Page 21 of The Strawberry Thief
‘You always were a fool, Narcisse,’ she said. ‘She saw you coming. And you obliged – you gave her a home—’
‘Please,’ said Father, looking at me. ‘Not in front of the children.’
‘The children!’ echoed Tante Anna. ‘The half-wit and the German brat—’
But before she could finish, my father, that quiet man who stammered at the first sign of conflict, had become a stranger. He took three great steps forwards, fists clenched, face red, angry footsteps throwing up great flags of muddy water. Tante Anna stayed just where she was – dainty in her shiny boots. She looked – not frightened, exactly, but wary, like a cat faced with a big, fierce dog, but that knows just where to strike.
For a moment my father stood, facing her. Then he looked away again.
‘Well,’ said Tante Anna quietly. The way she said it, I wasn’t sure whether it was a question or not. ‘Blood talks, doesn’t it? Even when the tongue is slow, blood will always find a way.’
My father looked down at his boots, which was when I began to cry. Not at Tante Anna’s words – I hadn’t understood their meaning at all – but at the way my father looked. He looked like a great, illiterate clod caught out in some misdemeanour.
‘Well?’ said Tante Anna again, and this time it was a question.
‘S-so-so—’ said my father.
‘So-so what?’ said Tante Anna.
‘So-so-s-s-s-sorry,’ said my father, now shaking so hard with the effort that ripples fanned out from around his boots as if at a sudden earthquake.
‘I should hope so,’ said Tante Anna with her tight-lipped little smile. ‘And now I think you children should come with me indoors, before Naomi catches her death. And as for you,’ addressing me now, ‘if you like telling stories so much, you can copy out twenty Bible verses for me, in your very best handwriting.’
That was one of Tante Anna’s favourite punishments; designed both to take a long time (if I happened to make a spelling mistake, I had to start the page again) and to keep me safely under her eye. As for Mimi, Tante Anna shut her up in the room we shared, and I heard her protests all afternoon – but I never heard her speak again. ‘Boo’ was all she managed.
The light has gone. I must have read for longer than I had intended. Strange, how the story reels me in – a story of people, most of whom were dead before I was even born. But while his story stays unfinished, Narcisse will be with me. I can almost see him now, lounging in my armchair, his eyes shining from between a cross-hatching of wrinkles. Perhaps that’s why I saw him there through the florist’s window. Or maybe – it is Lent, after all – I am simply suffering from low blood sugar.
A glass of brandy for Narcisse. And one for myself –don’t mind if I do. ItisLent, after all. A time of spiritual reflection. Outside it is raining: the streetlight at the end of the road makes the street shine silver. I stand up to draw the curtain, and see a woman walking by. Collar winged against the rain, I can see little of her except for her shiny black raincoat and the silvery floss of her hair, but she is no-one I recognize. I tell myself that the village is filled with people I no longer recognize. For that matter,père, I hardly recognize myself these days. So much has changed since you were alive. So much has changed since Vianne Rocher came to Lansquenet on the wind.
Vianne Rocher. Now why did I think ofher? That woman looked nothing like her. And yet there was something in the way she walked; the careless turn of the head; the way the hair, all jewelled with rain, spilled from the collar of the coat. I saw her for only a moment, and yet she reminded me of Vianne, and I thought I caught a scent on the wind of burning, and woodsmoke, and gasoline.
2
Sunday, March 19
Roux hardly ever stays the night. By three o’clock he was restless, already eager to be gone. I let him go, and slept until dawn, and dreamed of Roux and Anouk and Rosette all changing into a cloud of black birds, and awoke to the sound of the church bells and someone knocking at the door.
I looked out of the window. Nine-thirty – an hour before my usual Sunday opening time – and there was someone standing outside; someone I recognized from her hat, the same one she wore yesterday at Narcisse’s memorial ceremony.
‘Michèle, I’ll be down in a minute!’ I called, and, pulling on a pair of jeans and a scarlet sweater, I ran downstairs to open the door while Rosette watched from the top of the stairs, but made no effort to follow. Rosette does not like Michèle Montour – she makes no secret of the fact, although she likes the son, Yannick. But the mother is one of those pastel-clad, elegantly scornful women that Armande used to refer to as ‘Bible groupies’. To be fair, I don’t like her much myself, and besides, I knew what she wanted.
I opened the door. ‘Michèle! I’m sorry; I overslept. Do come in and sit down. Can I offer you something to drink?’
Her eyes are the kind of silvery grey that reminds me of fog on the river. Her hair, which is an artful shade somewhere between silver and blonde, was knotted at the nape of her neck. From her gloves, and the hat, I guessed that she had come from church.
‘Thank you. Maybe I’ll try a cup of your famous hot chocolate.’
‘It might take a few minutes,’ I said. ‘I haven’t opened the shop yet.’
‘Thanks,’ said Michèle. ‘I’m happy to wait.’
She sat on one of the chairs by the counter in the front of the shop, and I could see her watching me as I prepared the chocolate. First, the whole milk in a copper pan, heated not quite to boiling-point. Then, the spices: nutmeg and clove, with a couple of fresh bird’s-eye chillies, broken in half to release the heat. Three minutes for the chillies to infuse: then add a double handful of chopped dark chocolate pieces –notpowder, but the chocolate that I use for my pralines – and stir until the chocolate melts. Muscovado sugar, to taste: then bring back to simmering-point and serve straightaway in a china cup, with alangue de chaton the side.
Michèle took the china cup and put it on the window-ledge. ‘It looks delicious,’ she said, but I could tell from her eyes that she hadn’t come for chocolate. She played with her biscuit – her fingers are long and manicured, tipped with nails the colour of smoke. She nibbled a piece from the edge, then put it down in her saucer.
‘I wondered if I might have a word,’ she said, the brittle brightness of her tone belying the urgency in her hands.
‘About what?’ But I already knew.
