The Lollipop Shoes (26 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you were—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Are you the manager?’ His voice was quiet, accented with the rolling
rs
and sharp vowels of the Midi.

‘No, I just work here,’ I told him, smiling. ‘The manager’s Madame Charbonneau. Do you know her?’

For a moment he seemed uncertain.

‘Yanne Charbonneau,’ I prompted.

‘Yeah. I know her.’

‘Well, she’s out right now. But I’m sure she’ll be back soon.’

‘All right. I’ll wait.’ He sat down at a table, glancing around as he did so at the shop, the pictures, the chocolates – with pleasure, I thought, and some unease, as if unsure of his reception.

‘And you are . . .?’ I said.

‘Oh. Just a friend.’

I smiled at him. ‘I meant your
name
.’

‘Oh.’ Now I was sure he looked ill at ease. Hands in his pockets to hide his discomfort, as if my presence had disrupted some plan too intricate for him to change.

‘Roux,’ he said.

I thought of the postcard, signed
R
. Name or nickname? Probably the latter.
Heading north. I’ll drop by if I can
.

And now I knew where I’d recognized him. I’d seen him last at Vianne Rocher’s side, in a newspaper photo from Lansquenet-sous-Tannes.

‘Roux?’ I said. ‘From Lansquenet?’

He nodded.

‘Annie talks about you all the time.’

At that his colours lit up like a Christmas tree, and I began to understand what Vianne might see in a man like Roux. Thierry never lights up – unless it’s one of his cigars – but then, Thierry has money, which makes up for most things.

‘Relax, why don’t you, and I’ll make you some hot chocolate.’

Now he grinned. ‘My favourite.’

I made it strong, with brown sugar and rum. He drank it, then turned restless again, moving from one room to the other, looking around him at the pans, the jars, the dishes and spoons that make up Yanne’s chocolate-making paraphernalia.

‘You look just like her,’ he said at last.

‘Really?’

As a matter of fact I look nothing like her; but then, I’ve noticed that most men rarely see exactly what’s in front of them. A dash of perfume, long, loose hair, a scarlet skirt and my high-heeled shoes; glamours so simple a child could see through them, but a man will be fooled every time.

‘So – how long has it been since you last saw Yanne?’

He shrugged. ‘Too long.’

‘I know how it is. Here. Have a chocolate.’

I put one by the side of his cup; a truffle, rolled in cocoa powder prepared to my own special recipe, and marked
with the cactus sign of Xochipilli, the ecstatic god, always good for unleashing the tongue.

He didn’t eat the chocolate, but instead rolled it aimlessly around his saucer. It was a gesture I recognized somehow, but couldn’t quite identify. I waited for him to start talking – people generally do talk to me – but he seemed content to remain silent, fiddling with his uneaten truffle and watching the darkening street.

‘Are you staying in Paris?’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Depends.’

I looked at him enquiringly, but he didn’t seem to take the hint. ‘Depends on what?’ I said at last.

He shrugged again. ‘I get tired of places.’

I poured him another demitasse. His reserve – a reserve that seemed closer to sullenness than anything else – was starting to annoy me. He’d been in the
chocolaterie
for nearly half an hour. Unless I’d lost the knack, I thought, I ought to have known everything there was to know about him by now. And yet, there he was – trouble incarnate, and seemingly impervious to all my advances.

I began to feel increasingly impatient. There was something associated with this man, something that I needed to know. I could feel it, so close that it raised the hairs on the back of my neck, and yet—

Think, damn it.

A river. A bangle. A silver cat charm. No, I thought. That wasn’t quite right. A river. A boat. Anouk, Rosette—

‘You haven’t eaten your chocolate,’ I said. ‘You should try it, you know. It’s one of our specials.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ He picked it up. The cactus sign of Xochipilli gleamed invitingly between his fingers. He lifted the truffle to his mouth; paused a moment, frowning, perhaps
at the acrid scent of the chocolate, the dark, woodsy perfume of seduction—

Try me.

