The Lollipop Shoes (8 page)

I’ll probably tire of it soon enough; but I do need a place to lie low for a while, until the heat on Madame Beauchamp – and Françoise Lavery – dies down. It never hurts to be cautious, I know – and besides, as my mother used to say, you should always take time to pick the cherries.

3

Thursday, 8th November

WHILST WAITING FOR
my cherries to ripen, I have managed to collect a certain amount of local knowledge on the inhabitants of Place des Faux-Monnayeurs. Madame Pinot, the little partridge of a woman who runs the newsagent-souvenir-bric-a-brac shop, has a busy mouth for gossip, and has acquainted me with the neighbourhood through her eyes.

Through her I know that Laurent Pinson frequents the singles bars, that the fat young man from the Italian restaurant weighs over three hundred pounds but still goes into the
chocolaterie
at least twice a week, and that the woman with the dog who passes every Thursday at ten o’clock is Madame Luzeron, whose husband had a stroke last year and whose son died when he was thirteen. Every Thursday she goes to the cemetery, says Madame Pinot, with that silly little dog in tow. Never misses. Poor old thing.

‘What about the
chocolaterie
?’ I asked, selecting
Paris-Match
(I hate
Paris-Match
) from a small shelf of magazines. Above and below the magazines there are colourful displays of religious tat: plaster Virgins, cheap ceramics; snow-globes of the Sacré-Coeur; medallions; crucifixes; rosaries; incense for all occasions. I suspect Madame may be a prude; she looked at the cover of my magazine (which shows Princess Stephanie of Monaco, bikinied and cavorting blurrily on some beach somewhere), and pulled a face like the back end of a turkey.

‘Not much to say, really,’ she said. ‘Husband died down south somewhere. But she’s fallen on her feet all right.’ The busy mouth puckered again. ‘I reckon there’ll be a wedding before long.’

‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘Thierry le Tresset. He owns the place. Let it out cheap to Madame Poussin because she was some kind of friend of the family. That’s where he met Madame Charbonneau. And if ever I saw a man head-over-heels—’ She rang up the magazine on the till. ‘Still, I wonder if he knows what he’s taking on. She must be twenty years younger than he is – and he’s always away on business, and her with two kids, one of them
special
—’

‘Special?’ I said.

‘Oh, haven’t you heard? Poor little thing. That’s got to be a burden for anyone – and if
that
wasn’t bad enough,’ she said, ‘you’re not telling me the shop makes much of a profit, what with the overheads, and the heating, and the rent—’

I let her talk for a little while. Gossip is currency to people like Madame, and I sense that I have already given her much to think about. With my pink-streaked hair and scarlet shoes I too must be a promising source of
tittle-tattle. I left the shop with a cheery goodbye and the sense that I’d made a good start, and returned to my place of employment.

It’s the best vantage point I could have hoped for. From here I can see all Yanne’s customers, monitor comings and goings, keep track of deliveries and keep my eye on the children.

The little one is a handful; not noisy, but mischievous, and despite her small size, rather older than I originally guessed. Madame Pinot tells me she’s nearly four years old, and has yet to speak her first word, although she seems to know some sign language. A
special
child, Madame tells me, with that tiny sneer she reserves for blacks, Jews, travellers and the politically correct.

A special child? Undoubtedly. Exactly
how
special remains to be seen.

And of course, there’s Annie, too. I see her from Le P’tit Pinson – every morning just before eight and every night after half past four – and she speaks to me cheerily enough: of her school, and her friends, her teachers, the people she sees on the bus. It’s a start, at least; but I sense she’s holding back. In a way, it pleases me. I could put that strength to use – with the right education I’m sure she’d go far – and besides, you know, the greater part of any seduction lies in the chase.

But I’m already tired of Le P’tit Pinson. My first week’s wages will barely cover my expenses, and Laurent is far from easy to please. Worse, he has begun to notice me: I see it in his colours and in the way he slicks his hair; in the new, special care he gives to his appearance.

It’s always a risk, of course, I know. He would not have noticed Françoise Lavery. But Zozie de l’Alba has a
different charm. He doesn’t understand it; he dislikes foreigners, and this woman has a certain look, a gypsy look that he mistrusts—

And yet, for the first time in years, he finds himself choosing what to wear: discarding this tie (too loud, too wide); balancing the merits of this suit and that; considering that old bottle of eau-de-toilette, last used at someone’s wedding, vinegary with age now, leaving brown stains on the clean white shirt . . .

Normally I might encourage this, play up to the old man’s vanity in the hope of a few easy pickings: a credit card, some money, perhaps; maybe a cashbox hidden somewhere, a theft that Laurent would never report.

At any normal time, I would. But men like Laurent are easy to find. Women like Yanne, however—

Some years ago, when I was somebody else, I went to the cinema to see a film about ancient Romans. A disappointing film in many ways: too slick with fake blood and Hollywood redemption. But it was the gladiator scenes that struck me as particularly unrealistic; those audiences of computer-generated people in the background, all shouting and laughing and waving their arms in neat patterns, like animated wallpaper. I’d wondered at the time if the makers of that film had ever
watched
a real crowd. I do – I generally find the crowd far more interesting than the spectacle itself – and though they were convincing enough as animation, they had no colours, and there was nothing real about their behaviour.

Well, Yanne Charbonneau reminds me of those people. She is a figment in the background, realistic enough to the casual observer, but operating according to a sequence of predictable commands. She has no colours – or if she has,
she has become adept at hiding them beneath this screen of inconsequence.

