Suddenly my strength had gone, and I sat down quickly in one of the chairs, feeling as if she had cut my strings, leaving me in a sudden tangle, voiceless, helpless and still.

‘I can’t tell him now,’ I whispered at last.

‘Well, he’s no fool. He’ll work it out.’

Silently I shook my head. It’s the first time that I have had any cause to feel grateful for Rosette’s differences – but at nearly four years old she still looks and behaves like a child of two and a half, and who would believe the impossible?

‘It’s too late for all that,’ I said. ‘Four years ago, maybe – but not now.’

‘Why? Did you quarrel?’

She sounds like Anouk. I found myself trying to explain to her, too, that things are not simple, that houses must be made of stone, because when the wind comes howling by, only solid stone will keep us from blowing away—

Why pretend? he says in my mind. What is it that makes you try to fit in? What is it about these people that makes you want to be like them?

‘No, we didn’t quarrel,’ I said. ‘We just – went different ways.’

A sudden, startling image in my mind – the Pied Piper with his flute, all the children following – but for the lame one, left behind as the mountain closes in his wake—

‘So what about Thierry?’ she said.

Good question, I thought. Does he suspect? He’s no fool, either; and yet there’s a kind of blindness in him, which might be arrogance or trust or a little of both. And yet he’s still suspicious of Roux. I saw it last night – that measuring look – the instinctive aversion of the solid city dweller for the drifter, the gypsy, the traveller . . .

You choose your family, Vianne, I thought.

‘Well, I guess you’ve made your choice.’

‘It’s the right one. I know it is.’

But I could tell she didn’t believe me. As if she could see it in the air around me like candyfloss gathering on a spindle. But there are so many kinds of love; and when the hot, selfish, angry kind has long since burnt itself out, thank all the gods for men like Thierry; those safe and unimaginative men, who think passion is just a word from books, like magic or adventure.

Zozie was still watching me with that patient half-smile, as if she expected me to say something more. When I didn’t, she simply shrugged and held out a dish of mendiants. She makes them as I do myself: the chocolate thin enough to snap, but thick enough to satisfy; a generous sprinkle of fat raisins; a walnut, an almond; a violet; a crystallized rose.

‘Try one,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’