The Lollipop Shoes (2 page)

Fermé pour cause de décès.

It’s been some time since I last came here. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Montmartre is the last village in Paris, they say, and this part of the Butte is almost a parody of rural France, with its cafés and little
crêperies
; its houses painted pink or pistachio, fake shutters at the windows, and geraniums on every window-ledge; all very consciously picturesque, a movie-set miniature of counterfeit charm that barely hides its heart of stone.

Perhaps that’s why I like it so much. It’s a perfect setting for Zozie de l’Alba. And I found myself there almost by chance; stopped in a square behind the Sacré-Coeur;
bought a
café-croissant
at a bar called Le P’tit Pinson and sat down at a table on the street.

A blue tin plate high up on the corner gave the name of the square as Place des Faux-Monnayeurs. A tight little square like a neatly made bed. A café, a
crêperie
, a couple of shops. Nothing more. Not even a tree to soften those edges. But then for some reason, a shop caught my eye – some kind of a chichi
confiserie
, I thought, though the sign above the door was blank. The blind was half-drawn, but from where I was sitting I could just see the display in the window, and the bright-blue door like a panel of sky. A small, repetitive sound crossed the square; a bundle of wind-chimes hanging above the door, sending out little random notes like signals in the air.

Why did it draw me? I couldn’t say. There are so many of these little shops along the warren of streets leading up the Butte de Montmartre, slouching on the cobbled corners like weary penitents. Narrow-fronted and crook-backed, they are often damp at street level, cost a fortune to rent and rely mainly on the stupidity of tourists for their continued existence.

The rooms above them are rarely any better. Small, sparse and inconvenient; noisy at night, when the city below comes to life; cold in winter, and most likely unbearable in summer, when the sun presses down on the heavy stone slates and the only window, a skylight not eight inches wide, lets in nothing but the stifling heat.

And yet –
something
there had caught my interest. Perhaps the letters, poking out from the metal jaws of the post-box like a sly tongue. Perhaps the fugitive scent of nutmeg and vanilla (or was that just the damp?) that filtered from beneath the sky-blue door. Perhaps the
wind, flirting with the hem of my skirt, teasing the chimes above the door. Or perhaps the notice – neat, hand-lettered – with its unspoken, tantalizing potential.

Closed due to bereavement.

I’d finished my coffee and croissant by then. I paid, stood up and went in for a closer look. The shop was a
chocolaterie
; the tiny display window crammed with boxes and tins, and behind them in the semi-darkness I could see trays and pyramids of chocolates, each one under a round glass cloche like wedding bouquets from a century ago.

Behind me, at the bar of Le P’tit Pinson, two old men were eating boiled eggs and long slices of buttered bread while the aproned
patron
held forth at some volume about someone called Paupaul, who owed him money.

Beyond that the square was still almost deserted, but for a woman sweeping the pavement and a couple of artists with easels under their arms, on their way to the Place du Tertre.

One of them, a young man, caught my eye. ‘Hey! It’s
you
!’

The hunting call of the portrait artist. I know it well – I’ve been there myself – and I know that look of pleased recognition, implying that he has found his muse; that his search has taken many years; and that however much he charges me for the extortionate result, the price can in no way do justice to the perfection of his
oeuvre
.

‘No, it’s not,’ I told him drily. ‘Find someone else to immortalize.’

He gave me a shrug, pulled a face, then slouched
off to rejoin his friend. The
chocolaterie
was all mine.

I glanced at the letters, still poking impudently from the letter-box. There was no real reason to take the risk. But the simple fact was, the little shop drew me, like a shining something glimpsed between the cobbles, that might turn out to be a coin, a ring or just a piece of tinfoil as it catches the light. And there was a whisper of promise in the air, and besides, it was Hallowe’en, the
Día de los Muertos
, always a lucky day for me, a day of endings and beginnings, of ill winds and sly favours and fires that burn at night. A time of secrets; of wonders – and, of course, the dead.

I took a last quick glance around. No one was watching. I was sure no one saw as, with a swift movement, I pocketed the letters.

