Page 42 of Vianne

In the morning, I awoke to find that my clothes had been washed, and breakfast brought to me on a tray, along with a prescription for iron and zinc supplements and a sheaf of forms to fill in.

‘All we need now is some paperwork,’ said the nurse who brought them, putting a clipboard down by my bed. ‘Your Sécu number. Things like that.’

Of course I don’t have one, or any real proof of identity. But I’m used to situations like this, and I have my mother’s instincts. I smiled. ‘Of course. After breakfast.’

‘Take your time. I’ll be back in ten minutes.’

Breakfast was a coffee and a roll, some bottled water and some fruit.

I drank the coffee, ate the fruit and the roll, got dressed and picked up the clipboard.

I put the bottle of water in my jacket pocket and, carrying the clipboard, walked purposefully out of the room and down the busy corridor, where doctors and nurses came and went, and no one gave me a second glance.

Invisibility isn’t a cloak, but an attitude , my mother said.

And she’s right. It’s not about blending in.

It’s not even about going unseen. It’s about making people believe that you have no place in their life.

In a hospital, all that means is looking confident and not in need of assistance.

I saw the nurse heading back to my room; changed direction to avoid her.

Then I made for Reception, left through the front entrance and continued to walk at the same brisk pace until I rounded a corner, after which I disposed of the clipboard in a bin in an alley and altered my gait to match that of the tourists around me.

The thin rain of the previous day had set in, becoming a steady downpour.

Even now, my memories of Toulouse are always of that rain, which dulled the famous rose-pink stone to a sullen madder.

I had no money for a Metro fare, no travel bag, no possessions.

And so I made for the station once more, hoping the woman at Pamplemousse would know what had happened to my bag.

But when I reached the café at last, around midday, I found it shut, and a neat little sign on the door that read: Closed .

I went to the back of the café, where a row of bins were lined up under a plastic awning.

I found my bag in the last one, on top of a bundle of old magazines.

It had been opened, but a further search revealed my things were still in there – my mother’s cards, our papers – the little leavings of a life in which even a book or a stuffed toy can be too much to carry.

I found Guy’s spice jar, open, but whole, releasing its fragrant contents, and I was back in the chocolate shop, with the gentle hum of the conching machine and the scent of cacao everywhere.

But the cash and the pink bootees were nowhere to be found, and I knew that this was the price of my small demonstration of power.

Never cast a shadow, ’Viane , my mother used to tell me.

People who cast no shadow are free . But once again, I have broken the code.

I have made myself visible. I have no one to blame but myself if this has made me vulnerable.

I went through my bundle of papers to make sure nothing else was missing.

Passport, forged documents: my mother’s newspaper clippings.

The death certificate in the name of Jeanne Rochas.

Her photograph. It’s the only one I have of her; a Polaroid taken when I was fourteen, at a fairground somewhere in Italy.

Startled by the flash, both of us are laughing.

I sheltered in the alleyway and considered my situation.

Of course there was no question of reporting the theft to the police.

I needed to stay invisible. And besides, there was no proof that Cécile had taken the money.

Except that she had; I knew she had. The loss of the pink bootees proved it.

I tried to recall what I’d seen in her colours that day; the interplay of grief and loss, resentment, fear and denial.

I could see her in my mind’s eye, half-indignant, half-afraid; scrubbing my blood from the wooden floor, angry at my intrusion into her life, her memories.

If I were back at La Bonne Mère, I would make a cup of tea, and look through the vapours for Cécile; but all I have here is Guy’s half-empty jar, which still smells poignantly of his shop, and the plaster dust and wood chips of his labour.

In this place it smells nostalgic; sweet as a childhood I only knew from books collected on the road.

My favourite was a book about a group of English children for whom a long bike ride or walk in the woods counted as an adventure, whose fathers smoked pipes and whose mothers baked cakes; who had extravagant picnics with lemonade and chocolate.

To a child who had never known the security of a permanent home, whose mother had never baked a cake, this was a fantasy akin to Narnia or Middle-Earth; and by the time my mother made me leave it behind in a hostel in Pavia, I already knew the words by heart, and would speak them silently to myself, like a prayer, as I went to sleep.

