He followed me into the kitchen as the conversation started again. Rosette came with him, still crawling in her monkey suit, and I remember now how fascinated she was the first time he walked into the shop, as if even then she had recognized him.

Roux bent down to touch her hair. The resemblance between them was sweetly poignant, like memories and lost time. There are so many things he hasn’t seen; when Rosette first held up her head; her first smile; her animal drawings; the spoon dance that so angered Thierry. But I already know from the look on his face that he’ll never blame her for being different; that she will never embarrass him; that he will never compare her to anyone else, or ask that she be anything other than herself—

‘Why did you never tell me?’ he said.

I hesitated. Which truth should I tell? That I was too afraid, too proud, too stubborn to change, that, like Thierry, I’d been in love with a fantasy that, when it finally came within my grasp, revealed itself to be, not gold, but nothing more than wisps of straw?

‘I wanted us to settle down. I wanted us to be ordinary.’

‘Ordinary?’

I told him the rest; told of our flight from town to town, the fake wedding ring, the change of name, the end of magic, Thierry; the pursuit of acceptance at any cost, even my shadow, even my soul.

Roux stayed silent for a while, then he laughed softly in his throat. ‘All this for a chocolate shop?’

I shook my head. ‘Not any more.’

He always said I tried too hard. Cared too much – and now I can see that I didn’t care enough for the things that really matter to me. A chocolaterie is, after all, just sand and mortar, stone and glass. It has no heart; no life of its own except for what it takes from us. And when we have given that away—

Roux picked up Rosette, who did not squirm as she usually does when approached by a stranger, but gave a silent crow of delight and signed something with both her hands.

‘What did she say?’

‘She says you look like a monkey,’ I said, laughing. ‘From Rosette, that’s a compliment.’

He grinned at that and put his arms around us both. And for a moment we stood entwined, Rosette clinging to his neck, the soft sound of laughter from next door and the scent of chocolate on the air—

And then a silence falls over the room, and the wind-chimes ring, and the door blows wide and through the opening I can see another hooded figure all in red, but bigger, bulkier, and so familiar beneath his false beard that I don’t have to see the cigar in his hand—

And in the silence Thierry comes in, with a lurch in his step that speaks of drink.