Page 7 of Vianne

The Marché aux Poissons is by the old port, Quai de la Fraternité . A chaotic jumble of stands and stalls, some covered with umbrellas, some open to the morning sun. Some fishermen sell directly from their fishing boats; others from buckets and baskets and pots covered in layers of seaweed.

I’d expected something more organized. Labels, at least, with the names of the fish.

But nothing here was labelled, and I knew hardly anything about fishing.

I recognized oysters and lobsters, although I’d never eaten any myself, but what were those hideous spiny things, and the fish that was mostly head and teeth, and the sleek opalescent creatures with no eyes and feathery tentacles?

No one seemed to be queuing here. There were already plenty of customers in front of the stalls, all of them apparently certain of what they wanted.

I lingered by a display of fish for long enough to provoke annoyance, both from a woman behind me and from the fishmonger himself, a man in a yellow waterproof and a sour expression.

‘Are you buying fish, or what?’

‘I – I need to make bouillabaisse.’

The woman behind me pushed to my side, and said: ‘Six red mullet. Even size.’

The fishmonger reached over and took six fish from a pile.

They were sleek and colourful, the shade of an autumn sunset, with eyes like glazed opals.

I stood aside while the woman paid, holding my basket at arm’s length.

Then I repeated, a little more loudly: ‘I have to make bouillabaisse. Louis sent me. From La Bonne Mère?’

The man looked up. ‘Louis Martin?’

I nodded. ‘He says I should get whiting, scorpionfish, John Dory—’

A woman from another stall said: ‘Too fatty. Spiny lobsters. That’s what you need. It’ll make the broth nice and rich.’

Another said: ‘Shellfish. Mussels. Crabs.’

Soon, everyone was shouting out the names of whatever they had on their stand, and I was there with my basket, feeling foolish and out of my depth, hearing their voices like clattering pans and suddenly wanting my mother so badly that I could almost cry –

‘Don’t listen to them. I know what you need.

’ The voice came from a stand to my left.

Looking across, I saw an untidy-looking blondish man, aged between thirty or thirty-five, in cut-off jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, watching me from under the brim of a battered woven-straw hat.

He picked up a piece of newspaper and rapidly selected fish from the display in front of him.

‘Mullet. Rockfish. Sea hen. Wrasse. Eel. A couple of scorpionfish.’ The man wrapped the fish in the paper and handed it to me with a smile.

‘There. That should do it.’ The smile broadened at my doubtful expression.

‘Trust me. That’s what you need for bouillabaisse. ’

My mother used to say that a lot. It’s what you need – while handing me one of her herbal charms. Sandalwood, to sweeten your dreams. Rosemary, to remember. Trust me. It’s what you need.

I put the fish into my basket. ‘Thank you. How much do I owe you?’

The man grinned. ‘Oh, it’s not my stall. I’m just waiting for my friend.’ He indicated a battered grey VW van idling on the far side of the street. ‘Hop in, won’t you? We’ll drop you off.’

I frowned at him and paid for the fish, remembering all the times I’d paid for something my mother had taken by stealth.

Then I followed him to the van, lured by the thought of avoiding the long climb uphill to the bistrot.

The passenger door made a terrible grating sound as I opened it.

Another man was sitting at the wheel. Tall; mid-forties; short beard; greying hair tied carelessly back from a pleasant, expressive face.

‘This is Mahmed,’ said the man in the Hawaiian shirt. ‘I’m Guy. You can sit in the middle.’

I climbed into the ancient van, which smelt of something unexpectedly sweet.

A glass charm shaped like a round blue eye was hanging from the rear-view mirror.

I used to have one of those, when Maman and I were travelling through Greece.

A charm, to ward off the evil eye; a charm to make us invisible.

‘Are you Greek?’ I said to Guy, as he climbed in behind me.

‘Not that I’m aware of. Are you?’

‘I’m a little of everywhere.’ That’s what my mother taught me to say when people asked me where we were from.

A little of everywhere, like seeds awaiting their season to flourish.

Guy said something to Mahmed. Too low for me to understand, but I caught the name of La Bonne Mère, and saw something pass between them, a gleam that was warmer than friendship.

He turned back to me. ‘And your name?’

‘Vianne.’

‘Like the bastide in Lot-et-Garonne?’

‘Yes, like that,’ I said, surprised. ‘Have you ever been there?’

Guy smiled. ‘I was born in Toulouse,’ he said. ‘But my grandfather lived up in Moncrabeau. I loved that part of the country. I wanted to live there forever. But most people want to move to the coast. Somewhere they can earn money.’

‘And what do you do for money?’

He smiled. His eyes were a complicated shade of grey-green, like trees in winter sun. ‘We’re setting up a business. It’s still a few months away from being completely up and running, but when it’s finished, we’ll be—’

‘Golden,’ said Mahmed, with the grin of someone who has heard this joke many times before.

‘That’s right. We’ll both be golden,’ said Guy. ‘You’ll see, o ye of little faith.’

‘It’s not my faith that’s the problem,’ said Mahmed. ‘It’s your sanity, my friend.’

Guy shook his head. ‘It’s the future.’ He turned to me again, his eyes shining. ‘See what I have to deal with?’ he said. ‘Scepticism and disrespect?’

Mahmed laughed. There was something good in that laughter; something I recognized, but had not felt since my mother fell ill.

The inside of the van was warm, and I could smell the heat of it, mingled with that sweetness I could not quite identify; a sweetness like a childhood I only ever knew from books, a scent of vanilla and spices and cream, of bedclothes dried in the sunshine.

And beneath it, a more complex scent of autumn leaves and petrichor, of forests that never see daylight, of sunken ships and pirate gold and fireworks and woodsmoke.

‘What is that?’ I said, looking back at the pile of boxes at the back of the van.

Guy smiled. ‘What do you think?’

‘I can’t quite place what it is,’ I said. ‘But it smells almost familiar. Is it some kind of spice?’

‘Not quite.’ He paused, almost reverently. ‘These are roasted Porcelana beans, from Peru; a subvariant of the Criollo bean, maybe the best – and the rarest – cacao beans in existence.’

‘Cacao,’ I said. ‘You mean—?’

‘Chocolate.’