I don’t remember much of it now, but I do remember the scent of stale sheets, the aching sound of the traffic outside, the neon lights of the hotel sign blinking on and off through the night, and the thought of those other children – the ones with beds and sheets of their own – sleeping somewhere alongside me, and maybe dreaming of my life, just as I always dreamed of theirs.

A voice jolted me out of my reverie. ‘What you got there?’

It was a man; maybe sixty-five, in a disreputable woollen coat and a felt hat that had seen better days. His face was lined; his eyes the faded blue of stonewashed denim. He was carrying a rucksack, as well as a wicker basket, from which came the sound of a persistent and angry mewing.

I’ve met a lot of homeless people on my travels.

Most are harmless, although some are pushed to violence by necessity.

But this man’s colours showed only caution, humour; some concern.

I realized what I looked like to him; hair wet with the rain, my sweatshirt still bearing the shadow of yesterday’s bloodstains, searching through the bins at the back of an alleyway by the station.

‘Don’t mind me,’ said the man, with a grin that revealed a number of missing and discoloured teeth. ‘I’m Stéphane. This here is Pomponette.’

I looked into the basket and saw a large and fluffy black-and-white cat, glaring out at me through the mesh. ‘If you’re hungry, I know a place,’ went on the man, coming closer. ‘The Indian van. It comes every week. It’s okay. If you like lentils.’

I was at the same time startled and touched. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But someone stole my bag yesterday. They dumped it in this alleyway.’

The man’s eyes went to the jar. ‘What’s that?’

‘A spice. I used to add it to food, when I cooked. When I cook .’ Not the past tense. I will cook again, in this town, or another. I closed the spice jar tightly and slipped it into my pocket. Just for the memory, I thought. A tiny pinch of sunshine.

Stéphane shrugged. ‘Well, the lentil van comes at twelve o’clock every day. Round the back of the station. It’s foreign food, of course, but it’s hot. Better than the Miséricorde .’

Well, yes. Catholic charity often comes with a side order of condescension.

Maman and I encountered it often, on our travels.

I carefully repacked my travel bag, making sure all my mother’s cards were there.

The man with the cat watched me as I counted out the major and minor arcana, scattered in a careless arc across my rifled possessions.

‘Do you play cards?’

‘It’s not a game. I use them to—’

‘Tell the future. I know.’ He took a step closer. ‘Go on, tell mine.’ Now I could smell him; the scent of wet wool, old tobacco, old sweat, and over it all the bitter caress of the spilled xocolatl, nostalgic as fallen leaves. ‘They’ll tell you I’m heading straight to hell.’

‘I don’t believe in hell,’ I said.

‘You will if you stay here long enough.’ He gave a gappy, cheerful grin. ‘I’m guessing you’re new to Toulouse?’

I nodded. ‘I’m Vianne.’

‘Go on, Vianne. Tell my fortune.’

It’s one of the things my mother and I used to do for money, when we were on the road. Everyone wants to know their fate; even those who don’t believe. And so I took his hand, and smiled, and set out the cards in their old pattern, the one my mother called the Tree of Life.

Ten cards in three columns; present, past and future.

It’s easy to make the connections; easy to awaken the imagination.

We do not read the cards, says Maman; we only read their reactions to them.

We see the light in their eyes, the small reflections in their faces.

We use these painted images, but in truth we could use anything: a dish of ink; a bowl of steam; the rising smoke from a candle.

People show more than they realize. They share a world of history.

The Hermit. The Lovers. The Six of Swords. The Chariot. The Four of Cups—

‘Wait.’

These are not his cards. They’re mine. I have allowed my mind to stray. I have read the cards to myself for so many months that now they flock at my command, like birds expecting to be fed. I cut the pack again. Change. The Six of Swords. The Tower. Death.

Stéphane gives me a look. ‘That’s nice. Just what I was hoping for.’

I smile, and put the cards away. ‘I’m sorry, Stéphane. I can’t do this. My mind isn’t in the right place just now.’

He shrugged and opened the basket, allowing Pomponette to come out. ‘Lentils it is, then. Come with me.’