Since Friday I have fitted a set of bar stools next to the counter of La Praline. Now it looks a little like the diners we used to visit in New York, red – leather seats and chrome stems, cheerily kitsch. The walls are a bright daffodil colour. Poitou’s old orange armchair lolls cheerily in one corner. A menu stands to the left, hand-lettered and coloured by Anouk in shades of orange and red:

I baked a cake last night, and the hot chocolate is standing in a pot on the hob, awaiting my first customer. I make sure that a similar menu is visible from the window and I wait.

Mass comes and goes. I watch the passers-by, morose beneath the freezing drizzle. My door, slightly open, emits a hot scent of baking and sweetness. I catch a number of longing glances at the source of this, but a flick of the eye backwards, a shrugging of the shoulders, a twist of the mouth which may be resolve or simply temper, and they are gone, leaning into the wind with rounded, miserable shoulders, as if an angel with a flaming sword were standing at the door to bar their entry.

Time, I tell myself. This kind of thing takes time.

But all the same, a kind of impatience, almost anger, penetrates me. What is wrong with these people? Why do they not come? Ten o’clock sounds, then eleven. I can see people going into the bakery opposite and coming out again with loaves tucked under their arms. The rain stops, though the sky remains grim. Eleven-thirty. The few people who still linger in the square turn homewards to prepare the Sunday meal. A boy with a dog skirts the corner of the church, carefully avoiding the dripping guttering. He walks past with barely a glance.

Damn them. Just when I thought I was beginning to get through. Why do they not come? Can they not see, not smell? What else do I have to do?

Anouk, always sensitive to my moods, comes to hug me.

“Maman, don’t cry.”

I am not crying. I never cry. Her hair tickles my face, and I feel suddenly dizzy with the fear that one day I might lose her.

“It isn’t your fault. We tried. We did everything right.”

True enough. Even to the red ribbons around the door, the sachets of cedar and lavender to repel bad influences. I kiss her head. There is moisture on my face. Something, perhaps the bittersweet aroma of the chocolate vapour, stings my eyes.

“It’s all right, Cherie. What they do shouldn’t affect us. We can at least have a drink to cheer ourselves up.”

We perch on our stools like New York barflies, a cup of chocolate each. Anouk has hers with creme Chantillyand chocolate curls; I drink mine hot and black, stronger than espresso. We close our eyes in the fragrant steam and see them coming – two; three, a dozen at a time, their faces lighting up, sitting beside us, their hard, indifferent faces melting into expressions of welcome and delight. I open my eyes quickly and Anouk is standing by the door. For a second I can see Pantoufle perched on her shoulder, whiskers twitching. The light behind her seems warmer somehow; altered. Alluring.

I jump to my feet.

“Please. Don’t do that.”

She gives me one of her darkling glances.

“I was only trying to help…”

“Please.”

For a second she faces me out, her face set stubbornly. Glamours swim between us like golden smoke. It would be so easy, she tells me with her eyes, so easy, like invisible fingers stroking, inaudible voices coaxing the people in…

“We can’t. We shouldn’t.” I try to explain to her.

It sets us apart. It makes us different. If we are to stay we must be as like them as possible. Pantoufle looks up at me in appeal, a whiskery blur against the golden shadows. Deliberately I close my eyes against him, and when I open them again, he is gone.