Chocolat

14

Monday February 24

CAROLINE CLAIRMONT CALLED JUST AFTER MASS. HER SON was with her satchel slung across his shoulders, a tall boy with a pale, impassive face. She was carrying a bundle of yellow hand-lettered cards.

I smiled at, them both. The shop was almost empty – I expect the first of my regulars at about nine, and it was eight-thirty. Only Anouk was sitting at the counter, a half-finished bowl of milk and a pain au chocolat in front of her. She shot a bright glance at the boy, waved the pastry in a vague gesture of greeting, and returned to her breakfast.

`Can I help you?’

Caroline looked around her with an expression of envy and disapproval. The boy stared straight in front of him, but I saw his eyes wanting to slide towards Anouk. He looked polite and sullen, his eyes bright and unreadable beneath an overlong fringe.

`Yes.’

Her voice is light and falsely cheery, her smile as sharp and sweet as icing, setting the teeth on edge. `I'm distributing these' – she held up the stack of cards – `and I wonder if you'd mind displaying one in your window.’

She held it out. `Everyone else is putting them up,' she added, as if that might sway my decision.

I took the card. Black on yellow, in neat, bold capitals: NO HAWKERS, VAGRANTS OR PEDLARS. THE MANAGEMENT RETAINS THE RIGHT TO REFUSE TO SERVE AT ANY GIVEN TIME.

`Why do I need this?’

I frowned, puzzled. `Why should I want to refuse to serve anyone?’

Caroline sent me a look of pity and contempt. `Of course, you are new here,' she said with a sugared smile. `But we have had problems in 'the past. It's just a precaution, anyway. I very much doubt you'll get- a visit from Those People: But you may as well be safe as sorry, don't you think?’

I still didn't understand. `Sorry about what?’

`Well, the gypsies. The river people.’

There was a note of impatience in her voice. `They're back, and they'll be wanting to' – she made a small, elegant moue of disgust `do whatever it is they do.’

`And?’ I prompted gently.

`Well, we'll have to show them we won't stand for it!' Caroline was becoming flustered. `We're going to have an agreement not to serve these people. Make them go back to wherever it is they came from., 'Oh.’

I considered what she was saying. `Can we refuse to serve them?’

I enquired curiously. `If they have the money to spend, can we refuse?’

Impatiently: `Of course we can. Who's to stop us?’

I thought for a moment, then handed back the yellow card. Caroline stared at me. `You're not going to do it?’

Her voice rose half an octave, losing much of its well-bred intonation in the process. I shrugged. `It seems to me that if someone wants to spend their money here, it isn't up to me to stop them,' I told her.

`But the community…’ insisted Caroline. `Surely you don't want people of that type – itinerants, thieves, Arabs for heaven's sake'

Flutter-click snapshot of memory, scowling New York doormen, Paris ladies, Sacre-Coeur tourists, camera in hand, face averted to avoid seeing the beggar-girl with her too-short dress and too-long legs… Caroline Clairmont, for all her rural upbringing, knows the value of finding the right modiste. The discreet scarf she wears at her throat bears an Herms label, and her perfume is Coco de Chanel. My reply was sharper than I intended.

`It strikes me that the community should mind its own business,' I said tartly. `It isn't up to me – or anybody – to decide how these people should live their lives.’

Caroline gave me a venomous look. `Oh, well, if that's how you feel' – turning superciliously towards the door `then I won't keep you from your business.’

A slight emphasis upon the last word, a disdainful glance at the empty seats. `I just hope you don't regret your decision, that's all.’

`Why should I?’

She shrugged petulantly. `Well, if there's trouble, or anything.’

From her tone I gathered the conversation was at an end. `These people can cause all kinds of trouble, you know. Drugs, violence…’

The sourness of her smile suggested that if there were any such trouble she would be pleased to see me the victim of it. The boy stared at me without comprehension. I smiled back.

`I saw your grandmother the other day,' I told him. `She told me a lot about you.’

The boy flushed and mumbled something unintelligible.

Caroline stiffened. `I'd heard she was here,' she said. She forced a smile. `You really shouldn't encourage my mother,' she added with counterfeit archness. 'She's quite bad enough already.’

`Oh, I found her most entertaining company,' I replied without taking my eyes off the boy. `Quite, refreshing. And very sharp.’

`For her age,' said Caroline.

`For any age,' I said.