The children, however, are brightly illuminated. Most children have brighter colours than adults, but even so Annie stands out, her colour-trail of butterfly-blue flaring defiantly against the sky.

There’s something else as well, I think – some kind of a shadow in her wake. I saw it again as she played with Rosette in the alley outside the
chocolaterie
, Annie with that cloud of Byzantine hair torched into gold by the afternoon sun, holding her little sister’s hand as Rosette splashed and stamped at the speckled cobblestones in her primrose-yellow wellington boots.

Some kind of shadow. A dog, a cat?

Well, I’ll find out. You know I will. Give me time, Nanou. Just give me time.

4

Thursday, 8th November

THIERRY WAS BACK
from London today, with an armful of presents for Anouk and Rosette, and a dozen yellow roses for me.

It was twelve-fifteen, and I was ten minutes away from closing for lunch. I was just gift-wrapping a box of macaroons for a customer, and looking forward to a quiet hour with the children (Thursday is Anouk’s free afternoon). I looped pink ribbon around the box – a gesture I’d performed a thousand times – tied the bow, then pulled the ribbon taut against the blade of the scissors to curl it.

‘Yanne!’

The scissors slipped, spoiling the curl. ‘Thierry! You’re a day early!’

He’s a big man; tall and heavy. In his cashmere coat he more than filled the little shop doorway. An open face; blue eyes; thick hair, still mostly brown. Moneyed hands still used to working; cracked palms and polished
fingernails. A scent of plaster dust and leather and sweat and
jambon-frites
and the occasional guilty, fat cigar.

‘I missed you,’ he said, and kissed my cheek. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back in time for the funeral. Was it terrible?’

‘No. Just sad. No one came.’

‘You’re a star, Yanne. I don’t know how you do it. How’s business?’

‘OK.’ In fact, it’s not; the customer was only my second that day, not counting the ones who just come to look. But I was glad of her presence when he arrived – a Chinese girl in a yellow coat, who would no doubt enjoy her macaroons, but who would have been far happier with a box of chocolate-coated strawberries. Not that it matters. It’s not my concern. Not any more, anyway.

‘Where are the girls?’

‘Upstairs,’ I said. ‘Watching TV. How was London?’

‘Great. You should come.’

As a matter of fact I know it well; my mother and I lived there for nearly a year. I’m not sure why I haven’t told him this, or why I have allowed him to believe that I was born and raised in France. Perhaps a yearning for ordinariness: perhaps a fear that if I mention my mother he may look at me differently.

Thierry is a solid citizen. A builder’s boy made good through property, he has had very little exposure to the unusual and the uncertain. His tastes are conventional. He likes a good steak; drinks red wine; loves children, bad puns and silly rhymes; prefers women to wear skirts; goes to Mass through force of habit; has no prejudice against foreigners, but would prefer not to see quite so many of
them about. I do like him – and yet the thought of confiding in him – in anyone—

Not that I need to. I’ve never needed a confidant. I have Anouk. I have Rosette. When did I ever need anyone else?

‘You’re looking sad.’ The Chinese girl had gone. ‘What about lunch?’

I smiled. Lunch cures sadness in Thierry’s world. I wasn’t hungry; but it was that or have him in the shop all afternoon. So I called Anouk, wheedled and struggled Rosette into her coat, and we went across the road to Le P’tit Pinson, which Thierry likes for its dilapidated charm and greasy food, and I dislike for the same reasons.

Anouk was restless and it was time for Rosette’s nap, but Thierry was full of his London trip: the crowds, the buildings, the theatres, the shops. His company is renovating some office buildings near King’s Cross, and he likes to oversee the work himself, going down by train on Monday and coming back for the weekend. His ex-wife Sarah still lives in London with their son, but Thierry is at pains to reassure me (as if I needed it) that he and Sarah have been estranged for years.

I don’t doubt it; there’s no subterfuge in Thierry, no side. His favourites are the simple wrapped milk chocolate squares you can buy from any supermarket in the country. Thirty per cent cocoa solids; anything stronger and he sticks out his tongue like a little boy. But I do love his enthusiasm – and I envy him his plainness and his lack of guile. Perhaps my envy exceeds my love – but does it matter so very much?

We met him last year, when the roof sprang a leak. Most landlords would have sent a workman – if we were lucky – but Thierry has known Madame Poussin for years (an
old friend of his mother’s, he said), and he fixed the roof himself, staying for hot chocolate and playing with Rosette.

Twelve months into our friendship now, and we have already become an old couple, with our favourite haunts and our comfortable routines, although Thierry has yet to stay the night. He thinks I’m a widow, and touchingly wants to ‘give me time’. But his desire is there, unvoiced and untested – and would it really be so bad?

He has broached the subject only once. A single oblique reference to his own mansion flat on Rue de la Croix, to which we have been invited many times and which longs, as he says, for a woman’s touch.

A woman’s touch.
Such an old-fashioned phrase. But then, Thierry is the old-fashioned type. In spite of his love of gadgetry, his mobile phone and his surround-sound hi-fi, he remains loyal to old ideals; to a simpler time.

Simple. That’s it. Life with Thierry would be very simple. There would always be money for necessary things. The rent for the
chocolaterie
would always be paid. Anouk and Rosette would be cared for and safe. And if he loves them – and me – isn’t that enough?