Page 58 of Vianne

‘You’re wasting your time with him,’ said Mahmed, when I told him about my experiment.

‘I know that guy. He’s a rattlesnake gourd.

Noisy as hell, but empty inside. You won’t win him over, or change his mind if he’s decided you don’t belong.

Stick to making chocolates for people who might actually want to spend money here.

Those old codgers from Rue du Panier wouldn’t know artisan chocolate from soap. ’

I have to admit that my first attempts to make friends in the community have not been very successful.

Samples of my mendiants have gone to all the shopkeepers and stall-holders in the Old Quarter, without any noticeable effect.

I’d hoped for some reaction, at least, from Madame Li and her daughters, but the whole family remains aloof, watching us with suspicion.

I found my gift of chocolates unopened, in the rubbish bin at the back of Happy Noodles.

So much for building bridges. I suppose the family still think Guy and Mahmed are responsible for their misfortune.

Mahmed, especially, does nothing to alter their opinion of him.

Could he really have made the complaint?

Over the past couple of weeks, he has been increasingly anxious about the opening in December, and especially about what he considers Guy’s cavalier approach to money.

‘It’s not a game, you know,’ he repeats.

‘A railway set in a back room. A hobby to be abandoned. It’s a business, and should be run professionally.

You can’t just keep on giving out freebies and taking in every stray that comes around.

’ A pause. ‘Not you, Vianne, of course,’ he says, his dark eyes softening.

‘But Guy has a habit of taking in people who take advantage. People who see his kindness and mistake it for stupidity. He trusts people. He assumes they’re good. ’

‘If this is about Stéphane,’ I said, ‘he’s really making an effort. Look at all the things he’s done. The paintwork at the front of the shop. The things in my room. The sign he’s making for the shop.’

‘Yes, the sign. Who asked him to do that, anyway?’

I said: ‘It’s his way of thanking you. It’s not an attempt to take over.’

He shrugged, and his mouth twisted bitterly.

‘Guy loves you. That’s not going to change.’

He made a dry sound in his throat that somehow made me think of Louis. Some men are afraid to be loved; even more afraid to love.

I said: ‘My mother taught me to take what I could from the world, and move on. Don’t get invested. Don’t make friends. Never stay in one place too long. When I arrived here, I never thought I’d still be around in October. Guy did that. For the first time, he made me feel as if I belonged.’

Mahmed’s eyes softened. ‘He has a way of doing that.’

‘You, too, Mahmed. You’re a good man.’

The glimpse of softness disappeared. ‘Well. I have work to get on with. You, too. See you later.’ And pulling back his hair into its usual messy bun, he vanished into the back rooms like a hermit crab into its shell.

I stayed a while in the kitchen, and made myself a cup of tea.

Cardamom tea, or chamomile, or peppermint, or green tea with lemon and ginger always seem to do me good.

It occurred to me that perhaps I could use my window-box, or the strip of ground at the back of the shop – too small to be called a garden – to grow something that I could use.

There wasn’t as much space here as there had been at La Bonne Mère, but the urge to make things grow was just as strong as it had been there.

I finished my tea, and went to check what space there was available.

I found a narrow strip of earth, measuring maybe six by three feet.

Most of it was hidden under boxes and assorted junk.

But moving this aside, I found that here too there had once been flowers; shaggy-headed asters; buddleia; nasturtiums; lavender, gasping for the sun.

And a single stunted rose, almost leafless, bearing a barely legible tag that read, in tiny letters: Vianne .