`Well, I'm sure she seems so to a stranger,' said Caroline tightly. `But to her family…’

She flashed me another of her cold smiles. `You have to understand that my mother is very old,' she explained. `Her mind isn't what it used to be. Her grasp of reality-' She broke off with a nervous gesture. `I'm sure I don't have to explain to you,' she said.

`No, you don't,' I answered pleasantly. `It's none of my business, after all.’

I saw her eyes narrow as she registered the barb. She may be bigoted, but she isn't stupid.

`I mean…’ she floundered for a few moments. For a second I thought I saw a 'glint of humour in the boy's eyes, though that might have been my imagination. `I mean my mother doesn't always know what's best for her.’

She was back in control again, her smile as lacquered as her hair. `This shop, for instance.’

I nodded encouragement. `My mother is diabetic,' explained Caroline. `The doctor has warned her repeatedly to avoid sugar in her diet. She refuses to listen. She won't accept treatment.’

She glanced at her son with a kind of triumph. `Tell me, Madame Rocher, is that normal? Is that a normal way to behave?’

Her voice was rising again, becoming shrill and petulant. Her son looked vaguely embarrassed and glanced at his watch.

`Maman, I'll be l-late.’

His voice was neutral and polite. To me: `Excuse me, Madame, I have to get to s-school.’

`Here, have one of my special pralines. On the house: I held it out to him in a twist of Cellophane.

`My son doesn't eat chocolate.’

Caroline's voice was sharp. `He's hyperactive. Sickly. He knows it's bad for him: I looked at the boy. He looked neither sickly nor hyperactive, merely bored and a little self-conscious.

`She thinks a great deal about you,' I told him. `Your grandmother. Maybe you could drop in and say hello one" of these days. She's one of my regulars.’

The bright eyes flickered for a moment from beneath the lank brown hair.

`Maybe.’ The voice was unenthusiastic.

'My son doesn't have time to hang about in sweetshops,' said Caroline loftily. `My son's a gifted boy. He knows what he owes his parents.’

There was a kind of threat in what she said, a smug note of certainty. She turned to walk past Luc, who was already in the doorway, his satchel swinging.

'Luc.’ My voice was low, persuasive. He turned again with some reluctance. I was reaching for him before I knew it, seeing past the polite blank face and seeing seeing…

`Did you like Rimbaud?’

I spoke without thinking, my head reeling with images.

For a moment the boy looked guilty. `What?’

'Rimbaud. She gave you a book of his poems for your birthday, didn't she?, 'Y-yes.’

The reply was almost inaudible. His eyes – they are a bright green-grey – lifted towards mine. I saw him give a tiny shake of his head, as if in warning. `I d-didn't read them, though,' he said in a louder voice. `I'm not a f-fan of p-poetry.’

A dog-eared book, carefully hidden at the bottom of a clothes chest. A boy murmuring the lovely words to himself with a peculiar fierceness. Please come, I whispered silently. Please, for Armande's sake.

Something in his eyes flickered. `I have to go now.’

Caroline was waiting impatiently at the door.

`Please. Take these.’

I handed him the tiny packet of pralines. The boy has secret. I could feel them itching to escape. Deftly, keeping out of his mother's line of vision he took the packet, smiled. I might almost have imagined the words he mouthed as he went.

`Tell her I'll be there,' he whispered, when Maman goes to the h-hairdresser's.’

Then he was gone.

I told Armande about their visit when she came later today. She shook her head and rocked with laughter when I recounted my conversation with Caroline.

`He, hi, he!' Ensconced in her sagging armchair, a cup of mocha in her delicate claw, she looked more like an apple-doll than ever. `My poor Caro. Doesn't like to be reminded, does she?’ She sipped the drink gleefully. `Where does she get off, he?’ she demanded with some testiness. `Telling you what I can and can't have. Diabetic, am I? That's what her doctor would like us all to think.’ She grunted. `Well, I'm still alive, aren't I? I'm careful. But that isn't enough for them, no. They have to have control.’ She shook her head. `That, poor boy. He stutters, did you notice that?’

I nodded.

`That's his mother's doing.’ Armande was scornful. `If she'd left him alone – but no. Always correcting him. Always carrying on. Making him worse. Making out there's something wrong with him all the time:' She made a sound of derision. `There's nothing wrong with him that a good dose of living wouldn't cure,' she declared stoutly. `Let him run awhile without worrying what would happen if he fell over. Let him loose. Let him breathe.’

I said that it was normal for a mother to be protective of her children.

Armande gave me one of her satirical glances. `Is that what you call it?’ she said. `The same way the mistletoe is protective of the apple tree?’