Test me.

Taste—

And then, just then as he was almost mine, there came a sound of voices at the door.

He dropped the chocolate and stood up.

The wind-chimes rang. The door opened.

‘Vianne,’ said Roux.

And now it was she who just stood and stared, the colour slipping from her face, her hands held out as if to avert some terrible collision.

Behind her, Thierry stood bewildered, sensing perhaps that something was wrong, but too self-absorbed to see the obvious. At her side, Rosette and Anouk, hand-in-hand, Rosette staring with fascination, Anouk’s face suddenly alight—

And Roux—

Taking everything in – the man, the child, the look of dismay, the ring on her finger – and now I could see his colours again, fading, dwindling, going back to that gas-jet blue of something turned down to its lowest flame.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just passing through. You know. My boat . . .’

He isn’t accustomed to lying, I thought. His pretence at lightness sounded forced, and his fists were clenched deep in his pockets.

Yanne just stared, her face a blank. No movement, no
smile; just a mask, behind which I could glimpse the turbulence of her colours.

Anouk saved it. ‘Roux!’ she yelled.

That broke the tension. Yanne stepped forward, the smile on her face now part-fear, part-fake, part something else that I didn’t quite recognize.

‘Thierry, this is an old friend.’ She was flushing now, quite prettily, and the pitch of her voice might well have been excitement at meeting an old acquaintance (though her colours told me otherwise), and her eyes were bright and anxious. ‘Roux, from Marseille – Thierry, my – hm—’

The unspoken word hung between them like a bomb.

‘Pleased to meet you – Roux.’

Another liar. Thierry’s dislike of this man – this interloper – is immediate, irrational and wholly instinctive. His over-compensation takes the form of a terrible heartiness not unlike that which he adopts towards Laurent Pinson. His voice booms like Santa Claus; his handshake cracks bone; in a moment he will be calling the stranger
mon pote
.

‘So you’re a friend of Yanne’s, eh? Not in the same business, though?’

Roux shakes his head.

‘No, of course not.’ Thierry grins; taking in the other man’s youth and balancing it against everything he himself has to offer. The moment of jealousy subsides; I can see it in his colours, the blue-grey thread of envy taking on the burnished coppery hue of self-satisfaction.

‘You’ll have a drink, won’t you,
mon pote
?’

There. You see. I told you so.

‘How about a couple of beers? There’s a café just down the road.’

Roux shakes his head. ‘Just chocolate, thanks.’

Thierry shrugs his cheery contempt. Pours chocolate – a gracious host – never taking his eyes from the interloper’s face.

‘So exactly what business are you in?’

‘No business,’ says Roux.

‘You do work, don’t you?’

‘I work,’ says Roux.

‘In what?’ says Thierry, grinning a little.

Roux shrugs. ‘Just work.’

Thierry’s amusement now knows no bounds. ‘And you’re living on a boat, you say?’

Roux just nods. He smiles at Anouk – the only one here who seems genuinely happy to see him – while Rosette watches him in continued fascination.

And now I can see what I missed before. Rosette’s small features are still unformed, but she has her father’s colouring – his red hair, his green-grey eyes – as well as his troublesome temperament.

Nobody else seemed to notice, of course. Least of all the man himself. At a guess, I’d say that Rosette’s physical and mental lack of development has led him to think that she is much younger than she really is.

‘Staying long in Paris?’ says Thierry. ‘Because some might say we’ve got enough boat people here already.’ He laughs again, a little too loudly.

Roux just looks at him, empty-faced.

‘Still, if you’re looking for a job round here, I could use some help doing up my flat. Rue de la Croix, down there . . .’ He nods to indicate the direction. ‘Nice big flat, but it needs gutting – plastering – flooring – decorating – and I’m hoping to finish it all in the next three weeks, so
that Yanne and the kids don’t need to spend another Christmas in this place.’

He puts a protective arm around Yanne, who shrugs it off in quiet dismay.

