Page 13 of Vianne

Only two weeks into my stay, I already have more possessions than I did when we were travelling.

Colourful clothes bought from charity shops; the baby bootees and the scented sachet.

The notebook in which I am writing Margot’s recipes, one by one.

Not much in the way of things, and yet I know what she would have said.

Too much baggage slows you down . And yet today, I want to go slow. I want to be a tree; grow roots.

Roots, routes . Such similar words, and yet such different meanings.

That contradiction has always been there.

The urge to stay. The urge to run. Maybe my child will change all that.

I look at the little pink bootees from the old woman on Rue du Panier.

Already, the scent from the herb sachet has given them a memory: lavender, geranium; the scents of early summertime.

My sense of smell has become more acute since the start of my pregnancy.

Now I can smell the city in layers, emerging from the morning mists.

First, the soft, salt scent of the sea; the fish market at the old docks; the sun-warmed streets, the bakeries.

Then the flower market; filled with scented carnation, mimosa, gardenia and damask rose.

Then the long climb up the hill to Bonne Mère, and the frankincense, and under that, the sweat of grief and guilt and worship.

I wonder if that other child recovered her pink rabbit, or whether her mother, like mine, made her leave it by the road.

Tsk-tsk, begone . I banish the thought. It is the very simplest of spells.

Even a child can use it. Children feel anxiety very keenly; as a child I learnt to banish those bad thoughts, those fears with a sound and a gesture.

It has become a reflex since then; a simple means of grounding myself.

Magic is mostly the belief that we can change ourselves, the world, our fate and other people.

My mother liked to surround herself with rituals to remind her of this.

I carry on those traditions now for comfort, as well as in memory of her.

My own child has lain very small and silent since the bouillabaisse.

I feel her, like the ceramic bean baked into the crust of a galette des rois.

She lives, but is not lively: awaiting the change of the seasons.

A summer child , the old lady said. Summer children are filled with light.

But my child will be born in March. A windswept, change-of-the-seasons child; sunny one day, in darkness the next.

I feel that in her; that fugitive gleam, like sunlight on the ocean.

And in my dreams I see her; always at five or six years old.

Her hair is a tumbled candyfloss cloud. Her name comes in endless variants of my mother’s name, Jeanne: Anne, Annette, Jeannette, Johanne, Jolène, Annie – Anouk .

Yes, that’s it. Anouk . It’s right. It binds us.

Names are powerful things. In names, we build our identity.

It occurs to me that I have changed my name.

When the time comes, will she change hers?

It seems an odd source of anxiety. This sense that I will lose her before I even have her.

But my mother was just the same; always running, always afraid that somehow, someone would take me away.

I promise myself I will not be like that.

I will find myself in my place. My child – my Anouk – will grow up safe, surrounded by familiar things.

Not here, perhaps, but this will be my stepping-stone to safety.

Children are hope in a lifetime of woe , writes Margot in her recipe book.

Above it, there’s a recipe for green almond biscuits with apricot jam, and a series of fat, splashy stains that might have been tears, or just water.

Like my mother’s Tarot cards, Margot’s recipes are a means of processing her experiences; of establishing some control – even some power – over her world.

Maybe this is why I feel so different nowadays, so calm.

Maybe by cooking her recipes, I too am beginning to change.

Louis, too, has mellowed with time, and no longer sees me as an intruder.

I have full access to everything now: I am even allowed to choose my own cooking pots and utensils.

I take this as a sign of trust. Even his customers have begun to see me as more than someone just passing through.

I know them now: there’s Rodolphe, who has a bad hip and a passion for model ships.

Tonton and his dog, Galipette, who share the love-hate relationship most often seen in old couples.

Then there’s Emile, and his friend Henriot, and Monsieur Georges, an ex-schoolmaster whose pupils – in their sixties now – still find it hard to use his first name without the additional mark of respect.

Then there’s Amadou, from Tangiers, and Hélène from the flower shop down the road, who loves pocket romances, and often comes in with her friend, Marinette, who arrived in Marseille from Paris during the war under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

I don’t know their stories, and yet I am starting to know most of their favourites: Emile likes anything that is free, but especially my bouillabaisse; and Henriot loves my crispy panisses ; while Monsieur Georges loves seafood, and hates anything with cabbage; and Marinette has a sweet tooth, and always wants more of my peach Tatin , while Amadou says my galettes-merguez are as good as anything he tasted back home.

