Page 45 of Vianne

We lasted there until midnight before an official moved us on.

Alone, I might have passed unseen, but Stéphane was a familiar face in and around the terminal.

Long-term homelessness can have a look: and there was no missing Stéphane’s leathery skin, the missing teeth, the greasy-elbowed, threadbare coat.

Even so, I’d hoped to pass unseen for a little longer: outside it was still raining, and the night was unexpectedly cold.

Once more I found myself thinking of the blanket I’d left at La Bonne Mère, and of the people I’d left behind; and of my mother, and how we swore we’d always be together.

A memory, bright as Christmas lights, of the two of us in some hotel room: she and I holding plastic cups filled with some kind of sparkling wine.

I am eighteen, and she is already starting to show the signs of the cancer that will kill her.

To us! she says, with that smile of hers.

To us, Viannou, and nobody else! And the laughter is bright as broken glass in that grubby little room, and her eyes are filled with disaster and fear and hope and love and defiance.

To Florida! The Everglades! Disney World!

And us! And I laugh, because that’s what we do, and because the idea of my mother’s death is outside of my comprehension.

Here’s to leaving things behind , she says, and laughs, and drinks her wine, and the scent is like juniper and the sea, and the lingering smoke of her cigarettes, and the cards are spread out on the bed with its grubby candlewick bedspread: The Tower. The Hermit. The Chariot. Death.

Stéphane protested at being moved on. ‘We’re not hurting anyone here,’ he said.

‘Why are we your business?’ But the official – a man in his forties, with a little official’s moustache – was not open to argument.

A uniform will do that, you know. The less real power it confers, the more dogged a person is likely to be in wielding their authority.

The Man in Black is more likely to be a traffic policeman, a ticket collector, a parking attendant, a social worker, even a priest – which is why we have always tried to avoid such people on our travels.

These are the people who confiscate tents and rolls of bedding; who lock public restrooms at night; who take children from their mothers; who guard the bins outside supermarkets for fear that the hungry might raid them.

These are the people who think of themselves as honest, decent citizens; who cannot imagine themselves in need; who go to church on Sundays and think of themselves as generous.

These are the people who reconcile this with their cruelty to others because they do not really think of those others as people.

‘Why are you my business? Because I have a job to do. A job, to protect these premises. So move on before I call the police.’

Without Stéphane, I might have tried to charm the man from his bitterness.

But the lines were already drawn. Stéphane was getting angry, shaking aside the restraining arm of the man with the little moustache.

Pomponette had retreated back into her basket, from which she watched with eyes like moons.

The official stayed hatefully calm; his colours like petrol on water. I could see the contempt in his eyes, the nervous hostility in his posture. ‘I have a job to do,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t know about that, I suppose.’

‘Come on.’ I took Stéphane by the arm. ‘Come on . There’s no point arguing.’

I manoeuvred him out of the terminal, and found myself under a rain-scribbled sky, at the mouth of the alleyway at the back of Café Pamplemousse.

The dim orange glow of firelight reflected onto the wet stones.

I went around the corner and found two women – one in a wheelchair, the other with a rucksack – sheltering there under blankets.

The fire was in a metal bin, throwing sparks at the sullen sky.

I recognized the women from the food van, and smiled at them, with no response.

‘Don’t take it personally,’ said Stéphane. ‘They never talk to anyone. Let me show you where to go. I know a place by the river. There’s water. Stuff to build shelters with. There’s even electricity – some guy from one of the river boats managed to hook up a lamp-post.’

I shook my head.

‘But why ?’

‘I’m fine. I mean it, Stéphane. You don’t have to stay.’

He shrugged. ‘One shithole’s as good as the next. At least let’s find somewhere out of the rain. Pomponette doesn’t like it.’

There was shelter next to the bins, and a stack of cardboard boxes. Stéphane let Pomponette out of her basket and started to collect dry cardboard and newspapers for bedding. The two women from the lentil van gave me a look of suspicion.

‘Do you mind if we join you?’ I said.

‘Can’t see how I could stop you.’

The fire was only paper, which burns hot, but only briefly.

I added some pieces of plywood scavenged from the nearby bins.

Searching once more through the debris I caught the fleeting scent of chocolate spice from the spilled spice jar.

In the damp of the alleyway it seemed to bloom, like night scented stock.

I’ve noticed that about this blend; it lingers like perfume, like memory. It teases out confessions.

‘What are you doing here, anyway? You don’t look like one of us.’

The woman’s voice is illuminated with the sunny accent of the south-west. It is the one in the wheelchair; a short-haired, narrow-faced woman who might perhaps be forty-five.

Her friend is a little older; grey hair chopped to jaw-length under a black knitted cap.

Both have the look of people who have lived outside for too long to pass.

It is a look that goes beyond grubby clothes or neglected teeth: it is the look in their eyes that says: I have been treated like dirt for so long that I have begun to believe it.

Maman once told me the story of an English socialite, who lived homeless for two years, surviving on the canapés from the parties she attended each night.

A woman in a party frock on the streets of London seldom attracts attention; and the young woman knew her world, and was able to take advantage.

As a child, I thought the story sounded like a fairytale.

Now, I suspect that the socialite mostly slept on sofas, and in the bedrooms of people she met at those fancy parties.

She had a change of clothes. She had make-up and jewellery.

She had the privilege of her class, and her race, and her connections.

There is a world of difference between homelessness and sleeping rough.

City streets are not glamorous. They stink of sadness and despair.

In twenty years, my mother and I slept rough only a handful of times, in parks and railway stations, and never for more than a night or two; never long enough for that look to etch itself onto our faces.

I shrugged. ‘I’m in between places right now.’ From my backpack I pulled out the bottle of water I’d been given at the hospital. ‘Want to share?’

The woman in the knitted cap gave me a suspicious look. ‘Is it open? Can I see?’

I handed her the water bottle with its unbroken seal. She checked it and nodded, satisfied. ‘Some people leave out bottles of contaminated water,’ she said. ‘The way they leave poison bait for the rats.’ She dug in her rucksack and brought out a tin. ‘Okay. That’s good. I’ve got coffee.’

‘Coffee sounds fine.’