‘You’ll have gathered we’re getting married, of course.’

‘Congratulations,’ says Roux.

‘You married yourself?’

He shakes his head. Nothing in his face betrays the slightest emotion. A flicker in the eyes, perhaps, though his colours flame with unrestrained violence.

‘Well, if you decide to try it,’ Thierry said, ‘just come and see me. I’ll find you a house. You can get something surprisingly decent for half a million or so . . .’

‘Listen,’ says Roux. ‘I have to go.’

Anouk protests. ‘But you just got here!’ She shoots an angry look at Thierry, who does not notice in the least. His dislike of Roux is visceral, rather than reasonable. No thought of the truth has crossed his mind, and yet he suspects the stranger of
something
– not because of anything he has said or done, but simply because he looks the type.

What type? Well, you know the look. It has nothing to do with his cheap clothes or his too-long hair, or his lack of social skills. There’s just something about him; a left-handed look, like that of a man from the wrong side of the tracks. A man who might do anything: clone a credit card or set up a bank account using nothing but a stolen driver’s licence or acquire a birth certificate (maybe even a passport) on behalf of some person long deceased, or steal away a woman’s child and vanish like the Pied Piper, leaving nothing but questions in his wake.

Like I said.

My kind of trouble.

2

Saturday, 1st December

OH, BOY. WELL,
hello stranger. Standing there in the chocolate shop, just like he’d been away for an afternoon and not for four whole years of time; four years of birthdays and Christmases with hardly a word, never a visit and now—

‘Roux!’

I wanted to be angry with him. I really did; but my voice wouldn’t let me, somehow.

I shouted out his name, louder than I’d intended.

‘Nanou,’ he said. ‘You’re all grown-up.’

There was a kind of sadness in the way he said it, as if he was sorry that I’d changed. But he was just the same old Roux – hair longer, boots cleaner, different clothes, but just the same, slouching with his hands in his pockets, the way he does when he doesn’t want to be somewhere, but smiling at me to show that it wasn’t my fault, and that if Thierry hadn’t been there, he would have picked me up and swung me around, just like the old days in Lansquenet.

‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m eleven and a half.’

‘Eleven and a half sounds pretty grown-up to me. And who’s the little stranger?’

‘That’s Rosette.’

‘Rosette,’ said Roux. He waved at her, but she didn’t wave back, or sign anything. She rarely does with strangers; instead she just stared at him with those big cat’s eyes until even Roux had to look away.

Thierry offered him chocolate. Roux always liked it, way back when. Drank it black, with sugar and rum, while Thierry talked to him about business, and London, and the chocolaterie, and the flat—

Oh yes. The flat. Turns out Thierry’s fixing it up, making it nice for when we move in. He told us about it while Roux was there; how there’d be a new bedroom for me and Rosette, and new decorations, and how he wanted it all to be ready by Christmas, so that his girls would be comfortable—

But all the same there was something mean about the way he said it. He was smiling, you know, but not with his eyes; the way Chantal does when she’s talking about her new iPod, or her new outfit, or her new shoes, or her Tiffany bracelet, and I’m just standing there listening.

Roux was there, looking as if he’d been hit.

‘Listen,’ he said, when Thierry shut up. ‘I’ve got to go. I just wanted to see how you were, you know, just passing by on my way somewhere—’

Liar
, I thought.
You cleaned your boots
.

‘Where are you staying?’

‘On a boat,’ he said.

Well, that makes sense. He’s always liked boats. I remembered the one in Lansquenet; the one that was
burnt. I remember his face when it happened, too; that look you get when you’ve worked hard for something you really care about, and then someone mean takes it all away.

‘Where?’ I said.

‘On the river,’ said Roux.

‘Well,
duh
,’ I said, which should have made him smile. And I realized then that I hadn’t even kissed him, hadn’t even hugged him since I arrived, and that made me feel bad, because if I did it now it would look like I’d just remembered, and didn’t really mean it at all.