She gave a cackle. `I used to have apple trees in my garden,' she told me. `Mistletoe got them all, one by one. Nasty little plant, doesn't look like much, pretty berries, no strength of its own, but lord! Invasive!' She sipped again at her drink. `And poison to everything it touches.’

She nodded to me knowingly.

`That's my Caro,' she said. `That's her.’

I saw Guillaume again after lunch. He didn't stop except to say hello, saying he was on his way to the newsagent for his papers. Guillaume is addicted -to film magazines, although he never goes to the cinema, and every week he receives an entire parcel of them; Video and Cine-Club, Telerama and Film Express. His is the only satellite dish in the village, and in his sparse little house there is a widescreen television and a Toshiba video recorder wall-mounted above an entire bookcase of video cassettes. I noticed that he was carrying Charly again, the dog looking dull-eyed and listless on his master's arm. Every few moments Guillaume stroked the dog's head with the familiar gesture of tenderness and finality.

`How is he?’ I asked at last.

`Oh, he has his good days,' said Guillaume. `There's plenty of life in him yet.’

And they went on their way, the small dapper man clutching his sad brown dog as if his life depended upon it.

Josephine Muscat went by but did not stop. I was a little disappointed that she did not come in, for I'd been hoping to talk to her again, but she simply shot me a wildeyed look as she passed; hands jammed deeply into her pockets. I noticed her face looked puffy, the eyes slitted closed, though it might have been against the gritty rain, the mouth zipped shut. A thick no-colour scarf bound her head like a bandage. I called to her, but she did not answer, quickening her step as if at some impending danger.

I shrugged and let her go. These things take time. Sometimes for ever.

Still, later, when Anouk was playing in Les Marauds and I had closed shop for the day, I found myself strolling down the Avenue des Francs Bourgeois in the direction of the Café de la Republique. It is a small, dingy place, soaped windows with an unchanging specialite du jour scrawled across, and a scruffy awning which reduces the available light still further. Inside, a couple of silent slot machines flank the round tables at which – the few customers sit, moodily discussing matters of no importance over interminable demis and cafes-creme. There is the bland oily smell of microwaved food, and a pall of greasy cigarette smoke hangs over the room, even though no-one seems to be smoking. I noticed one of Caroline Clairmont's handlettered yellow cards in a prominent position by the open door. A black crucifix hangs above it.

I looked in, hesitated, and entered.

Muscat was at the bar. He eyed me as I walked in, his mouth stretching. Almost imperceptibly I saw his eyes flick to my legs, my breasts – whap-whap, lighting up like the dials on a slot-machine. He laid a hand on the pump, flexing one heavy forearm. `What can I give you?’

'Cafe-cognac, please.’

The coffee came in a small brown cup with two wrapped sugar lumps. I took it to a table by the window. A couple of old men – one with the Legion d'honneur clipped to one frayed lapel – eyed me with suspicion.

`D'you want some company?’ smirked Muscat from behind the bar. `It's just that you look a little – lonely, sitting there on your own.’

`No, thank you,' I told him politely. `In fact, I thought I might see Josephine today. Is she here?’

Muscat looked at me sourly, his good humour gone. `Oh yes, your bosom friend.’

His voice was dry. `Well, you missed her. She just went upstairs to lie down. One of her sick headaches.’

He began to polish a glass with peculiar ferocity. `Spends all afternoon shopping, then has to lie down in the bloody evening while I do the work.’

`Is she all right?’

He looked at me. `Course she is.’

His voice was sharp. `Why shouldn't she be? If Her Bloody Ladyship could just get up off her fat arse once in a while we might even be able to keep this business afloat.’

He dug his dishcloth wrapped fist into the glass, grunting with the effort.

`I mean.’ He made an expressive gesture, `I mean, just look at this place.’

He glanced at me as if about to say something else, then his gaze slid past me to the door. I gathered he was addressing someone just out of my field of vision. `Don't you people listen? I'm closed!' I heard a man's voice say something indistinct in reply. Muscat gave his wide, cheerless grin. `Can't you idiots read?’

Behind the bar he indicated the yellow twin of the card I had seen at the door. `Get lost, go on!' I stood up to see what was happening. There were five people standing uncertainly at the cafe entrance, two men and three women. All five were strangers to me, unremarkable but for their air of indefinable otherness; the patched trousers, the workboots, the faded T-shirts which proclaimed them outsiders. I should know that look. I had it once. The man who had spoken had red hair and a green bandanna to keep it out of his face. His eyes were cautious, his tone carefully neutral.