The autumn wind was gusting hard, dancing the dust around the square. It smelt of smoke – not Paris smoke, but the smoke of my childhood, not often remembered – a scent of incense and frangipani and fallen leaves. There are no trees on the Butte de Montmartre. It’s just a rock, its wedding-cake icing barely concealing its essential lack of flavour. But the sky was a brittle, eggshell colour, marked with a complex pattern of vapour-trails, like mystic symbols on the blue.

Among them I saw the Ear of Maize, the sign of the Flayed One – an offering, a gift.

I smiled. Could it be a coincidence?

Death, and a gift – all in one day?

Once, when I was very young, my mother took me to Mexico City, to see the Aztec ruins and to celebrate the Day of the Dead. I loved the drama of it all: the flowers
and the
pan de muerto
and the singing and the sugar skulls. But my favourite was the
piñata
, a painted papier-mâché animal figure, hung all over with firecrackers and filled with sweets, coins and small, wrapped presents.

The object of the game was to hang up the
piñata
over a doorway and to throw sticks and stones at it until it split open, releasing the presents inside.

Death, and a gift – all in one.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. This day, this shop, this sign in the sky – it was as if Mictecacihuatl herself had put them in my path. My very own
piñata
—

I turned away, smiling, and noticed someone watching me. There was a child standing very still about a dozen feet away: a girl aged eleven or twelve, in a bright red coat, with slightly scuffed brown school shoes and flossy black hair like that of a Byzantine icon. She looked at me without expression, head cocked slightly to one side.

For a moment I wondered if she’d seen me take the letters. Impossible to know for sure how long she’d been standing there; so I just gave her my most appealing smile and pushed the bundle of letters deeper into my coat pocket.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Annie,’ said the girl, without smiling back. Her eyes were a curious blue-green-grey; her mouth so red it looked painted. Striking in the cool morning light; and as I watched, her eyes seemed to brighten still further, to take on the shades of the autumn sky.

‘You’re not from here, are you, Annie?’

She blinked at that; puzzled, perhaps, at how I knew. Paris children never talk to strangers; suspicion is hard-wired into their circuitry. This girl was different – wary,
perhaps, but not unwilling – and far from impervious to charm.

‘How do you know?’ she said at last.

Strike one. I grinned. ‘I can tell from your voice. What is it? The Midi?’

‘Not quite,’ she said. But now she was smiling.

You can learn a lot from talking to children. Names, professions, the small details that give an impersonation that invaluable authentic touch. Most internet passwords consist of some child’s name, a spouse’s, even a pet’s.

‘Annie, shouldn’t you be at school?’

‘Not today. It’s a holiday. Besides . . .’ She looked at the door with its hand-lettered notice.

‘Closed due to bereavement,’ I said.

She nodded.

‘Who died?’ That bright-red coat seemed less than funereal, and there was nothing in her face that suggested grief.

Annie said nothing for a moment, but I caught the gleam in her blue-grey eyes, their expression slightly haughty now, as if debating whether my question might be impertinent or genuinely sympathetic.

I let her stare. I’m used to being stared at. It happens, sometimes, even in Paris, where beautiful women are more than plentiful. I say beautiful – but that’s an illusion, the very simplest of glamours, barely magic at all. A tilt of the head, a certain walk, clothes befitting the moment, and anyone can do the same.

Well,
almost
anyone.

I fixed the girl with my brightest smile, sweet and cocky and slightly rueful, becoming for a second the tousled elder sister she has never had, the glamorous rebel, Gauloise in hand, who wears tight skirts and neon colours
and in whose impractical shoes I know she secretly longs to be.

‘Don’t you want to tell me?’ I said.

She looked at me for a second more. An elder child, if I ever saw one; tired, so tired of having to be good, and perilously close to the age of revolt. Her colours were unusually clear; in them I read some wilfulness, some sadness, a touch of anger and a bright thread of something that I could not quite identify.

‘Come on, Annie. Tell me. Who died?’

‘My mother,’ she said. ‘Vianne Rocher.’

