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Back The Lollipop Shoes
Chapters (96)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Book
  3. The Lollipop Shoes
  4. Dedication
  5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  6. PART ONE
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. PART TWO
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. 6
  19. 7
  20. 8
  21. PART THREE
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. PART FOUR
  29. 1
  30. 2
  31. 3
  32. 4
  33. 5
  34. 6
  35. 7
  36. 8
  37. 9
  38. PART FIVE
  39. 1
  40. 2
  41. 3
  42. 4
  43. 5
  44. 6
  45. 7
  46. 8
  47. 9
  48. 10
  49. 11
  50. 12
  51. PART SIX
  52. 1
  53. 2
  54. 3
  55. 4
  56. 5
  57. 6
  58. 7
  59. 8
  60. 9
  61. 10
  62. 11
  63. 12
  64. PART SEVEN
  65. 1
  66. 2
  67. 3
  68. 4
  69. 5
  70. 6
  71. 7
  72. 8
  73. 9
  74. PART EIGHT
  75. 1
  76. 2
  77. 3
  78. 4
  79. 5
  80. 6
  81. 7
  82. 8
  83. 9
  84. 10
  85. 11
  86. 12
  87. 13
  88. 14
  89. 15
  90. 16
  91. 17
  92. 18
  93. 19
  94. Epilogue
  95. About the Author
  96. Also by Joanne Harris

I put my hand on his arm. ‘What’s wrong?’

He shook his head. ‘Later,’ he said in a thick voice. ‘I’ll tell you all about it later.’

We had arrived in Place des Faux-Monnayeurs, and I paused on the threshold of Le Rocher de Montmartre, the newly painted sign creaking a little, and took a deep breath of the chilly air.

‘I’m sorry, Thierry,’ I told him again.

He shrugged, a bear in his cashmere coat, but I thought his face had softened a little.

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ I said. ‘I’ll cook you dinner, and we’ll put Rosette to bed, and then we can talk about all this.’

He sighed. ‘OK.’

I opened the door.

And saw a man standing inside, a man in black standing very still, whose face was more familiar to me than my own and whose smile, rare and brilliant as summer lightning, was already beginning to fade from his lips . . .

‘Vianne,’ he said.

It was Roux.

PART FIVE

Advent

1

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Saturday, 1st December

THE MOMENT HE walked into the shop I knew he was going to be my kind of trouble. Some people carry a charge, you know – you can see it in their colours, and his were the pale yellow-blue flare of a gas jet turned very low, which could explode at any time.

Not that you’d know it to look at him. Nothing special, so you’d think. Paris swallows up a million just like him every year. Men in jeans and engineer boots; men who seem ill at ease in the city; men who take their wages in cash. I’ve been there often enough myself to recognize the type; and if he was there to buy chocolate, I thought, then I was the Virgin of Lourdes.

I was standing on a chair, hanging a picture. My portrait, in fact; the one that Jean-Louis drew of me. I heard him come in. A tinkle of bells; the sound of his boots on the parquet floor.

Then he said Vianne – and there was something in the tone of his voice that made me turn around. I looked at him. A man in jeans and a black T-shirt; red hair, tied back. As I said, nothing special.

But there was something about him, nevertheless, something that seemed familiar. And his smile was bright as the Champs-Elysées on Christmas Eve, making him extraordinary – but only for a moment, that dazzling smile dropping into a look of confusion as he realized his mistake.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you were—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Are you the manager?’ His voice was quiet, accented with the rolling rs and sharp vowels of the Midi.

‘No, I just work here,’ I told him, smiling. ‘The manager’s Madame Charbonneau. Do you know her?’

For a moment he seemed uncertain.

‘Yanne Charbonneau,’ I prompted.

‘Yeah. I know her.’