Her face, rigid with smiling, her eyes far too bright, bright as Fourth-of-July fireworks.

What would I do, what would I do without you? It's OK, Maman. We'll make it. I promise. Trust me.

The Black Man stands by with a flickering smile on his face and for that interminable second I know that there are worse things, much worse things, than dying. Then the paralysis breaks and I scream, but the cry of warning comes too late. She turns her face vaguely towards me, a smile forming on her pale lips – Why, what is it, dear? and the cry which should have been her name is lost in the squealing of brakes.

` Florida!' It sounds like a woman's name, shrilling across the street, the young woman running through the traffic dropping her purchases as she runs – an armful of groceries, a carton of milk – her face contorting. It sounds like a name, as if the older woman dying in the street is actually called Florida, and she is dead before I reach her, quietly and without drama, so that I feel almost embarrassed to make so much fuss, and a large woman in a pink tracksuit puts her meaty arms around me, but what I feel most is relief, like a lanced boil, and my tears are relief, bitter burning relief that I have reached the end at last. Reached the end intact, or almost.

`You shouldn't cry,' said Armande gently. `Aren't you the one who always says happiness is the only thing that matters?’

I was surprised to find my face wet.

`Besides, I need your help.’

Pragmatic as always, she passed me a handkerchief from her pocket. It smelt of lavender. `I'm having a party for my birthday,' she declared. 'Luc's idea. Expense no object. I want you to do the catering.’

`What?’ I was confused, passing from death to feasting then back again.

`My last course,' explained Armande. `I'll take my medicine till then, like a good girl. I'll even drink that filthy tea. I want to see my eighty-first birthday, Vianne, with all my friends around me. God knows, I might even invite that idiot daughter of mine. We'll bring in your chocolate festival in style. Arid then…’

A quick shrug of indifference. `Not everyone gets this lucky,' she observed. `Getting the chance to plan everything, to tidy all the comers. And something else' – she gave me a look of laser intensity – `not a word to anyone,' she said. `Not anyone. I'm not having any interference. It's my choice, Vianne. My party. I don't want anyone crying and carrying on at my party. Understand?’

I nodded.

`Promise?’

It was like talking to a fierce child. `I promise.’

Her face took on the look of contentment it always wears when she speaks of good food. She rubbed her hands together. `Now for the menu.’

30

Tuesday March 18

JOSEPHINE COMMENTED ON MY SILENCE AS WE WORKED together. We have made three hundred of the Easter boxes since we began, stacked neatly in the cellar and tied with ribbons, but I plan for twice that many. If I can sell them all we will make a substantial profit, perhaps enough to settle here for good. If not – I do not think of that possibility, though the weathervane creaks laughter at me from its perch. Roux has already started work on Anouk's room in the loft. The festival is a risk, but our lives have always been determined by such things. And we have made every effort to make the festival a success. Posters have been sent as far as Agen and the neighbouring towns. Local radio will mention it every day of Easter week. There will be music – a few of Narcisse's old friends have formed a band – flowers, games. I spoke to some of the Thursday traders and there will be stalls in the square selling trinkets and souvenirs. An Easter-egg hunt for the children, led by Anouk and her friends, carnets-surprise for every entrant. And in La Celeste Praline, a giant chocolate statue of Eostre with a corn sheaf in one hand and a basket of eggs in the other, to be shared between the celebrants. Less than two weeks left. We make the delicate liqueur chocolates, the rose-petal clusters, the goldwrapped coins, the violet creams, the chocolate cherries and almond rolls in batches of fifty at a time, laying them out onto greased tins to cool. Hollow eggs and animal figures are carefully split open and filled with these. Nests of spun caramel with hard-shelled sugar eggs, each topped with a triumphantly plump chocolate hen; piebald rabbits heavy with gilded almonds stand in rows, ready to be wrapped and boxed; marzipan creatures march across the shelves. The smells of vanilla essence and cognac and caramelized apple and bitter chocolate fill the house.

And now there is Armande's party to prepare, too. I have a list of what she wants on order from Agen – foie gras, champagne, truffles and fresh chantrelles from Bordeaux, plateaux de fruits de mer from the traiteur in Agen. I will bring the cakes and chocolates myself.

`It sounds fun,' calls Josephine brightly from the kitchen, as I tell her about the party. I have to remind myself of my promise to Armande.

`You're invited,' I told her. `She said so.’

Josephine flushes with pleasure at the thought. `That's kind,' she says. `Everyone's been so kind.’

She is remarkably unembittered, I tell myself, ready to see kindness in everyone. Even Paul-Marie has not destroyed this optimism in her. His behaviour, she says, is partly her own fault. He is essentially weak; she should have stood up to him long ago. Caro Clairmont and her cronies she dismisses with a smile. `They're just foolish,' she tells me wisely.

Such a simple soul. She is serene now, at peace with the world. I find myself becoming less and less so, in a perverse spirit of contradiction. And yet I envy her. It has taken so little to bring her to this state. A little warmth, a few borrowed- clothes and the security of a spare room… Like a flower she grows towards the light, without thinking or examining the process which moves her to do so. I wish I could do the same.

I find myself returning to Sunday's conversation with Reynaud. What moves him is still as much of a mystery to me as it ever was. There is a look of desperation about him nowadays as he works in his churchyard, digging and hoeing furiously – sometimes bringing out great clumps of shrubs and flowers along with the weeds – the sweat running down his back and making a dark triangle against his soutane. He does not enjoy the exercise. I see his face as he works, features crunching with the effort. He seems to hate the soil he digs, to hate the plants with which he struggles. He looks like a miser forced to shovel banknotes into a furnace: hunger, disgust and reluctant fascination. And yet he never gives up. Watching him I feel a familiar pang of fear, though for what I am not sure. He is like a machine, this man, my enemy. Looking at him I feel strangely exposed by his scrutiny. It takes all my courage to meet his eyes, to smile, to pretend nonchalance.. inside me something screams and struggles frantically to escape. It is not simply the issue of the chocolate festival which enrages him. I know this as keenly as if I had picked it out of his bleak thoughts. It is my very existence which does so. To him I am a living outrage. He is watching me now, covertly from his unfinished garden, his eyes sliding sideways to my window then back to his work in sly satisfaction. We have not spoken since Sunday, and he thinks he has scored a point against me. Armande has not returned to La Praline, and I can see in his eyes that he believes himself to have been the cause of this. Let him think it if it makes him happy.

Anouk tells me he went to the school yesterday. He spoke about the meaning of Easter – harmless stuff, though it chills me somehow to think of my daughter in his care – read a story, promised to come again. I asked Anouk if he had spoken to her. `Oh yes,' she said blithely. `He's nice. He said I could come and see his church if I wanted. See St Francis and all the little animals.’