The Lollipop Shoes (55 page)

Roux pulls away the fake beard. Underneath, he’s grinning.

Rosette is almost at his feet. He picks her up and swings her into the air. ‘A monkey!’ he says. ‘My favourite. Better still, a flying monkey!’

I give him a hug. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

‘Well, I’m here.’

A silence falls. He’s standing there, Rosette clinging on to one arm. The room’s full of people, but they might as
well not be there at all, and although he seems relaxed enough, I can tell from the way he’s watching Maman—

I look at her through the Smoking Mirror. She’s playing it cool, but her colours are bright. She takes a step forward.

‘We saved you a place.’

He looks at her. ‘You sure?’

She nods.

And everybody stares at him then, and for a moment I think maybe he’s going to say something, because Roux doesn’t like it when people stare – in fact Roux isn’t too comfortable around people at all—

But then she takes another step and kisses him softly on the mouth, and he puts down Rosette and holds out his arms—

And I don’t need the Smoking Mirror to know. No one could ignore that kiss, or the way they fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, or the light in her eyes as she takes his hand and turns to smile at everyone—

Go on
, I tell her in my shadow-voice.
Tell them. Say it. Say it now
—

And for a second she looks at me. And I know she’s got my message somehow. But then she looks round at our circle of friends, and Jean-Loup’s mother still standing up and looking like a sucked lemon, and I can see her hesitate. Everyone is watching her – and I know what she’s thinking. It’s obvious. She’s waiting for them to get the Look; the look we’ve seen so many times; the look that says:
you don’t belong here – you’re not one of us – you’re different
. . .

Around the table, no one speaks. They watch her in silence, all rosy-faced and well-fed, except for Jean-Loup
and his mother, of course, who stares at us like we were a den of wolves. There’s Fat Nico holding hands with Alice in her fairy wings; Madame Luzeron, incongruous in her twinset and pearls; Madame Pinot in her nun’s outfit, looking twenty years younger with her hair undone; Laurent with a gleam in his eye; Richard and Mathurin, Jean-Louis and Paupaul sharing a smoke; and none of them –
none
of them has the Look—

And it’s
her
face that changes. It softens, somehow. As if a weight has come off her heart. And for the first time since Rosette was born she really
looks
like Vianne Rocher; the Vianne who blew into Lansquenet and never cared what anyone said—

Zozie gives a little smile.

Jean-Loup grabs hold of his mother’s hand and forces her to sit down on a chair.

Laurent’s mouth drops open a notch.

Madame Pinot goes strawberry-pink.

And Maman says, ‘Folks, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Roux. He’s Rosette’s father.’

9

Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 10.40 p.m
.

I HEAR THE
collective sigh go round; something that in different circumstances might have been disapproval, but in this case, after food and wine, mellowed by the season and the unaccustomed glamour of snow, seems like the
ahhh!
that follows a particularly spectacular firework.

Roux looks wary, then he grins, accepts a glass of champagne from Madame Luzeron and raises it to all of us—

He followed me into the kitchen as the conversation started again. Rosette came with him, still crawling in her monkey suit, and I remember now how fascinated she was the first time he walked into the shop, as if even then she had recognized him.

Roux bent down to touch her hair. The resemblance between them was sweetly poignant, like memories and lost time. There are so many things he hasn’t seen; when
Rosette first held up her head; her first smile; her animal drawings; the spoon dance that so angered Thierry. But I already know from the look on his face that he’ll never blame her for being different; that she will never embarrass him; that he will never compare her to anyone else, or ask that she be anything other than herself—

‘Why did you never tell me?’ he said.

I hesitated. Which truth should I tell? That I was too afraid, too proud, too stubborn to change, that, like Thierry, I’d been in love with a fantasy that, when it finally came within my grasp, revealed itself to be, not gold, but nothing more than wisps of straw?

‘I wanted us to settle down. I wanted us to be ordinary.’

‘Ordinary?’

I told him the rest; told of our flight from town to town, the fake wedding ring, the change of name, the end of magic, Thierry; the pursuit of acceptance at any cost, even my shadow, even my soul.

Roux stayed silent for a while, then he laughed softly in his throat. ‘All this for a chocolate shop?’

I shook my head. ‘Not any more.’

He always said I tried too hard. Cared too much – and now I can see that I didn’t care enough for the things that really matter to me. A
chocolaterie
is, after all, just sand and mortar, stone and glass. It has no heart; no life of its own except for what it takes from us. And when we have given that away—

Roux picked up Rosette, who did not squirm as she usually does when approached by a stranger, but gave a silent crow of delight and signed something with both her hands.

‘What did she say?’

‘She says you look like a monkey,’ I said, laughing. ‘From Rosette, that’s a compliment.’

