The Lollipop Shoes (12 page)

‘Stop going on about my hair,’ I said.

‘Come on, Annie! It’ll be cool. And—’

‘I said
stop it
!’ Now I was beginning to feel really angry. ‘Why do you keep going on about it?’

‘Oh, you’re hopeless,’ said Suze, losing her temper. ‘You look like a freak, and you don’t even care?’

That’s another thing she does, you know. Makes a sentence sound like a question when it isn’t.

‘Why should I?’ I said. By now the anger had become something like a sneeze, and I could feel it coming, building, ready to burst whether I liked it or not. And then I remembered what Zozie had said in the English tea-shop, and wished I could do something to take the smug look off Suzanne’s face. Not something bad – I’d never do that – but something to teach her, all the same.

I forked my fingers behind my back and spoke to her in my shadow-voice—

See how you like it, for a change.

And for a second, I thought I saw something. A flash of something across her face; something that was gone before I’d really seen it.

‘I’d rather be a freak than a clone,’ I said.

Then I turned and walked to the back of the queue, with everyone staring and Suze wide-eyed and ugly, quite ugly with her red hair and her red face and her mouth hanging
open in disbelief as I stood there and waited for the bus to arrive.

I’m not sure if I expected her to follow me or not. I thought perhaps she would, but she didn’t; and when the bus came at last she sat next to Sandrine, and never even looked at me again.

I tried to tell Maman about it when I got home, but by then she was trying to talk to Nico
and
wrap a box of rum truffles
and
fix Rosette’s snack at the same time and I couldn’t quite find the words to tell her how I felt.

‘Just ignore them,’ she said at last, pouring milk into a copper pan. ‘Here, watch this for me, will you, Nanou? Just stir it gently while I wrap this box . . .’

She keeps the ingredients for the hot chocolate in a cabinet at the back of the kitchen. At the front she has some copper pans, some shiny moulds for making chocolate shapes, the granite slab for tempering. Not that she uses them any more; most of her old things are downstairs in the cellar, and even before Madame Poussin died, there was scarcely any time for making our specials.

But there’s always time for hot chocolate, made with milk and grated nutmeg, vanilla, chilli, brown sugar, cardamom and 70 per cent couverture chocolate – the only chocolate worth buying, she says – and it tastes rich and just slightly bitter on the back of the tongue, like caramel as it begins to turn. The chilli gives it a touch of heat – never too much, just a taste – and the spices give it that churchy smell that reminds me of Lansquenet somehow, and of nights above the chocolate shop, just Maman and me, with Pantoufle sitting to one side and candles burning on the orange-box table.

No orange-boxes here, of course. Last year Thierry got us a complete new kitchen. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He is the landlord, after all – he’s got lots of money, and besides, he’s supposed to fix the house. But Maman insisted on making a fuss, and cooking him a special dinner in the new kitchen. Oh, boy. Like we’d never had a kitchen before. So even the mugs are new now, with
Chocolat
written on them in fancy lettering. Thierry bought them – one for each of us and one for Madame Poussin – though he doesn’t actually
like
hot chocolate. (I can tell because he adds too much sugar.)

I used to have my own cup, a fat red one that Roux gave me, slightly chipped, with a painted letter
A
for Anouk. I don’t have it now; I don’t even remember what happened to it. Perhaps it got broken or left behind. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I don’t drink chocolate any more.

‘Suzanne says I’m weird,’ I said, as Maman came back into the kitchen.

‘Well, you’re not,’ she said, scraping the inside out of a vanilla pod. The chocolate was nearly ready by now, simmering gently in the pan. ‘Want some? It’s good.’

‘No thanks.’

‘OK.’

She poured some for Rosette instead, and added sprinkles and a dollop of cream. It looked good and smelt even better, but I didn’t want to let it show. I looked in the cupboard and found half a croissant from breakfast and some jam.

