Some years ago, when I was somebody else, I went to the cinema to see a film about ancient Romans. A disappointing film in many ways: too slick with fake blood and Hollywood redemption. But it was the gladiator scenes that struck me as particularly unrealistic; those audiences of computer-generated people in the background, all shouting and laughing and waving their arms in neat patterns, like animated wallpaper. I’d wondered at the time if the makers of that film had ever watched a real crowd. I do – I generally find the crowd far more interesting than the spectacle itself – and though they were convincing enough as animation, they had no colours, and there was nothing real about their behaviour.

Well, Yanne Charbonneau reminds me of those people. She is a figment in the background, realistic enough to the casual observer, but operating according to a sequence of predictable commands. She has no colours – or if she has, she has become adept at hiding them beneath this screen of inconsequence.

The children, however, are brightly illuminated. Most children have brighter colours than adults, but even so Annie stands out, her colour-trail of butterfly-blue flaring defiantly against the sky.

There’s something else as well, I think – some kind of a shadow in her wake. I saw it again as she played with Rosette in the alley outside the chocolaterie, Annie with that cloud of Byzantine hair torched into gold by the afternoon sun, holding her little sister’s hand as Rosette splashed and stamped at the speckled cobblestones in her primrose-yellow wellington boots.

Some kind of shadow. A dog, a cat?

Well, I’ll find out. You know I will. Give me time, Nanou. Just give me time.

4

Thursday, 8th November

THIERRY WAS BACK from London today, with an armful of presents for Anouk and Rosette, and a dozen yellow roses for me.

It was twelve-fifteen, and I was ten minutes away from closing for lunch. I was just gift-wrapping a box of macaroons for a customer, and looking forward to a quiet hour with the children (Thursday is Anouk’s free afternoon). I looped pink ribbon around the box – a gesture I’d performed a thousand times – tied the bow, then pulled the ribbon taut against the blade of the scissors to curl it.

‘Yanne!’

The scissors slipped, spoiling the curl. ‘Thierry! You’re a day early!’

He’s a big man; tall and heavy. In his cashmere coat he more than filled the little shop doorway. An open face; blue eyes; thick hair, still mostly brown. Moneyed hands still used to working; cracked palms and polished fingernails. A scent of plaster dust and leather and sweat and jambon-frites and the occasional guilty, fat cigar.

‘I missed you,’ he said, and kissed my cheek. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back in time for the funeral. Was it terrible?’

‘No. Just sad. No one came.’