The Lollipop Shoes (45 page)

And as I watch from the kitchen door, a sudden thought occurs to me. There are too many ghosts in this place, of course. Dangerous ghosts; laughing ghosts; ghosts from a past we cannot afford to see reborn. And the strange thing is, they look oddly alive; as if I, Vianne Rocher, might be the ghost and the little threesome in the shop the real thing, the magic number, the circle that cannot be broken—

That’s nonsense, of course. I know I’m real. Vianne Rocher is just a name I wore; perhaps not even my real name. She can have no purpose beyond that; she can have no future outside of me.

But I still can’t stop thinking about her, like a favourite coat, or a pair of shoes, given on impulse to some charity shop, to be loved and worn by someone else . . .

And now I can’t help wondering—

How much of myself have I given away? And if I am no longer Vianne – who is?

P
ART
S
EVEN

The Tower

1

Wednesday, 19th December

WHY, HELLO MADAME.
Your favourite? Let me see – chocolate truffles, to my special recipe, marked with the sign of Lady Blood Moon and rolled in something that teases the tongue. A dozen? Or shall we make it two? Packed in a box of crinkly gold paper and tied with a ribbon of brightest red—

I knew she’d come eventually. My specials tend to have that effect. She came just before closing-time; Anouk was upstairs doing her homework and Vianne was in the kitchen again, working on tomorrow’s sales.

First, I see her catch the scent. It’s a combination of many things; the Christmas tree in the corner; the musty aroma of old house; orange and clove; ground coffee; hot milk; patchouli; cinnamon – and chocolate of course; intoxicating, rich as Croesus, dark as death.

She looks around, sees wall-hangings, pictures, bells, ornaments, a dolls’ house in the window, rugs on the floor – all in chrome-yellow and fuchsia-pink and scarlet and
gold and green and white.
It’s like an opium-den in here
, she almost says, then wonders at herself for being so fanciful. In fact she has never seen an opium-den – unless it was in the pages of the
Arabian Nights
– but there’s something about the place, she thinks. Something almost – magical.

Outside the yellow-grey sky is luminous with the promise of snow. Forecasters have been announcing it for several days, though to Anouk’s disappointment it has so far remained too mild for anything but sleet and this interminable mist.

‘Lousy weather,’ says Madame. Of course, she would think so; seeing, not magic in the clouds, but pollution; not stars, but lightbulbs in the Christmas lights; no comfort, no joy but the endless, anxious grind of people rubbing together without warmth, searching for last-minute gifts that will be opened without pleasure, and in a rush to go to some meal that they will not enjoy, with folk they have not seen for a year, and would not choose to see at all—

Through the Smoking Mirror I look at her face. It’s a hard face in many ways, the face of a woman whose personal fairytale never had a chance of happy-ever-after. She has lost parents, lover and child; she has made good through sheer hard work; has wept herself dry years ago and has no pity now for herself or for anyone else. She hates Christmas, despises New Year—

All this I see through the Eye of Black Tezcatlipoca. And now, with an effort, I can just glimpse what stands behind the Smoking Mirror – the fat woman sitting in front of the television, eating choux from a white patisserie box while her husband works late for the third night running; the
window of an antiques shop, and a china-faced doll under a cloche; the chemist’s where she once stopped to buy nappies and some milk for her baby girl; her mother’s face, broad and harsh and unsurprised, when she came to tell her the terrible news—

But she has come so far since then. So very far – and yet there’s something inside her, this void, still wailing for something to fill it again—

‘Twelve truffles. No. Make it twenty,’ she says. As if truffles could make a difference. But somehow these truffles are different, she thinks. And the woman behind the counter, with her long dark hair with the crystals braided into it and the emerald shoes with the shining stack heels – shoes made for dancing all night, for leaping, for flying, for anything but walking –
she
looks somehow different too, not like everyone else around here, but strangely more alive, more real—

There’s a scatter of dark powder on the counter where the truffles have shed cacao on to the glass. It’s easy, with a fingertip, to sketch the sign of One Jaguar – the feline Aspect of Black Tezcatlipoca – into the powdered chocolate. She stares at it, half mesmerized by the colours and scent, as I wrap the box, taking my time with ribbons and paper.

Then Anouk comes in – right on cue – all wild-haired and laughing at something Rosette has done, and Madame looks up, her face going suddenly slack.

Does she recognize something, perhaps? Could it be that the vein of talent that runs so richly in Vianne and Anouk has left some vestige here at the source? Anouk gives her beaming smile. Madame smiles back, hesitantly at first, but as the conjunction of Blood Moon and Rabbit
Moon joins the pull of One Jaguar, her doughy face becomes almost beautiful in its longing.

‘And who’s this?’ she says.

‘It’s my little Nanou.’

That’s all I need to say. Whether or not Madame can see something familiar in the child, or whether it is simply Anouk herself, with her Dutch-doll face and Byzantine hair, that has captured her, who can say? But Madame’s eyes have grown suddenly bright, and when I suggest that she stay for a cup of chocolate (and perhaps one of my special truffles on the side), she accepts the invitation without a murmur, and, sitting at one of the hand-printed tables, she stares with an intensity that is far beyond mere hunger at Anouk as she goes in and out of the kitchen; greets Nico as he passes the door and calls him in for a cup of tea; plays with Rosette and her box of buttons; talks about the birthday tomorrow; runs outside to check for snow; runs back inside; peers at the changes to the Advent house; rearranges a key figure or two, then checks for snow again – it will come, it
must
come at least for Christmas Eve, because she loves snow almost more than anything . . .