‘Pay no attention to Suzanne,’ said Maman, pouring out chocolate for herself into an espresso cup. I noticed neither she nor Rosette was using the Chocolat mugs. ‘I know her type. Try to make friends with somebody else.’

Well, easier said than done, I thought. Besides, what’s the point? It wouldn’t be me they were friends with at all. Fake hair, fake clothes, fake
me
.

‘Like who?’ I said.

‘
I
don’t know.’ Her voice was impatient as she put the spices back into the cupboard. ‘There must be someone you get on with.’

It isn’t my fault, I wanted to say. Why does she think
I’m
the difficult one? The problem is that Maman never really went to school – learnt everything the practical way, so she says – and all she knows about it now is what she’s read in children’s books, or seen through the wrong side of some schoolyard railings. From the other side, believe me, it’s not all jolly hockey sticks.

‘Well?’ Still that impatience, that tone that says
you should be grateful, I worked hard to get you here, to send you to a proper school, to save you from the life I had
—

‘Can I ask you something?’ I said.

‘Of course, Nanou. Is anything wrong?’

‘Was my father a black man?’

She gave a start, so small that I wouldn’t have seen it if it hadn’t been in her colours.

‘That’s what Chantal says at school.’

‘Really?’ said Maman, beginning to slice up some bread for Rosette. Bread, knife, chocolate spread. Rosette with her little monkey fingers turning the bread slice over and over. A look of intense concentration in Maman’s face as she worked. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Her eyes were as dark as Africa, impossible to read.

‘Would it matter?’ she said at last.

‘Dunno.’ I shrugged.

She turned to me then, and for a second she looked
almost like the old Maman, the one who never cared what anyone thought.

‘You know, Anouk,’ she said slowly. ‘For a long time I didn’t think you even needed a father. I thought it would always be just the two of us, the way it was with my mother and me. And then Rosette came along, and I thought, well maybe—’ She broke off, and smiled, and changed the subject so fast that for a minute I didn’t realize that she hadn’t actually changed it at all, like one of those fairground acts with the three cups and a ball. ‘You do like Thierry, don’t you?’ she said.

I shrugged again. ‘He’s OK.’

‘I thought you did. He likes
you
.’

I bit the corner off my croissant. Sitting in her little chair, Rosette was making an aeroplane out of her slice of bread.

‘I mean, if either of you didn’t like him—’

Actually, I don’t like him that much. He’s too loud, and he smells of cigars. And he’s always interrupting Maman when she’s talking, and he calls me
jeune fille
, like it’s a joke, and he doesn’t get Rosette at all, or understand when she signs at him, and he’s always pointing out long words and what they mean, as if I’d never heard them before.

‘He’s OK,’ I said again.

‘Well – Thierry wants to marry me.’

‘Since when?’ I said.

‘He mentioned it first to me last year. I told him I didn’t want to be involved with anybody just then – there was Rosette to think of, and Madame Poussin – and he said he was happy to wait. But now we’re alone . . .’

‘You didn’t say yes, did you?’ I said, too loudly for Rosette, who put her hands over her ears.

‘It’s complicated.’ She sounded tired.

‘You always say that.’

‘That’s because it’s always complicated.’

Well, I don’t see why. It seems simple to me. She’s never been married before, has she? So why would she want to get married now?

‘Things have changed, Nanou,’ she said.

‘What things?’ I wanted to know.

‘Well, the
chocolaterie
, for a start. The rent’s paid till the end of the year. But after that . . .’ She gave a sigh. ‘It won’t be easy making it work. And I can’t just take money from Thierry. He keeps offering, but it wouldn’t be fair. And I thought . . .’

Well of course I’d known there was
something
wrong. But I’d thought she was sad about Madame. Now I could see it was Thierry instead, and her worry that I might not fit in with their plan.

Some plan. I can see us now. Maman, Papa and the two little girls, like something out of a story by the Comtesse de Ségur. We’d go to church; eat
steack-frites
every day; wear dresses from Galeries Lafayette. Thierry would have a picture of us on his desk, a professional portrait, with Rosette and me in matching outfits.

