The Lollipop Shoes (46 page)

The woman – the mother – was overcome. She thanked the Winter Queen with tears of joy and swore that her new daughter would never want for anything, or ever know sorrow as long as she lived.

‘But be careful, lady,’ the Winter Queen warned. ‘Like calls to like; and change to change; and the world turns, for good or for ill. Keep your child well out of the sun; keep her obedient as long as you can. For a child of desire is never content – not even with a mother’s love.’

But the mother was barely listening. She took her child
home, and loved her and cared for her, just as she had promised the Winter Queen. Time passed; the child grew with magical speed; snow-white and sloe-black and beautiful as a clear winter’s day.

Then spring approached; the snow began to melt; and the Snow Child grew increasingly dissatisfied. She wanted to go outside, she said; to be with other children; to play. The mother refused at first, of course. But the child would not be cajoled. She cried, grew wan, refused to eat, so that finally, reluctantly, the mother gave way.

‘Stay out of the sun,’ she warned the child. ‘And never take off your hat and coat.’

‘All right,’ said the child, and skipped away.

All that day, the Snow Child played. It was the first time she had ever seen other children. She played hide-and-seek for the first time; learnt singing games and clapping games and running games and more. When she came home she looked unusually tired, but happier than her mother had ever seen her before.

‘May I go out again tomorrow?’

With a heavy heart, her mother agreed – as long as she kept on her hat and coat – and once more the Snow Child was out all day. She made secret friendships and solemn pacts; skinned her knees for the very first time, and once more came home with a gleam in her eye and demanded to go out again on the morrow.

Her mother protested – the child was exhausted – but finally agreed once more. And on the third day the Snow Child discovered the exhilarating joys of disobedience. For the first time in her short life she broke a promise; broke a window; kissed a boy; and took off her hat and coat in the sun.

Time passed. When night fell and the Snow Child had still not returned, the mother went in search of her. She found her coat; she found her hat; but of the Snow Child there was no sign, nor ever again, but a silent pool of water where no pool had been before.

Well, I never liked that story much. Of all the stories my mother used to tell, that was the one that frightened me most; not for the tale itself, but for the expression on her face and the tremor in her voice and the way she held me painfully tight as the wind blew wild in the winter dark.

Of course, then I had no idea of why she seemed so afraid. Now I know better. They say that childhood’s greatest fear is that of being abandoned by one’s parents. So many children’s stories reflect it: Hansel and Gretel; the Babes in the Wood; Snow White pursued by the evil queen—

But now it is I who am lost in the woods. Even in the heat of the kitchen stove, I shiver and pull my thick cable-knit sweater tighter around my shoulders. Nowadays I feel the cold; but Zozie might still be dressed for summer, with her bright print skirt and ballet-shoes, her hair tied up in a yellow bow.

‘I’m going out for an hour or so. Is that OK?’

‘Of course it is.’

How can I refuse, when she still won’t accept a proper wage?

And once again, silently I ask myself—

What’s your price?

What do you want?

The December wind still blows outside. But the wind has no power over Zozie. I watch as she turns out the lights in the front of the shop, and she hums as she closes
the shutters over the window display, where the wooden peg-dolls in the stucco house are gathered around the birthday scene, while outside, under the porch lantern, a choir of chocolate mice with tiny hymn-sheets pinned to their paws sing silently in the crystal-sugar snow.

3

Thursday, 20th December

THIERRY WAS BACK
here again today, but Zozie dealt with him – I’m not sure how. I owe her so much, a fact that disturbs me most of all. But I have not forgotten what I saw the other day in the
chocolaterie
, or that uncomfortable feeling of watching myself – the Vianne Rocher I used to be – reborn in the person of Zozie de l’Alba, using my methods, speaking my lines, daring me to challenge her.

I watched her covertly all today, as I did yesterday and the day before. Rosette was playing quietly; the mingled scents of clove and marshmallow and cinnamon and rum drifted across the warm kitchen; my hands were floured in icing-sugar and cocoa powder; the copper glowed; the kettle warbled on the hearth. It was all so familiar – so absurdly
comfortable
– and yet some part of me could not rest. Every time the doorbell rang, I looked into the shop to check.

Nico dropped by with Alice at his side, both of them looking absurdly happy. Nico tells me he has lost weight,
in spite of his addiction to coconut macaroons. A casual observer might not notice the difference (he still looks as large and cheery as ever); but Alice says that he has lost five kilos, and can wear his belt three notches tighter.

‘It’s, like, being in love,’ he told Zozie. ‘It’s gotta burn calories, or something. Hey, great tree. Triffic tree. You want a tree like that, Alice?’

Alice’s voice is less easy to hear. But at least she
is
speaking; and her small, pointed face seems to have taken some colour today. She looks like a child next to Nico; but a happy one, no longer lost, and her eyes never seem to leave his face.

I thought of the Advent house, and of the two little figures with their pipe-cleaner hands joined beneath the Christmas tree.

Then there’s Madame Luzeron, who has started to call in more frequently, and who plays with Rosette while she sips her mocha. She too is looking more relaxed; and today she was wearing a bright red twinset under her black winter coat, and she actually got down on to her knees as she and Rosette rolled a wooden dog solemnly to and fro across the tiles—

Then Jean-Louis and Paupaul joined the game, and Richard and Mathurin on their way to pétanque; and Madame Pinot, who would never have come in six months ago, but who Zozie calls by her first name (Hermine) and who casually asks for
my usual
. . .

As the busy afternoon sped on, I was touched to see so many customers bringing in presents for Rosette. I’d forgotten that they must see her with Zozie, while I am in the back making chocolates, but even so, it was unexpected,
reminding me of all the friends we have gained since Zozie joined us a month ago.

