yanne Charbonneau. It rings too nicely to be entirely plausible. And there’s something in her colours, so
me suggestion of deceit, although I suspect that she has developed ways to hide herself, so that I can only glimpse the truth when her defences are lowered.
Maman doesn’t like us to be different.
Interesting.
And what was the name of that village again? Lansquenet? I must look it up, I told myself. There may be some clue to be found there, past scandal perhaps, some trace of a mother and child that may cast light on this shadowy pair.
Searching internet sites from my laptop, I found only two references to the place – both websites dedicated to folklore and festivities of the south-west, in which the name of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes was linked to a popular Easter festival, first held a little over four years ago.
A chocolate festival. No surprise.
So. Did she get bored with village life? Did she make enemies? Why did she leave?
Her shop was completely deserted this morning. I watched it from Le P’tit Pinson, and no one came in till half past twelve. A Friday, and no one came; not the grossly fat man who never shuts up, not even a neighbour or a tourist in passing.
What’s wrong with the place? It should be buzzing with customers. Instead, it’s half-invisible, hiding in the corner of the whitewashed square. Surely that’s bad for business. It wouldn’t take much to gild it a little, to enhance the place, to make it shine as it did the other day – and yet she does nothing. Why, I wonder? My mother spent her life trying vainly to be special – why does Yanne exert so much effort in pretending otherwise?
6
Friday, 9th November
THIERRY CALLED ROUND at twelve o’clock. I’d been expecting him, of course, and I’d spent a sleepless night worrying about how I was going to handle our next meeting. How I wish I’d never drawn those cards – Death, the Lovers, the Tower, Change – because now it almost feels like Fate, as if this were inevitable, and all the days and months of my life set out like a row of dominoes ready to fall . . .
The Lollipop Shoes Page 7