`We are not here to allocate blame,' I said with a note of rebuke. `We should be trying to find ways to save your marriage.’

He was instantly subdued. `I'm sorry, pare. I – I shouldn't have said those things.’

He tried for sincerity, showing teeth like ancient ivory. `Don't think I'm not fond of her, pare. I mean, I want her back, don't I?’

Oh yes. To cook his meals. To iron his clothes. To run his cafe. And to prove to his friends that no-one makes a fool of Paul-Marie Muscat, no-one. I despise this hypocrisy. He must indeed win her back. I agree with that at least. But not for those reasons.

`If you want her back, Muscat,' I told him with some tartness, `then you have been about it in a remarkably idiotic way so far.’

He bridled. `I don't see that necessarily-'

`Don't be a fool.’

Lord, pere, how can you ever have had such patience with these people?

`Threats, profanities, last night's shameful drunken display? How do you think that would help your case?’

Sullenly: `I couldn't let her get away with what she did, pere. Everyone's saying my wife walked out on me. And that interfering bitch Rocher…’

His mean eyes narrowed behind his wire glasses. `Serve… her right if something happened to that fancy shop of hers,' he said flatly. `Get rid of the bitch for good.’

I looked at him sharply. 'Oh?’

It was too close to what I have thought myself, mon pere. God help me, when I saw that boat burning… It is a primitive delight, unworthy of my calling, a pagan thing which by right I should not feel. I have wrestled with it myself, pere, in the small hours of the mornings. I have subdued it in myself, but like the dandelions it grows back, sending out insidious small rootlets. It was- perhaps because of this – because I understood – that my voice was harsher than I intended as I replied. `What. kind of thing did you have in mind, Muscat?’

He muttered something barely audible.

`A fire, perhaps? A convenient fire?’

I could feel the pressure of my rage growing against my ribs. Its taste, which is both metallic and sweetly rotten, filled my mouth. `Like the fire which got rid of the gypsies?’

He smirked. `Perhaps. Dreadful fire risk, some of these old houses.’

`Listen to me.’ Suddenly I was appalled at the thought that he might have mistaken my silence that night for complicity. `If I thought – even suspected – outside of the confessional that you were involved in such a thing – if anything happens to that shop-' I had him by the shoulder now, my fingers digging into the pulpy flesh.

Muscat looked aggrieved. `But pere you said yourself that-' `I said nothing!' I heard my voice ricochet flatly across the square – tut-rat-tat! – and I lowered it in haste. `I certainly never meant for you-' I cleared my throat, which suddenly felt wedged full. `This is not the Middle Ages, Muscat,' I said crisply. `We do not – interpret God's laws to suit ourselves. Or the laws of our country,' I added heavily, looking him in the eye. His corneas were as yellow as his teeth. `Do we understand each other?’

Resentfully: `Yes, mon pere.’

`Because if anything happens, Muscat, anything, a broken window, a little fire, anything at all…’

I overtop him by a head. I am younger, fitter than he. He responds instinctively to the physical threat. I give him a little push which sends him against the stone wall at his back. I can barely contain my rage. That he should dare – that he should dare! – to take my role, pere. That it should be he, this miserable self-deluding sot. That he should place me in this situation; to be obliged officially to protect the woman who is my enemy. I contain myself with an effort.

`Keep well away from that shop, Muscat. If there's anything to be done, I'll do it. Do you understand?’

Humbler now, his bluster evaporating: `Yes, pere.’

`Leave the situation entirely to me.’

Three weeks until her grand festival. That's all I have left. Three weeks to find some way of curbing her influence. I have preached against her in church to no effect but my own ridicule. Chocolate, I am told, is not a moral issue. Even the Clairmonts see my obduracy as slightly irregular, she simpering with mock concern that I seem overwrought, he grinning outright. Vianne Rocher herself takes no notice. Far from trying to blend in she flaunts her alien status, calling impertinent greetings to me across the square, encouraging the antics of such as Armande, perpetually dogged by the children whose growing wildness she invites. Even in a crowd she is instantly recognizable. Where others walk up a street, she runs down it. Her hair, her clothes; perpetually wind-torn, wildflower colours, orange and yellow and polka-dotted and floral-patterned. In the wild, a parakeet amongst sparrows would soon be torn apart for its bright plumage. Here she is accepted with affection, even amusement. What might raise eyebrows elsewhere is tolerated because. it is only Vianne. Even Clairmont is not impervious to her charm, and his wife's dislike has nothing to do with moral superiority and everything to do with a kind of envy which does Caro little credit. At least Vianne Rocher is no hypocrite, using God's words to elevate her social standing. And yet the thought – suggesting as it does a sympathy, even a liking, that a man in my position can ill afford – is another danger. I can have no sympathies. Rage and liking are equally inappropriate. I must be impartial, for the sake of the community and the Church. Those are my first loyalties.

26

Wednesday March 12

WE HAVE NOT SPOKEN TO MUSCAT FOR DAYS. JOSEPHINE, who for some time would not leave La Praline, can now be persuaded to walk down the street to the bakery, or across the square to the florist's, without me to accompany her. As she refuses to return to the Cafe de la Republique I have lent her some of my own clothes. Today she is wearing a blue jumper and a flowered sarong, and she looks fresh and pretty. In only a few days she has changed the look of vapid hostility has gone, as have the defensive mannerisms. She seems taller, sleeker, abandoning her permanently hunched posture and the multiple layers of clothing which gave her such a dumpy look. She keeps the shop for me while I work in the kitchen, and I have already taught her how to temper and blend chocolate types as well as how to make some of the simpler types of praline. She has good, quick hands. Laughingly I remind her of her gunslinger's deftness on that first day and she flushes.

`I'd never take anything from you!' Her indignation is touching, sincere. 'Vianne, you don't think I'd-?‘

'Of course not.’

`You knowI-.’

'Of course.’

She and Armande, who barely knew each other in the old days, have become good friends. The old lady calls every day now, sometimes to talk, sometimes for a cornet of her favourite apricot truffles. Often she comes in with Guillaume, who has become a regular visitor. Today Luc was here too, and the three of them sat together in the comer with a pot of chocolate and some eclairs. I could hear occasional laughter and exclamations from the small group.

Just before, closing-time Roux walked in, looking cautious and diffident. It was the first time I had seen him close to since the fire, and I was struck by the changes in him. He looks thinner, his hair pasted back from a blank, sullen face. There is a dirty bandage on one hand. One side of his face still shows a hectic splash of marks which resembles bad sunburn.

He looked taken-aback when he saw Josephine `I'm sorry. I thought Vianne was-' He turned abruptly as if to go.

`No. Please. She's in the back.’

Her manner has become more relaxed since she begun working in the shop, but she sounded awkward, intimidated, perhaps, by his appearance.