It’s time to close the shop. In fact, it’s twenty minutes past our closing time when Madame seems to shake herself free of some daze.

‘What a sweet little girl you have,’ she says as she stands up, brushes the chocolate crumbs from her lap and looks wistfully at the kitchen door, through which Anouk has already gone, taking Rosette with her at last. ‘She plays with the other one just like a sister.’

That makes me smile, but I don’t put her right.

‘Got any kids of your own?’ I say.

She seems to hesitate. Then she nods. ‘A daughter,’ she says.

‘Going to see her this Christmas?’

Oh, the anguish such a question may inadvertently cause – I see it in her colours, a pure streak of brilliant white that cuts like lightning across the rest.

She shakes her head, not trusting the words. Even now, after so many years, the feeling still has the power to surprise her with its immediacy. When will it fade, as so many people have promised it will? So far it has not – that grief that overrides everything else, sending lover, mother, friend plunging into insignificance in the face of the desolate chasm that is the loss of a child—

‘I lost her,’ she says in a quiet voice.

‘I’m so sorry.’ I put my hand on her arm. I’m wearing short sleeves, and my charm-bracelet, laden with its tiny figures, makes its heavy chinking sound. The shine of silver catches her eye—

The little cat charm has gone black with age, more like the One Jaguar of Black Tezcatlipoca than the cheap shiny bauble it once was.

She sees it and stiffens, thinking almost at once that it’s absurd, that such coincidences do not happen, that it’s only a cheap charm-bracelet and that it could have nothing at all to do with the long-lost baby bangle and its little silver kittycat—

But oh! What if it could, she thinks. You hear about these things sometimes – not always in movies, but sometimes in life—

‘That’s a-an interesting b-bracelet.’ Her voice is shaking so much now that she can hardly say the words.

‘Thanks. I’ve had it for years.’

‘Oh, really?’

I nod. ‘Each of these charms is a reminder of something. This was when my mother died . . .’ I point out a charm shaped like a coffin. It’s from Mexico City, in fact – I must have got it in some
piñata
or other – and there’s a little black cross on the coffin-lid.

‘Your mother?’

‘Well, I called her that. I never knew my birth parents. This key was for my twenty-first. And this cat is my oldest, luckiest charm. I’ve had it all my life, I think, even before I was adopted.’

She stares at me now, almost paralysed. It’s impossible, and she knows it – but something less rational in her insists that miracles happen, magic exists. It’s the voice of the woman she used to be, the one who – aged barely nineteen – fell in love with a man of thirty-two who told her he loved her, and whom she believed.

And what about that little girl? Didn’t she recognize something in her? Something that pulls and tears at her heart like a kitten tormenting a ball of string—

Some people – myself, for instance – are born to be cynics. But once a believer, always a believer. I sense that Madame is one of these; have known it, in fact, from the moment I saw those porcelain dolls in the lobby of Le Stendhal. She’s an ageing romantic, embittered, disappointed and therefore all the more vulnerable, and her
piñata
needs only a word from me to open up like a flower.

A word? I meant a
name
, of course.

‘I have to shut up shop, Madame.’ I propel her gently towards the door. ‘But if you’d like to come again – we’re having a party on Christmas Eve. If you don’t have
any other plans, perhaps you’d like to drop in for an hour?’

She looks at me with eyes like stars.

‘Oh, yes,’ she whispers. ‘Thank you. I will.’

2

Wednesday, 19th December

THIS MORNING ANOUK
left for school without saying goodbye. I should not be too surprised at this – it’s what she has done every day this week, coming late to breakfast with a
Hey, everyone!
, grabbing her croissant in one hand and racing off into the dark.

But this is Anouk, who used to lick my face in sheer exuberance and shout
I love you!
across crowded streets – now silent and so self-absorbed that I feel bereft and icy with fear; the doubts that have dogged me since she was born now waxing as the weeks march on.

She is growing up, of course. Other things preoccupy her. Friends at school. Homework. Teachers. Maybe a boyfriend (Jean-Loup Rimbault?), or the sweet delirium of a first crush. There are other things, perhaps; secrets whispered; great plans made; things that she may tell her friends, but which if her mother knew, would make her cringe with embarrassment—

All perfectly normal, I tell myself. And yet, the sense of
exclusion is almost more than I can bear. We are not like other people, I think. Anouk and I are different. And whatever discomfort that may bring, I cannot ignore it any more—

With that knowledge I find myself changing – becoming snappish and critical at the slightest thing, and how is my summer child to know that the note in my voice is not anger, but fear?

Did my own mother feel the same? Did she feel that sense of loss, that fear even greater than the fear of death, as she tried in vain, as all mothers do, to freeze the remorseless passage of time? Did she follow me, as I follow Anouk, picking up markers on the road? The toys outgrown; clothes cast off; bedtime stories left untold; all abandoned in her wake as the child runs ever eagerly into the future, away from childhood, away from
me
—

There was a story my mother used to tell. A woman desperately wanted a child, but, being unable to conceive, one winter’s day made a child of snow. She made it with exquisite care, clothed it and loved it and sang to it, until the Winter Queen took pity on the woman and brought the child of snow to life.