He looked slightly abashed when I pointed it out. ‘You know me, Yanne. Sweets aren’t my thing.’ And he gave me that big, brash smile again – the one he gives when he speaks of his son. It’s really quite funny when you think about it – Thierry’s sweet tooth is quite pronounced, but he feels slightly ashamed of it, as if admitting to a taste for milk chocolate places his manliness in doubt. But my truffles are too dark, too rich, and their bitterness is strange to him—

I handed him a milk chocolate square.

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I can read your mind.’

But just at that moment Anouk came in from the rainy street, all tousled and smelling of wet leaves, with a paper twist of hot chestnuts in one hand. For the past few days, there has been a vendor selling them in front of the Sacré-Coeur, and Anouk has taken to buying a packet every time she passes by. Today, she was in high spirits; looking like a stray Christmas bauble in her red coat and green trousers, with her curly hair all spangled with rain.

‘Hey there, jeune fille!’ said Thierry. ‘Where have you been? You’re soaking wet!’

Anouk gave him one of her grown-up looks. ‘I’ve been to the cemetery with Jean-Loup. And I’m not soaking. This is an anorak. It keeps out the rain.’

Thierry laughed. ‘The necropolis. You know what necropolis means, Annie?’

‘Of course I do. City of the dead.’ Anouk’s vocabulary – always good – has improved with proximity to Jean-Loup Rimbault.

Thierry made a comic face. ‘Isn’t that rather a gloomy spot to hang out with your friends?’

‘Jean-Loup was taking photographs of the cemetery cats.’

‘Really?’ he said. ‘Well, if you can bear to drag yourself away, then I’ve booked a table for lunch at La Maison Rose—’

‘Lunch? But the shop—’

‘I’ll hold the fort,’ said Zozie. ‘You enjoy your afternoon.’

‘Annie? Are you ready?’ said Thierry.

I saw Anouk give him a look. Not quite of contempt – though perhaps of resentment. That doesn’t surprise me very much – Thierry, though well-meaning, has a rather old-fashioned attitude towards children, and Anouk must sense that some of her habits – running about with Jean-Loup in the rain, spending hours in the old cemetery (where tramps and undesirables congregate), or playing noisy games with Rosette – do not meet entirely with his approval.

‘Perhaps you should wear a dress,’ he said.

The look of resentment intensified. ‘I like my clothes.’

To tell the truth, so do I. In a city where elegant conformity is the primary rule, Anouk dares to be imaginative. Perhaps this is Zozie’s influence; but the clashing colours she prefers and her recent habit of customizing her clothes – with a ribbon, a badge, a piece of braid – give everything of hers an exuberance I haven’t seen since Lansquenet.