`We're not selling anything,' he explained. `We just want to get a couple of beers and some coffee. We're not going to be any trouble.’

Muscat looked at him in contempt. `I said, we're closed.’

One of the women, a drab, thin girl with a pierced eyebrow, tugged at the redhead's sleeve. `It's no good, Roux. We better-'

`Wait a minute.’ Roux shook her off impatiently. `I don't understand. The lady who was here a moment ago your wife she was going to-'

`Screw my wife!' exclaimed Muscat shrilly. `My wife couldn't find her arse with both hands and a pocket torch! It's my name above the door, and I – say – we're – closed!' He had taken three steps from behind the bar, and now he stood barring the doorway, hands on hips, like an overweight gunslinger in a spaghetti western. I could see the yellowy gleam of his knuckles at his belt, hear the whistle of his breath. His face was congested with rage.

`Right.’ Roux's face was expressionless. He flicked a hostile, deliberate glance at the few customers scattered about the room. `Closed.’

Another glance around the room. For a moment our eyes met. `Closed to us,' he said quietly.

`Not as stupid as you look, are you?’ said Muscat with sour glee. `We had enough of your lot last time. This time, we're not standing for it!' `OK.’

Roux turned to go. Muscat saw him off, strutting stiff-legged, like a dog scenting a fight.

I walked past him without a word, leaving my coffee half-finished on the table. I hope he wasn't expecting a tip.

I caught up with the river-gypsies halfway down the Avenue des Francs Bourgeois: It had begun to drizzle again, and the five of them looked drab and sullen. I could see their boats now, down in Les Marauds, a dozen of them – two dozen – a flotilla of green-yellow-blue-whitered, some flying flags of damp washing, others painted with Arabian nights and magic carpets and unicorn variations reflected in the dull green water.

`I'm sorry that happened,' I told them. `They're not an especially welcoming lot in Lansquenet-sous-Tannes.’

Roux gave me a flat, measuring look.

`My name is Vianne,' I told him. `I have the chocolaterie just opposite the church. La Celeste Praline.’

He watched me, waiting. I recognized myself in his carefully expressionless face. I wanted to tell him – to tell all of them – that I knew their rage and humiliation, that I'd known it too, that they weren't alone. But I also knew their pride, the useless defiance which remains after everything else has been scoured away. The last thing they wanted, I knew, was sympathy.

`Why don't you drop in tomorrow?’

I asked lightly. `I don't do beer, but I think you might enjoy my coffee.’

He looked at me sharply, as if he suspected me of mocking him. – `Please come,' I insisted. `Have coffee and a slice of cake on the house. All of you.’

The thin girl looked at her friends and shrugged. Roux returned the gesture. `Maybe.’

The voice was non-committal.

`We got a busy schedule,' chirped the girl pertly.

I smiled. `Find a window,' I suggested.

Again that measuring, suspicious look. `Maybe.’

I watched them go down into Les Marauds as Anouk came running up the hill towards me, the tails of her red raincoat flapping like the wings of an exotic bird. `Maman, Maman! Look, the boats!' We admired them for a while, the flat barges, the tall: houseboats with the corrugated roofs, the stovepipe chimneys, the frescoes, the multicoloured flags, slogans, painted devices to ward against accident and shipwreck, the small barques, fishing lines, pots for crayfish hoisted up against.the tidemark for the night, tattered umbrellas sheltering decks, the beginnings of campfires in steel drums on the riverside. There was a smell of burning wood and petrol and frying fish, a distant sound of music from across the water as a saxophone began its eerily human melodious wail. Halfway across the Tannes I could just make out the figure of a redheaded man standing alone on the deck of a plain black houseboat. As I watched he lifted his arm. I waved back. It was almost dark when we made our way home. Back in Les Marauds a drummer had joined the saxophone, and the sounds of his drumming slapped flatly off the water. I passed the Cafe de la Republique without looking in.

I had barely reached the top of the hill when I felt a presence at my elbow. I turned and saw Josephine Muscat, coatless now but with a scarf around her head and half, covering her face. In the semi-darkness she looked pallid, nocturnal.

`Run home, Anouk. Wait for me there.’

Anouk gave me a curious glance, then turned and ran off obediently up the hill, her coat-tails flapping wildly.

`I heard what you did.’ Josephine's voice was hoarse and soft. `You walked out because of that business with the river people.’

I nodded. `Of course.’

`Paul-Marie was furious.’ The stern note in her voice was almost admiration. `You should have heard the things he was saying.’

