“Never home. Kind of jokey, but the kind of jokey that has a little hint of menace, like, Don’t joke back or you’ll get a smacking. I asked him what he did once, when I was really little. He said, I’m a zookeeper. He showed me this big set of keys, he said, Just for now, you can keep the keys, but if you lose them, the animals will starve, and then there’ll be hell to pay. I went boasting to the other kids at school, I said, My daddy’s a zookeeper, he gave me the keys that keep the lions and tigers locked up. They laughed at me, You liar, your daddy’s a soldier just like ours. He was badly hoping for a son, both times. Girls he just couldn’t get his head around. Of course he lived like a pasha. I remember my uncle coming to stay and Daddy offering him a drink, Mémé Catherine was out; well, it turned out Daddy didn’t have a clue where she kept the cocktail glasses. He couldn’t even find a can of peanuts! Tonton François was laughing, saying, You can order a battalion of grown men to lay down their lives for you, and you don’t know where the glasses are in your own house?”

“Did he like me?”

Vanessa raises her eyebrows. “He died before you were born. Dropped dead of a heart attack two years after he retired, to your granny’s intense relief. Course that didn’t stop her saying to me, when you came along, The only mercy is your poor father’s not alive.”

“I guess nobody was too happy about me being born,” ventures Rat.

Her mother’s eyes are on the road.

“I was,” she says, finally. Her tone is so brusquely definitive, so quelling of any doubt, that it brings the conversation to a close.

The morning mist is already burning off. Where the sun hasn’t reached, it’s still chilly, but you can tell it’s going to be a hot day.

After Vanessa’s paid her vendor’s fee and been assigned her space, they stop by the bar in the market square to warm up before unloading their wares.

Vanessa orders a grand crème for herself and a hot chocolate for Rat. They stand at the counter, Rat balancing on the foot rail. There are two men in blue overalls turned white with plaster dust, drinking coffee and shots of brandy, and an elderly North African man in a wool watch cap and tweed jacket who looks at everybody with shining black eyes. When Rat meets his gaze, they both nod hello.

Rat slips a couple of sugar cubes into her pocket when Vanessa isn’t looking.