“You’re new here, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Perhaps we could get together some time. You know. Get to know each other.”

“Perhaps.” I was at my most casual. “Maybe you could ask your wife to come too,” I added smoothly.

A beat of time. He looked at me again, this time a measuring glance of sly suspicion.

“She’s not been saying anything, has she?”

Blankly: “What kind of thing?”

A quick shake of the head.

“Nothing. Nothing. She talks, that’s all. She’s all talk. Doesn’t do anything but, he? Day in, day out.” Again, the short, mirthless laugh. “You’ll find that out soon enough,” he added with sour satisfaction.

I murmured something non-committal. Then, on impulse, I brought out a small packet of chocolate almonds from beneath the counter and handed them to him.

“Perhaps you could give these to Josephine for me,” I said lightly. “I was going to give them to her, but I forgot.”

He looked at me, but did not move.

“Give them to her?” he repeated.

“Free. On the house.” I gave my most winning smile. “A present.”

His smile broadened. He took the chocolates in their pretty silver sachet.

“I’ll see she gets them,” he said, cramming the packet into his jeans’ pocket.

“They’re her favourites,” I told him.

“You won’t go far in this job if you keep giving out freebies,” he said, indulgently. “You’ll be out of business in a month.”

Again the hard, greedy look, as if I too were a chocolate he couldn’t wait to unwrap.

“We’ll see,” I said blandly, and watched him leave the shop and begin the road home, shoulders slouched in a thickset James Dean swagger. He didn’t even wait to be out of sight before I saw him take out Josephine’s chocolates and open the packet. Perhaps he guessed I might be watching. One, two, three, his hand went to his mouth with lazy regularity, and before he had crossed the square the silver wrapping was already balled in a square fist, the chocolates gone. I imagined him cramming them in like a greedy dog who wants to finish his own food before robbing another’s plate. Passing the baker’s he popped the silver ball at the bin outside but missed, bouncing it off the rim and onto the stones. Then he continued on his way past the church and down the Avenue des francs Bourgeois without looking back, his engineer boots kicking sparks from the smooth cobbles underfoot.

The weather turned cold again last night. St Jerome’s weathervane turned and swung in anxious indecision all night, scraping shrilly against its rusted moorings as if to warn against intruders. The morning began in fog so dense that even the church tower, twenty paces.from the shopfront, seemed remote and spectral; the bell for Mass tolling thickly through wadded candyfloss as the few comers approached, collars turned against the fog, to collect absolution.

When she had finished her morning milk, I wrapped Anouk into her red coat and, in spite of her protests, pushed a fluffy cap onto her head.

“Don’t you want any breakfast?”

She shook her head emphatically, grabbed an apple from a dish by the counter.

“What about my kiss?”

This has become a morning ritual.

Wrapping sly arms around my neck, she licks my face wetly, jumps away giggling, blows a kiss from the doorway, runs out into the square. I mime appalled horror, wiping my face. She laughs delightedly, pokes out a small sharp tongue in my direction, bugles, “I love you!” and is off like a scarlet streamer into the fog, her satchel dragging behind her. I know that in thirty seconds the fluffy hat will be relegated to the inside of the satchel, along with books, papers and other unwanted reminders of the adult world. For a second I see Pantoufle again, jumping in her wake, and banish the unwanted image in haste. A sudden loneliness of loss – how can I face an entire day without her? – and, with difficulty, I suppress an urge to call her back.

Six customers this morning. One is Guillaume, on his way back from the butcher’s with a piece of boudin wrapped in paper.

“Charly likes boudin,” he tells me earnestly. “He hasn’t been eating very well recently, but I’m sure he’ll love this.”

“Don’t forget you have to eat too,” I remind him gently.

“Of course.” He gives his sweet, apologetic smile. “I eat like a horse. Really I do.” He gives me a sudden, stricken look. “Of course, it’s Lent,” he says. “You don’t think animals should observe the Lenten fast, do you?”

I shake my head at his dismayed expression: His face is small, delicately featured. He is the kind of man who breaks biscuits in two and saves the other half for later.

“I think you should both look after yourselves better.”

Guillaume scratches Charly’s ear. The dog seems listless, barely interested in the contents of the butcher’s package in the basket beside him.

“We manage.” His smile comes as automatically as the lie: “Really we do.” He finishes his cup of chocolat espresso. “That was excellent,” he says as he always does. “My compliments, Madame Rocher.”

I have long since stopped asking him to call me Vianne. His sense of propriety forbids it. He leaves the money on the counter, tips his old felt hat and opens the door. Charly scrambles to his feet and follows, lurching slightly to one side. Almost as soon as the door closes behind them, I see Guillaume stoop to pick him up and carry him.

At lunchtime I had another visitor. I recognized her at once in spite of the shapeless man’s overcoat she affects; the clever winter-apple face beneath the black straw – hat, the long black skirts over heavy workboots.