2

Wednesday, 31st October

VIANNE ROCHER. IT’S
been a long time since I wore
that
name. Like a coat, well-loved but long since put away, I’d almost forgotten how good it felt, how very warm and comfortable. I’ve changed my name so many times –
both
our names, changing from village to village as we followed the wind – that I should have outgrown this wish by now. Vianne Rocher is long dead. And yet—

And yet I
enjoyed
being Vianne Rocher. I liked the shape of the word in their mouths.
Vianne
, like a smile. Like a word of welcome.

I have a new name now, of course, not so different from the old. I have a life; a better life, some might say. But it’s not the same. Because of Rosette; because of Anouk; because of everything we left behind in Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, that Easter when the wind changed.

That wind. I see it’s blowing now. Furtive but commanding, it has dictated every move we’ve ever made. My mother felt it, and so do I – even here, even now – as it
sweeps us like leaves into this backstreet corner, dancing us to shreds against the stones.

V’là l’bon vent, v’là l’joli vent

I thought we’d silenced it for good. But the smallest thing can wake the wind: a word, a sign, even a death. There’s no such thing as a trivial thing. Everything costs; it all adds up until finally the balance shifts and we’re gone again, back on the road, telling ourselves –
well maybe next time
—

Well this time, there will be no next time. This time, I’m not running away. I don’t want to have to start anew, as we have done so many times, before and since Lansquenet. This time, we stay. Whatever it takes. Whatever it costs us, we stay.

We stopped in the first village that didn’t have a church. We stayed six weeks, and then moved on. Three months, then a week, a month, another week, changing our names as we went, until the baby began to show.

Anouk was nearly seven by then. Excited at the thought of a baby sister; but I was so tired, so tired of those interminable villages with the river and the little houses and the geraniums in the window-boxes and the way people looked at us – at her especially – and asked their questions, always the same.

Have you come far? Will you be staying with relatives here? Will Monsieur Rocher be joining you?

And when we answered, there’d be that look, that measuring look, taking in our worn clothes and our single case and that fugitive air that speaks of too many railway
stations and passing-places and hotel-rooms left neat and bare.

And oh – how I longed to be free at last. Free as we had never been; free to stay in a single spot; to feel the wind and ignore its call.

But however hard we tried, rumour followed us. Some kind of scandal, the whispers said. Some priest was involved, so someone had heard. And the woman? A gypsy; in with the river people; claimed to be a healer; dabbled in herbs. And someone had died, the rumours said – poisoned, perhaps, or simply unlucky.

In any case, it didn’t matter. The rumours spread like dogwort in summer, tumbling us, harrying us, snapping at our heels; and slowly, I began to understand.

Something had happened along our road. Something that had altered us. Perhaps we’d stayed a day – a week – too long in one of those villages. Something was different. The shadows had lengthened. We were running.

Running from what? I didn’t know then, but I could already see it in my reflection; in hotel-room mirrors and shiny shop-fronts. I’d always worn red shoes; Indian skirts with bells on the hems; second-hand coats with daisies on the pockets, jeans embroidered with flowers and leaves. Now I tried to blend with the crowd. Black coats, black shoes, black beret on my black hair.

Anouk didn’t understand. ‘Why couldn’t we have stayed this time?’

The perpetual refrain of those early days. I began to dread even the name of that place; the memories that clung like burrs to our travelling clothes. Day by day we moved with the wind. And at night we’d lie side-by-side in some room above a café, or make hot chocolate over a
camping-stove, or light candles and make shadow-bunnies on the wall and tell fabulous stories of magic and witches and gingerbread houses, and dark men who turned into wolves, and sometimes, never turned back again.

But by then, stories were all they were. The
real
magic – the magic we’d lived with all our lives, my mother’s magic of charms and cantrips, of salt by the door and a red silk sachet to placate the little gods – had turned sour on us that summer, somehow, like a spider that turns from good luck to bad at the stroke of midnight, spinning its web to catch our dreams. And for every little spell or charm, for every card dealt and every rune cast and every sign scratched against a doorway to divert the path of malchance, the wind just blew a little harder, tugging at our clothes, sniffing at us like a hungry dog, moving us here and moving us there.