Page 16 of Vianne

Also today, at Allée du Pieu, Guy taught me how to make chestnut pralines.

First the ganache; two parts chocolate to one part cream.

To make the truffle smoother, add a little salted butter.

Heat the cream in a copper pan; add the grated chocolate.

It’s just another recipe, easier than most of Margot’s, and I soon find myself enjoying the unfamiliar implements; the little copper pan; the whisk; the big ceramic mixing bowl.

Add the chestnuts, roughly chopped, and maybe a little kahlua .

Roll the pralines into even-sized balls, then dip them in melted chocolate, and leave to cool on a lined tray.

‘Will you be there for the fireworks tonight? There’ll be dancing, and music, and wine. I’ll get you home by midnight.’

I wasn’t going to accept. But I found myself nodding anyway. Maybe because of the chocolate. Maybe just because he said home .

‘Louis doesn’t approve of me staying out at night,’ I said.

‘Louis doesn’t seem to approve of very much,’ said Guy. ‘Why is he your problem?’

Good question. Of course, he isn’t. And yet, he gave me a room of my own when I had nothing, and no one.

And he introduced me to Margot – Margot, whose words, whose recipes have brought about so many changes in me.

I owe him – I owe her – a debt. The world is a garden, not a mine. We tend it so that we can grow.

‘Anything could happen to a girl like you, out there, alone’ , he’d said, when I left earlier.

‘I won’t be alone.’

‘You know what I mean.’

I have to beware of that concern. Beware of the kindness of others.

For a while, their protectiveness can seem like love, like security.

But as my mother used to say, it soon turns into ownership.

We stay on the road because we do not want to change ourselves for others.

And yet, others can change me. I can see that already.

Louis has his hand on my heart. And Guy, with his stories of Aztec kings, and Mahmed’s gentle gruffness.

Most of all, though, Margot feels almost like a part of myself.

A presence like my mother’s, kept pressed between the pages.

It makes me feel almost guilty, that this woman means so much to me.

The Old Port smells of gunpowder, and cigarette smoke, and hot fried dough, and the sweat and the pleasure of the crowd, and the dust of the old streets underfoot.

I breathe it in, almost like magic, layer by layer.

Here, a stall selling candyfloss; there, the smell of beer and Gitanes .

Perfume from a girl walking by, her young man’s arm around her shoulders.

Fried fish; hot dogs; aniseed; candle smoke from the lantern parade; petrol; powdered sugar; the not-quite-wholesome scent of the sea.

Inside me, baby Anouk lies low. She cannot be any larger than one of Guy’s cacao beans – and yet I feel her moods somehow.

She does not like the smoke, the noise. I would like to tell her that the noise is the price we have to pay for the way the faces in the crowd light up.

Blue, green, pink, white. Ahhhhhh. The rockets open like umbrellas onto the harbour, the Butte, the sea.

Bonne Mère is watching, too. She never misses a party.

Marseille’s saint is gregarious, coming down from her place on the Butte to join in the celebrations. Her effigy parades along the lamplit streets of the Old Port, decorated with flowers, her painted plaster face smiling.

As I watch, I am conscious of Guy’s scrutiny of my movements.

He is wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a pattern of flowers and surfboards.

I am a mystery to him: so young, so alone, so free of constraint.

He wonders whether I am real; if I will melt away in the night.

In a moment he will ask. I know he will.

They all do; these men so fixed on their personal course that they assume I want that, too.

I want to tell him that I am not the mystery he thinks I am.

There’s no romance in drifting. And that’s how I’ve felt for most of life, like thistledown on a summer breeze, waiting for something to anchor me, to make me feel as if I belong.

My mother did that, for a while. I lived in her giant shadow.

We were such friends that I often forgot that a mother is not an equal.

I won’t forget that with Anouk. I cannot afford to befriend her.

A child is not forever; she will one day find her own space in the world, and if I rely on her too much, as my mother relied on me, then in the end I too will be left like a broken compass, spinning helplessly in search of a north that no longer stands true.

Red. White. Blue. Ahhhhh. New York smelt of pretzels and beer. Here the scent is fiercer, somehow, like a wild awakening.

The fireworks have reached a climax. A bouquet of sea anemones blossoms over the Old Port.

A final, deafening spray of applause. Then a lull, during which we can already feel the slow dispersal of the crowd, the eventual dismantling of the stalls, the long, slow journey of the Good Mother back through the narrow cobbled streets towards the old basilica.

These moments always make me sad. So much organization, so much energy, so much shared experience, and all for this.

It always ends. My mother tried to explain to me that nothing lasts forever.

But she never left a piece of her heart every time she said goodbye.

She was too busy looking forward to the next adventure.

‘Are you crying?’

I never cry. ‘I’m just a little tired, that’s all. I ought to get back.’

‘I’ll walk you home.’

Of course he will. They always do, these men who want to protect me.

And yet he is not like the others. He will not fall in love with me.

I sensed that from the start, as I knew that I would never feel more for him than friendship.

Maybe that’s why I like him so much; because he presents no threat to me.

And yet I wonder what it’s like, to be in love.

To belong to someone. To walk hand-in-hand up the cobbled street with the father of my child to a home we made together.

It sounds like a pretty picture, and yet the thought of it suddenly chilled me. ‘I’m fine on my own. I don’t need looking after,’ I said.

Guy raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t—’

‘Don’t apologize. But for the record, I never thought you needed a man’s protection.’

I gave a sigh of relief. Good . He is not like the men I’ve known; the one-night lovers, the would-be protectors, the ones we shook from our clothing like burrs every time we had to move on.

And yet he does want something of me; I can see it in the smoke drifting from the harbourside.

I don’t know what it is yet; but it smells of vanilla, and cardamom, and cacao beans roasting.

‘I’ll be perfectly safe,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘I’ll walk you anyway.’