I laughed. `Fortunately I don't have to listen to anything Paul-Marie has to say,' I told her blandly.

`Now I'm not supposed to talk to you any more,' she went on. `He thinks you're a bad influence.’

A pause, as she looked at me with nervous curiosity. `He doesn't want me to have friends,' she added.

`Seems to me I'm hearing rather too much about what Paul-Marie wants,' I said mildly. `I'm not really all that interested in him. Now you-' I touched her arm fleetingly. `I find you quite interesting.’

She flushed and looked away, as if expecting to find someone standing at her shoulder. `You don't understand,' she muttered.

`I think I do.’

With my fingertips I touched the scarf which hid her face.

`Why do you wear this?’

I asked abruptly. `Do you want to tell me?’

She looked at me in hope and panic. Shook her head. I pulled gently at the scarf. `You're pretty,' I said as it came loose. `You could be beautiful.’

There was a fresh bruise just beneath her lower lip, bluish in the failing light. She opened her mouth for the automatic lie. I interrupted her. `That's not true,' I said.

`How can you know that?’

Her voice was sharp. `I hadn't even said-‘

'You didn't have to.’

Silence. Across the water a flute scattered bright notes among the drumbeats. When she spoke at last her voice was thick with self-loathing. `It's stupid, isn't it?’

Her eyes were tiny crescents. `I never blame him. Not really. Sometimes I even forget what really happened.’

She took a deep breath, like a diver going under. `Walking into doors. Falling downstairs. St-stepping on rakes.’

She sounded close to laughter. I could hear hysteria bubbling beneath the surface of her words. `Accident-prone, that's what he says I am. Accident-prone.’

`Why was it this time?’

I asked gently. `Was it because of the river people?’

She nodded. `They didn't mean any harm. I was going to serve them.’

Her voice rose shrilly for a second. `I don't see why I should have to do what that bitch Clairmont wants all the time! Oh we must stand together,' she mimicked savagely. `For the sake of the community. For our children, Madame Muscat' – breaking back into her own voice with a stricken intake of breath – `when in normal circumstances she wouldn't say hello to me in the street – wouldn't give me steam off her shit!' She took another deep breath, controlling the outburst with an effort.

`It's always Caro this, Caro that. I've seen the way he looks at her in church. "Why can't you be like Caro Clairmont?”

'Now she was her husband, his voice thick with beery rage. She even managed his mannerisms, the thrust-out chin, the strutting, aggressive posture. ` "She makes you look like a clumsy sow. She's got style. Class. She's got a fine son doing well at school. And what have you got he?'

'Josephine.’

She turned towards me with a stricken expression. `I'm sorry. For a moment I almost forgot where-'

`I know.’ I could feel rage pricking at my thumbs.

`You must think I'm stupid to have stayed with him all these years.’ Her voice was dull, her eyes dark and resentful.

`No, I don't.’

She ignored my reply. `Well I am,' she declared. `Stupid and weak. I don't love him – can't remember a time when I ever loved him – but when I think of actually leaving him-' She broke off in confusion. `Actually leaving him,' she repeated in a low, wondering voice.

`No. It's no use.’ She looked up at me again and her face was closed, final. `That's why I can't talk to you again,' she told me in calm desperation. `I couldn't leave you guessing – you deserve better than that. But this is how it has to be.’

`No,' I told her. `It doesn't.’

`But it does.’

She defends herself bitterly, desperately, against the possibility of comfort. `Can't you see? I'm no good. I steal. I lied to you before. I steal things. I do it all the time!'

Gently: `Yes. I know.’

The clear realization turns quietly between us like a Christmas bauble.

`Things can be better,' I told her at last. `Paul-Marie doesn't rule the world.’

`He might as well,' retorted Josephine mulishly.

I smiled. If that stubbornness of hers could be turned out instead of in, what could she not achieve? I could do it, too. I could feel her thoughts, so close, welcoming me in. It would be so easy to take control… I turned the thought aside impatiently. I had no right to force her to any decision.

`Before, you had no-one to go to,' I said. `Now you do.’

`Do I?’ In her mouth, it was almost an admission of defeat.

I did not reply. Let her answer that for herself.

She looked at me in silence for a while. Her eyes were full of river lights from Les Marauds. Again it struck me, with what small a twist she might become beautiful.

`Goodnight, Josephine.’

I did not turn to look at her, but I know she watched me as I made my way up the hill, and I know she stood watching long after I had rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.