Don’t get me wrong; I
said
he’s OK. But—

‘Well?’ she said. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

I bit a little piece from my croissant. ‘We don’t need him,’ I said at last.

‘Well, we need
someone
, that’s for sure. I thought at least you’d understand that. You need to go to school, Anouk. You need a proper home – a father—’

Don’t make me laugh. A father? As if.
You choose your family
, she always says, but what choice does she think she’s giving me?

‘Anouk,’ she said. ‘I’m doing it for you . . .’

‘Whatever.’ I shrugged and took my croissant out into the street.

8

Saturday,10th November

I DROPPED IN
at the
chocolaterie
this morning and bought a box of liqueur cherries. Yanne was there, with the little one in tow. Though the shop was quiet, she looked harried, almost uncomfortable at seeing me, and the chocolates, when I tried them, were nothing special.

‘I used to make these myself,’ she said, handing me the cherries in a paper twist. ‘But liqueurs are so fussy, and there’s never the time. I hope you like them.’

I popped one into my mouth with well-feigned greed. ‘Fabulous,’ I said, through a sour paste of pickled cherry. On the floor behind the counter, Rosette was singing softly to herself, sprawled among a scatter of crayons and coloured paper.

‘Doesn’t she go to nursery school?’

Yanne shook her head. ‘I like to keep an eye on her.’

Well, of course, I can see that. I see other things, too, now that I happen to look for them. The sky-blue door hides a number of things that regular customers overlook.
First, the place is old and in some considerable disrepair. The window is attractive enough with its display of pretty little tins and boxes, and the walls are painted a cheerful yellow, but even so the damp awaits, lurking in corners and beneath the floor, speaking of too little money and not enough time. Some care has been taken to hide this: a scrawl of cobweb-gold across a nest of cracks, a welcoming shimmer in the doorway, a luscious quality to the air that promises more than those second-rate chocolates.

Try me. Test me.

Discreetly, with my left hand, I conjured the Eye of Black Tezcatlipoca. Around me, the colours flared, confirming my suspicions on that first day. Someone has been at work here, and I don’t think it was Yanne Charbonneau. There is a youthful, naïve, exuberant aspect to this glamour that speaks of a mind as yet untrained.

Annie? Who else? And the mother? Well. There’s something about her that needles me, something I’ve seen only once – on that first day, as she opened the door at the sound of her name. She had brighter colours then, all right; and something tells me she has them still, even though she chooses to conceal them.

On the floor, Rosette was drawing, still singing her little wordless song. ‘
Bam-bam-bammm . . . Bam-badda-bammm
. . .’

‘Come on, Rosette. Time for your nap.’

Rosette did not look up from her drawing. The singing grew a little louder, now accompanied by the rhythmic thumping of a sandalled foot against the floor. ‘
Bam-bam-bamm
. . .’

‘Now, Rosette,’ said Yanne gently. ‘Time to put the crayons away.’

Still no reaction from Rosette.

‘
Bam-bam-bamm . . . Bam-badda-bammm
. . .’ At the same time, her colours bloomed from chrysanthemum-gold to brilliant orange, and she laughed, reaching out as if to grasp falling petals. ‘
Bam-bam-bamm . . . Bam-badda-bamm
. . .’

‘Shh, Rosette!’

And now I could feel a tension in Yanne. It was not just the embarrassment of a mother whose child will not behave, but more like the sense of approaching danger. She picked up Rosette – still warbling unconcerned – flinging me a grimace of apology as she did so.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘She gets like this when she’s overtired.’

‘It’s OK. She’s cute,’ I said.

A pot of pencils fell from the counter-top. Pencils rolled across the floor.

‘
Bam
,’ said Rosette, pointing at the fallen pencils.

‘I need to put her to bed now,’ said Yanne. ‘She gets too excited if she doesn’t have her nap.’