Not that it’s always perfect. There have been some misadventures: a clafoutis that stuck to the pan; an over-ambitious cheese soufflé.

No one learns without making mistakes. Even magic sometimes goes wrong.

But it feels good, to see these folk satisfied: to see their plates come back empty.

None of them are quite friends, of course, and yet these are the faces I see every day; the threads of an emerging tapestry that might one day become my life.

I have not seen the old woman from the end of Rue du Panier since the day of the bouillabaisse.

I would have liked to have thanked her for her encouraging words that day, but she has not been in the bistrot since then, and I have not seen her selling her work in any of the markets.

I have dreamed of her though: in the chocolaterie, sitting in a rocking-chair, with a baby on each arm.

One was wearing pink crocheted bootees; the other blue. Otherwise, they were identical.

Choose carefully, Vianne Rocher , she said.

Only daughters follow the wind. And in my dream I felt a chill, and understood that this was a choice: on the one side, my Anouk, and a wind that would never stop blowing; on the other, a little boy who would never hear its call.

And in my dream I knew that this was the price of putting down roots: that the wind would steal the child of my heart and replace her with a changeling.

Tsk-tsk , begone. They’re only dreams . No one is going to steal my child. No sly wind will blow us away. And yet I still feel uneasy; perhaps because I am happy here. Happiness, my mother said, can never be a constant. The only constant thing is Change, the wind that drives our destiny.

I finally read the cards last night. Perhaps I’m feeling guilty, somehow.

The scent of the wooden box is like a memory from another world; the cards familiar as my palm, almost shuffling themselves.

I use the pattern my mother preferred and try to make my mind go blank.

The Lovers. It should be a good card, but my mother always mistrusted it.

Next comes the Hermit; a man by a cave, carrying a lantern.

Next, comes the falling Tower, reversed; meaning disruption and turbulence.

The Six of Swords, a card that means grief, alongside the Fool, which means carelessness, and the Four of Cups, reversed, a card of mistrust and uncertainty.

And finally, comes Change, the card we always associated with the wind, a card of places left behind; of hopeful plans abandoned.

This is a dark combination, Maman; suggesting secrets, uneasy plans, bad decisions, careless love.

And yet there is no sign of danger on the horizon.

Quite the opposite; I feel a quiet domesticity, a calm I’ve never felt before.

Margot’s cookbook tells me that life can sometimes be calm and loving; that life can be filled with flavours and scents; that a dream can be small and sweet, and rooted in security.

Nothing has to change , she says, under a recipe for navettes.

The tide comes in and goes back out. The seasons keep on changing.

And yet some things can stay the same. Little things.

A kiss. A touch. A dream. A love. A recipe.

Sometimes, when I’m cooking, I feel as if she’s in the room beside me.

Like my mother’s cards, I suppose; except that the cards tell me to run, and the recipes tell me I am home.

I put my mother’s cards away. Recipes are easier.

Guy’s chocolate spice is hidden away at the back of the spice shelf in the kitchen.

I have not yet tried to use it, remembering Louis’ stern warnings about changing Margot’s recipes, but it draws me somehow; the scent of it, the age of its long tradition.

Stories are filled with magic, and this spice has so many stories to tell.

Like any art, it longs to be used; longs to cast its seeds on the wind.

But so far, the only chocolate I have introduced to La Bonne Mère are the chocolate truffles I made with Guy, rolled in cacao powder.

‘What’s this?’ said Louis, as I brought them in with the coffee after lunch.

‘Just something I’m trying,’ I told him.

‘We have navettes with coffee,’ said Louis. ‘We always have. Why change it now?’

‘It’s just an experiment,’ I said. ‘I like learning to make new things.’

Emile tasted a truffle, and pulled a face. ‘Too bitter,’ was his verdict.

But Tonton and Monsieur Georges seemed to enjoy the experiment, and Marinette, who purports to be more sophisticated than the rest, took three.

‘These are very good,’ she said. ‘Let the girl experiment. It’s nice to have something new for a change.

Reminds me of La Bonne Praline , a chocolaterie I knew in Paris. ’

‘ Heh ,’ said Louis. ‘All right. I suppose. But don’t go adding anything new, or experimenting with my recipes.’

I promised I wouldn’t. And yet, that jar of spice calls to me from its high shelf, dreaming of other places.

It’s a magic my mother would probably have recognized; a magic like the wind, that calls to us when the seasons turn.

And somehow I am certain that whoever I am meant to become, this new ingredient will somehow be part of that transformation.