He grinned at that and put his arms around us both. And for a moment we stood entwined, Rosette clinging to his neck, the soft sound of laughter from next door and the scent of chocolate on the air—

And then a silence falls over the room, and the wind-chimes ring, and the door blows wide and through the opening I can see another hooded figure all in red, but bigger, bulkier, and so familiar beneath his false beard that I don’t have to see the cigar in his hand—

And in the silence Thierry comes in, with a lurch in his step that speaks of drink.

He fixes Roux with a malevolent stare and says: ‘Who is she?’

‘She?’ says Roux.

Thierry crosses the room in three strides, clipping the Christmas tree in his path and scattering presents over the floor. He thrusts his white-bearded face towards Roux.

‘You know,’ he says. ‘Your accomplice. The one who helped you cash my cheque. The one the bank’s got on CCTV – and who by all accounts has ripped off more than one sucker in Paris this year—’

‘I don’t have an accomplice,’ says Roux. ‘I never cashed your—’

And now I can see something in his face, a dawning of something, but it’s too late.

Thierry grabs him by the arm. They’re so close now, reflections in a distorted mirror, Thierry wild-eyed, Roux very pale—

‘The police know all about her,’ Thierry says. ‘But they’ve never been so close before. She changes her name, see?
Works alone. But this time she made a mistake. She hitched up with a loser like you. So who is she?’ He’s shouting now, his face as red as Santa’s own. He fixes Roux with his drunken glare. ‘Who the hell is Vianne Rocher?’

10

Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 10.55 p.m
.

WELL, ISN’T THAT
the million-dollar question?

Thierry is drunk. I can see that at once. He reeks of beer and cigar-smoke, which clings to his Santa Claus costume and that absurdly festive cotton-wool beard. Beneath it his colours are murky and threatening, but I can tell he’s in poor shape.

Across from him, Vianne is white as an ice statue, her mouth half-open, her eyes ablaze. She shakes her head in helpless denial. She knows Roux would not give her away; and Anouk is speechless, twice stricken, first by the touching little family scene she has glimpsed behind the kitchen door, second by this ugly intrusion when everything seemed so perfect at last—

‘Vianne Rocher?’ Her voice is blank.

‘That’s right,’ says Thierry. ‘Otherwise known as Françoise Lavery, Mercedes Desmoines, Emma Windsor, to name but a few—’

Behind her, I see Anouk recoil. One of those names has struck a chord. Does it matter? I think not. In fact, I think the game is mine—

He fixes her with that measuring stare. ‘
He
calls you Vianne.’ Of course, he means Roux.

Silently, she shakes her head.

‘You mean you’ve never heard that name?’

Once more she shakes her head, and
oh!
—

The look on her face as she sees the trap; sees how neatly she has been manoeuvred to this very point; understands how her only hope is to deny herself for the third time—

Behind them, no one is watching Madame. Quiet during the festive meal, speaking mostly to Anouk, she now watches Thierry with an expression of stark and uncomplicated horror. Oh, I have prepared Madame, of course. With gentle hints, subtle charm and good old-fashioned chemistry I have brought her to this moment of revelation and now all it takes is a single name and the
piñata
cracks open like a chestnut on the fire . . .

Vianne Rocher.

Well, that’s my cue. Smiling, I stand, and I have time for a last quick celebratory sip of champagne before all eyes are upon me – hopeful, fearful, furious, worshipful – as now at last I claim the prize—

I smile. ‘Vianne Rocher? That would be me.’

11

Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 11.00 p.m
.

SHE MUST HAVE
found my papers, of course, hidden in my mother’s box. After that, it’s easy enough to open an account in my name; to send off for a new passport, a driving licence, everything she requires to become Vianne Rocher. She even looks just like me now; easy again, using Roux as bait, to use my stolen identity in a way that will at some time incriminate us—

Oh, I can see the trap now. Too late, as always in stories like this, I understand what she wants at last. To force my hand, to trick me into revealing myself, to blow me away like a leaf on the wind, with a new set of Furies on my tail—

But what’s a name? I ask myself. Can’t I choose another one? Can’t I change it, as I have done so many times before, call Zozie’s bluff, and force
her
to leave?

Thierry is staring at her in astonishment. ‘
You?
’ he says.

She shrugs. ‘Surprised?’

The others are watching her, stupefied.

‘
You
stole the money?
You
cashed the cheques?’

Behind her, Anouk is very pale.

Nico says: ‘It can’t be true.’

Madame Luzeron shakes her head.

‘But Zozie’s our friend,’ says little Alice, blushing furiously at making even such a short speech. ‘We owe her so much—’

Jean-Louis interrupts. ‘I know a fake when I see one,’ he says. ‘And Zozie isn’t a fake. I swear.’

But now Jean-Loup speaks up. ‘It’s true. Her picture was in the newspaper. She’s really good at changing her face, but I knew it was her. My photographs—’

Zozie gives him a barbed smile. ‘Of course it’s true. It’s all true. I’ve had more names than I can count. I’ve lived from hand to mouth all my life. I’ve never had a proper home, or a family, or a business, or any of the things Yanne has here—’