Roux hesitated. `You're from the cafe,' he said at last. `You're-'

`Josephine Bonnet,' she interrupted. `I'm living here now.’

`Oh.’

I came out of the kitchen and saw him watching her with a speculative look in his light eyes. But he did not pursue the matter any further, and Josephine withdrew gratefully into the kitchen.

`It's good to see you again, Roux,' I told him directly. `I wanted to ask you a favour.’

`Oh?’

He can make a single syllable sound very meaningful. This was polite incredulity, suspicion. He looked like a nervous cat about to strike.

`I need some work doing on the house, and I wonder if you might-' It is difficult to phrase this correctly. I know he will not accept what he considers to be charity.

`This wouldn't be anything to do with our friend Armande, would it?’

His tone was light but hard. He turned to where Armande and the others were sitting. `Doing good by stealth again, were we?’ he called caustically.

Turning back to me again, his face was c areful and expressionless. `I didn't come here to ask for a job. I wanted to ask you if you saw anyone hanging round my boat that night.’

I shook my head. `I'm sorry, Roux. I didn't see anyone.’

`OK.’

He turned again as if to leave. `Thanks.’

`Look, wait.’

I called out after him. `Can't you at least stay for a drink?’

`Some other time.’

His tone was brusque to the point of rudeness. I could feel his anger reaching out for something to strike at.

`We're still your friends,' I said as he reached the door. 'Armande and Luc and I. Don't be so defensive. We're trying to help you.’

Roux turned abruptly. His face was bleak. His eyes were crescents. `Get this, all of you.’ He spoke in a low, hateful voice, the accent so thick that his words were barely distinguishable. `I don't need any help. I should never have got involved with you in the first place. I only hung around this long because I thought I might find out who fired my boat.’

Then he was gone, stumbling bearishly through the doorway in a bright angry carillon of chimes.

When he had gone we all looked at each other.

`Redhaired men,' said Armande with feeling. `Stubborn as mules.’

Josephine looked shaken. `What a horrible man,' she said at last. `You didn't set fire to his boat. What right has he to take it out on you?’

I shrugged. 'He feels helpless and angry, and he doesn't know who to blame,' I told her gently. `It's a natural reaction. And he thinks we're offering help because we feel sorry for him.’

`I just hate scenes,' said Josephine, and I knew she was thinking of her husband. `I'm glad he's gone. Do you think he'll leave Lansquenet now?’

I shook my head. `I don't think so,' I said. `After all, where would he go?’

27

Thursday March 13

I WENT DOWN TO LES MARAUDS YESTERDAY AFTERNOON to talk to Roux, with no more success than last time. The derelict house has been padlocked from the inside and the shutters closed. I can imagine him holed up in the dark with his rage like a wary animal. I called his name, and knew he heard me, but he did not answer. I considered leaving a message for him on the door, but decided against it. If he wants to come, it must be on his own terms. Anouk came with me, carrying a paper boat I had made for her out of the cover of a magazine. As I was standing outside Roux's door she went down the banking to launch it, keeping` it from drifting too far with the aid of along flexible branch. When Roux would not make an appearance I returned to La Praline, where Josephine had already begun the week's batch of couverture, and left Anouk to her own devices.

`Watch out for crocodiles,' I told her seriously.

Anouk grinned at me from under her yellow beret. With her toy trumpet in one hand and the guiding-stick in the other, she proceeded to sound a loud and tuneless alarm, jumping from one foot to the other in mounting excitement.

`Crocodiles! Crocodile attack!' she crowed. `Man the cannons!'

`Steady,' I warned. `Don't fall in.’

Anouk blew me an extravagant kiss and returned to the game. When I turned back at the top of the hill she was bombarding the crocodiles with pieces of turf, and I could still hear the thin blare of the trumpet – paar-paa-raar! interspersed with sound effects – prussh! groom! – as battle continued.

Surprising that it should still surprise, the fierce onrush of tenderness. If I squint hard enough against the low sunlight I can almost see the crocodiles, the long brown snapping shapes in the water, the flash of the cannon. As she moves between the houses, the red and yellow of her coat and beret shooting out sudden flares from the shadows, I can almost make out the half-visible menagerie which surrounds her. As I watch she turns and waves at me, screeches I love you! and returns to the serious business of play.

We were closed in the afternoon, and Josephine and I worked hard to make enough pralines and truffles to last for the rest of the week. I have already begun to make the Easter chocolates, and Josephine has become skilled at decorating the animal shapes and packing them into boxes tied with multicoloured ribbon. The cellar is an ideal place to store them: cool, though not so cold that the chocolate takes on the whitish bloom which refrigeration encourages; dark and dry, so we can store all of our special stock there, packed into cartons, and still have room for our household supplies. The floor is made of old flagstones, polished brown as oak, cool and smooth underfoot. A single lightbulb overhead. The door to the cellar is bare pine, with a hole cut into the base for a longdeparted cat. Even Anouk likes the cellar, which smells of stone and ancient wine, and she has drawn coloured chalk figures on the flags and the whitewashed walls; animals and castles and birds and stars. In the shop Armande and Luc stayed to talk for a while, then they left together: They meet more often now, though not always at La Praline; Luc tells me that he went to her house twice last week, and did an hour's work in the garden each time.

`She needs some w-work doing in the flowerbeds, now the h-house is fixed,' he told me earnestly. `She can't manage the digging the way she used to, but she says she wants some f-flowers this year instead of just weeds.’

Yesterday he brought a tray of plants from Narcisse's nursery and planted them in the newly dug soil at the foot of Armande's wall.

'I've got l-lavenders and primroses and tulips and daffodils,' he explained. 'She likes the bright, scented ones best. She doesn't see all that well, so I got lilac and wallflowers and broom, and things she'll notice.’

He smiled shyly. 'I want them settled before her b-birthday,' he explained.

I as ked him wh en Armande's birthday was.

'March the twenty-eighth,' he explained. 'She'll be eighty-one. I've already thought of a p-present.’

'Oh?’

He nodded. 'I thought I'd buy her a s-silk slip.’ His tone was faintly defensive. 'She likes underwear.’

Suppressing a smile, I told him that sounded like a fine idea.

'I'll have to go to Agen,' he said seriously. 'And I'll have to hide it from my m-mother, or she'll have a bird.’

He gave a sudden grin. 'Perhaps we could throw a party for her. You know, to welcome her into the next d-decade.’

'We could ask her what she thinks,' I suggested.

At four Anouk came home tired and cheerful and muddy to the armpits, and Josephine made lemon tea while I ran the bathwater. Stripping off her dirty clothes I tipped Anouk into hot honey-scented water, then afterwards we all sat down to pains au chocolat and brioche with raspberry jam and plump sweet apricots from Narcisse's greenhouse. Josephine seemed preoccupied, turning her apricot softly over and over in one palm.