There was the wooden dog from Madame Luzeron; a painted green egg-cup from Alice; a stuffed rabbit from Nico; a jigsaw from Richard and Mathurin; a drawing of a monkey from Jean-Louis and Paupaul. Even Madame Pinot dropped round with a yellow hairband for Rosette – and to put in an order for violet creams, for which she has an enthusiasm bordering on greed. Then Laurent Pinson came in as usual, to steal the sugar and to inform me with gleeful despondency that business was terrible everywhere, and that he’d just seen a Muslim woman in a full veil walking down the Rue des Trois Frères; and as he went out he dropped a package on the table, which, when opened, was found to contain a pink plastic charm-bracelet that probably came with a teen magazine, but that Rosette loves uncritically, and refuses to remove, even at bathtime.

And then, just as we were about to close, the odd woman who was here yesterday came round again, bought another box of truffles and left a present for Rosette. That surprised me first of all – she isn’t a regular of ours, and even Zozie doesn’t know her name – but when we opened the gift-wrapping, our surprise was greater still. Inside there was a box containing a baby doll, not large but clearly antique, with a soft body and a porcelain face framed in a bonnet lined with fur. Rosette loves it, of course, but I couldn’t accept such a lavish gift from a stranger, and I packed the doll into its box, meaning to give it back to the woman when – and if – she returns.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Zozie. ‘It probably belonged
to her kids, or something. Look at Madame Luzeron and her dolls’ house furniture.’

I pointed out, ‘Those things are only on loan.’

‘Come on, Yanne,’ said Zozie. ‘You have to stop being so suspicious about everything. You have to give people a chance—’

Rosette pointed at the box.
Baby
, she signed.

‘All right. Just for tonight.’

Rosette gave a silent crow.

Zozie smiled. ‘See? It’s not so hard.’

All the same I can’t help feeling uneasy. Rarely does anything ever come free – there’s not a gift or a kindness that doesn’t have to be paid for in full in the end. Life has taught me that, at least. That’s why I am more cautious now. That’s why I keep the wind-chimes over my door, to warn me of the Kindly Ones, those messengers of credit due—

Tonight Anouk came in from school as usual, with no indication of her presence but the scampering sound of her feet on the wooden stairs as she went to her room. I tried to remember the last time it was that she greeted me as she used to do, coming to find me in the kitchen with a hug and a kiss and a barrage of chatter. I tell myself that I’m being too sensitive. But there was a time when she could no more have forgotten my kiss than she could have forgotten Pantoufle—

Yes, right now I’d welcome even that. A glimpse of Pantoufle; a casual word. Some sign that the summer child I knew has not entirely disappeared. But for days now I have not seen him, and she has hardly spoken to me – not about Jean-Loup Rimbault, not about her friends from school, not about Roux, Thierry or even
about the party any more; though I know how hard she has worked on it, writing invitations on pieces of card, each one decorated with a sprig of holly and a picture of a monkey, copying out menus, planning games.

And now I find myself watching her across the dinner-table and wondering at how adult she looks, and how suddenly, troublingly beautiful, with her dark hair and her stormy eyes and the promise of cheekbones in her vivid face.

I find myself watching her with Rosette, seeing the graceful, studious way she bends her head over the yellow-iced birthday cake and the oddly touching smallness of Rosette’s hands in her bigger ones.
Blow the candles, Rosette
, she says.
No, don’t dribble. Blow. Like this
.

I find myself watching her with Zozie—

And oh, Anouk – it happens so fast – that sudden switch from light to shade, from being the centre of someone’s world to being nothing but a detail in the border, a figure in the shadows, seldom studied, barely seen—

Back in the kitchen, late that night, I put her school clothes in the washing machine. For a moment I hold them to my face, as if they might retain some part of her that I have lost. They smell of the outside, and of the incense smoke from Zozie’s rooms, and of the maltbiscuity scent of her sweat. I feel like a woman searching her lover’s clothes for signs of infidelity—

And in the pocket of her jeans, I find something that she has forgotten to take out. It’s a doll made from a wooden clothes-peg, the same kind of doll that she has been making for the window display. But looking at this one more closely, I can recognize who it’s meant to be; I can see the marks drawn on it in felt-tip pen, and the three
red hairs tied around the waist, and if I narrow my eyes, then I can see the glow that surrounds it, so faint and so very familiar that I might almost have missed it otherwise . . .

Once more I go to the Advent window, where tomorrow’s scene is already set. The door opens into the dining-room, and everyone is gathered around the table, where a chocolate cake stands ready to be cut. There are tiny candles on the table, and tiny plates and glasses, and now that I look more carefully I can recognize almost everyone there – Fat Nico, Zozie, little Alice in her big boots, Madame Pinot with her crucifix, Madame Luzeron in her funeral coat, Rosette, myself, even Laurent – and Thierry, who has not been invited, standing under the snow-covered trees.

And all of them marked with that golden gleam—

Such a small thing—

Such a
huge
thing.

But there’s surely no harm in a game, I think. Games are how children make sense of the world; and stories, even the darkest of them, are the means with which they learn to cope – with loss, with cruelty, with death—

But there is more to this little tableau. The family-and-friends-at-the-table scene – the candles; the tree; the chocolate log – are all contained
inside
the house. Outside, the scene is different. Heavy snow in the form of icing-sugar has gathered on the ground and the trees. The lake with its ducks is frozen now; the sugar mice with their hymn-sheets have gone, and long, murderous icicles – sugar-spun, but glassy-sharp – now hang from the branches of the trees.

Thierry is standing right under them, and a dark
chocolate snowman, big as a bear, is watching him menacingly from the forest close by.

I look more closely at the little peg-doll. Uncannily, it
looks
like Thierry; his clothes, his hair, his mobile phone, even his expression somehow, depicted by an ambivalent line and a couple of dots for eyes.