32

Friday March 21

THE LOFT IS ALMOST FINISHED, THE PLASTER STILL WET IN patches but the new window, round and brass-bound like a ship's porthole, complete. Tomorrow Roux will lay the floorboards, and when they are finally polished and varnished, we will move Anouk's bed into her new room. There is no door. A trapdoor is the only entrance, with a dozen steps leading upwards. Already Anouk is very excited. She spends much of her time with her head through the trapdoor, watching and giving precise instructions on what needs to be done. The rest she spends with me in the kitchen, watching the preparations for Easter. Jeannot is often with her. They sit together by the kitchen door, both talking at once. I have to bribe them to go away. Roux seems more like his old self since Armande's illness, whistling as he puts the final touches to Anouk's walls. He has done an excellent job, though he regrets the loss of his tools. The ones he is using, hired from Clairmont's yard, are inferior, he says. As soon as he can, he will buy more.

`There's a place in Agen selling old river-boats,' he told me today over chocolate and eclairs. `I could get an old hulk and fix it up over the winter. I could make it nice and comfortable.’

'How much money would you need?’

He shrugged. `Maybe five thousand francs to begin with, maybe four. It depends.’

'Armande would lend it to you.’

`No.’ He is immovable on this issue. `She's done enough already.’

He traced a circle around the rim of his cup with his forefinger. `Besides, Narcisse has offered me a job,' he told me. `At the nursery, then helping with the vendanges in the grape season, then there's the potatoes, beans, cucumbers, aubergines… Enough work to keep me busy till November.!' That's good.’

A sudden wave of warmth for his enthusiasm, for the return of his good spirits. He looks better too, more relaxed and without that dreadful look of hostility and suspicion which shuttered his face like a haunted house. He has spent the last few nights at Armande's house, at her request.

`In case I have another one of my turns,' she says seriously, with a comic look at me behind his back. Deception or not, I am glad of his presence there.

Not so Caro Clairmont: she came into La Praline on Wednesday morning with Joline Drou, ostensibly to discuss Anouk. Roux was sitting at the counter, drinking mocha. Josephine who still seems afraid of Roux, was in the kitchen, packaging chocolates. Anouk was still finishing her breakfast, her yellow bowl of chocolat au fait and half a croissant on the counter in front of her. The two women gave sugary smiles to Anouk, and looked at Roux with wary disdain. Roux gave them one of his insolent stares.

`I hope I'm not coming at an inconvenient moment?’ Joline has a smooth, practised voice, all concern and sympathy. Beneath it, however, nothing but indifference.

`Not at all. We were just having breakfast. Can I offer you a drink?’

`No’ no. I never have breakfast.’

A coy glance at Anouk, which she, head in her breakfast-bowl, failed to notice.

`I wonder if I might talk to you,' said Joline sweetly. `In private.’

`Well, you could,' I told her. `But I'm sure you don't need to. Can't you say whatever it is here? I'm sure Roux won't mind:' Roux grinned, and Joline looked sour. `Well, it's a little delicate,' she said.

`Then are you sure I'm the person you should be talking to? I would have thought Cure Reynaud far more appropriate' `No, I definitely wish to speak to you,' said Joline, between compressed lips.

`Oh.’

Politely: `What about?’

`It concerns your daughter.’

She gave me a brittle smile. `As you know, I am in charge of her class at school.’

`I do know.’

I poured another mocha for Roux. `What's wrong? Is she backward? Is she having problems?’

I know perfectly well that Anouk has no problems. She has read voraciously since she was four and a half. She speaks English almost as well as French, a legacy from our New York days.

`No, no,' Joline assures me. `She's a very bright little girl.’

A quick glance flutters in Anouk's direction, but my daughter seems too much absorbed in finishing her croissant. Slyly, because she thinks I am not watching, she sneaks a chocolate mouse from the display and pushes it into the middle of the pastry to approximate a pain au chocolat.

`Her behaviour, then?’

I ask with exaggerated concern. `Is she disruptive? Disobedient? Impolite?’

`No, no. Of course not. Nothing like that.’

`What then?’

Caro looks at me with a vinegary expression. 'Curb Reynaud has visited the school several times this week,' she informs me. `To talk to the children about Easter, and the meaning of the Church's festival, and so on.’

I nodded encouragingly. Joline gave me another of her compassionate smiles.

`Well, Anouk seems to be' – a coy glance in Anouk's direction – `well, not exactly disruptive, but she's been asking him some very strange questions.’

Her smile narrowed between twin brackets of disapproval.

`Very strange questions,' she repeated.

`Oh well,' I said lightly. `She's always been curious. I'm sure you wouldn't like to discourage the spirit of enquiry in any of your pupils. And besides,' I added mischievously, `don't tell me there's any subject that Monsieur Reynaud isn't equipped to answer questions on.’

Joline simpered, protesting. `It upsets the other children, Madame,' she said tightly.

`Oh?’

'It seems Anouk has been telling them that Easter isn't really a Christian festival at all, and that Our Lord is' she paused, embarrassed – `that Our Lord's resurrection is a kind of throwback to some corn god or other. Some fertility deity from pagan times.’

She gave a forced laugh, but her voice was chilly.

`Yes.’

I touched Anouk's curls briefly. `She's a well-read little thing, aren't you, Nanou?’

`I was only asking about Eostre,' said Anouk stoutly. `Cure Reynaud says nobody celebrates it any more, and I told him we did.’

I hid my smile behind my hand. `I don't suppose he understands, sweetheart,' I told her. `Perhaps you shouldn't ask so many questions, if it upsets him.’

'It upsets the children, Madame,' said Joline.

`No, it doesn't,' retorted Anouk. `Jeannot says we should have a bonfire when it comes, and have red and white candles, and everything. Jeannot says-' Caroline interrupted her. `Jeannot seems to have said a great deal,' she observed.

`He must take after his mother,' I said. Joline looked affronted. `You don't seem to be taking this very seriously,' she said, the smile slipping a little.

I shrugged. `I don't see a problem,' I told her mildly. `My daughter participates in class discussion. Isn't that what you're telling me?’

`Some subjects shouldn't be open to discussion,' snapped Caro, and for a moment, beneath that pastel-sweetness I saw her mother in her, imperious and overbearing. I liked her better for showing a little spirit. `Some things should be accepted on faith, and if the child had any proper moral grounding-' She bit off the sentence in confusion. `Far be it from me to tell you how to raise your child,' she finished in a flat voice.

`Good,' I said with a smile. `I should have hated to quarrel with you.’

Both women looked at me with the same expression of baffled dislike.

`Are you sure you won't have a drink of chocolate?’

Caro's eyes slid longingly over the display, the pralines, truffles, amandines and nougats, the Eclairs, florentines, liqueur cherries, frosted almonds.

`I'm surprised the child's teeth aren't rotten,' she said tautly.

Anouk grinned, displaying the offending teeth. Their whiteness seemed to add to Caro's displeasure. `We're wasting our time here,' she remarked coolly to Joline.