Page 46 of Vianne

The coffee was weak and bitter, brewed in a tin pot that had seen better days, and served in scavenged paper cups. I added the packets of sugar I’d taken from Café Pamplemousse, and the last pinch of Guy’s xocolatl spice.

‘What’s that?’ It was the suspicious woman, the grey-haired one in the knitted cap. Her name is Roxane, she tells me, and her friend in the wheelchair is Poupoule. Not their real names, I suspect; but names are things of power, not to be given away lightly.

‘It’s a spice blend. I use it for—’

‘Not drinking that.’ Roxane pushes her cup away as if I’d admitted to poisoning it.

Stéphane shrugs and sips from his. ‘It’s fine. It’s actually nice. Tastes a bit like—’

Fireworks. The Fourth of July. The scent of smoke; the taste of tears; her ashes in the slipstream. The warmth of a stranger’s hand in mine: the taste of him, like peaches.

She reaches out and takes the cup. ‘Whatever. I’ll have it. As long as it’s hot.’

She drinks, then passes a cup to Poupoule. ‘Hmm. I guess. It’s—’

What is it? Sweet? Evocative? What does the scent of it mean to her?

Her colours are like the firelight, reflecting fitfully onto the stones.

A memory, caught like a moth in a flame, of childhood, and sadness, and the sound of her mother sleeping next door.

Roxane had an unhappy childhood. A carer to her mother, perhaps.

Now she cares for Poupoule instead. What is their relationship?

Too close to be family, they speak in a series of shutter-quick shorthand glances and single words.

Poupoule is the gentle one; small-featured, oddly birdlike, she has a kind of patience that complements Roxane’s brittleness.

Both of them drink with the wary look of people not used to pleasure.

‘ Mocha ,’ says Roxane at last. ‘Tastes like some kind of mocha.’

I wish I could have made them the drink I used to make at La Bonne Mère; hot milk, sweet vanilla, allspice, nutmeg and cardamom.

But this is the best I can do right now.

I send Roxane the tiniest flash of something bright and comforting.

Her smile is almost peaceful. I wish I could do more for them, but this may be enough for now.

It occurs to me that maybe I am putting good into the world .

Perhaps that’s why I feel warmer now, although I feel a sting of unease.

He smells it, Viannou . The Man in Black.

He knows when you begin to care. And yes, I care, I realize.

I care about my new friends. I care about the old ones, too; Guy, Mahmed, Louis, even Emile.

It’s a strange and dangerous feeling, but I do not want to leave it behind.

I pour Stéphane the last of the brew. It smells of leaves and woodsmoke.

Good things put into the world. Afterwards, Roxane and Poupoule unpack a little clamshell tent and a couple of bedrolls to sleep on.

Stéphane has already made a place for us under the shelter by the bins.

He offers me a blanket. The fire is dying, but warm enough to give the illusion of comfort.

Pomponette sleeps between us, street-cat regal and unconcerned.

I never sleep well on the streets. No one really does, I suppose, even with blankets and bedrolls.

The air is damp; the ground is hard and pitted with irregularities.

But tonight it feels safe. The scent of burning paper and the lingering scent of chocolate overpowers the smell of the alleyway.

Here I will wait. Tomorrow will tell where the path will lead me next.

Beside me, the cat twitches in her sleep.

For a while I hear Roxane and Poupoule talking in lowered voices.

The rain has stopped. The fire burns low, and the night shuffles by like a pack of cards, interleaved with sounds, and scents, discomfort, and troubling memories, although I must have slept a while, because I dreamed of Molfetta, except that in my dream I never left her behind, but stayed there on the station bench, and waited for the Man in Black, and when I awoke he was standing there, right at the end of the alleyway.