Шоколад / Chocolat

“I’m distributing these”– she held up the stack of cards “and I wonder if you’d mind displaying one in your window.” She held it out. “Everyone else is putting them up,” she added, as if that might sway my decision.

I took the card. Black on yellow, in neat, bold capitals:

NO HAWKERS, VAGRANTS OR PEDLARS.

THE MANAGEMENT RETAINS THE RIGHT TO REFUSE TO SERVE AT ANY GIVEN TIME

“Why do I need this?” I frowned, puzzled. “Why should I want to refuse to serve anyone?”

Caroline sent me a look of pity and contempt.

“Of course, you are new here,” she said with a sugared smile. “But we have had problems in the past. It’s just a precaution, anyway. I very much doubt you’ll get- a visit from Those People: But you may as well be safe as sorry, don’t you think?”

I still didn’t understand. “Sorry about what?”

“Well, the gypsies. The river people.” There was a note of impatience in her voice. “They’re back, and they’ll be wanting to”– she made a small, elegant moue of disgust “do whatever it is they do.

“And?” I prompted gently.

“Well, we’ll have to show them we won’t stand for it!” Caroline was becoming flustered. “We’re going to have an agreement not to serve these people. Make them go back to wherever it is they came from.”

“Oh.” I considered what she was saying. “Can we refuse to serve them?” I enquired curiously. “If they have the money to spend, can we refuse?”

Impatiently: “Of course we can. Who’s to stop us?”

I thought for a moment, then handed back the yellow card.

“You’re not going to do it?” Her voice rose half an octave, losing much of its well-bred intonation in the process.

I shrugged.

“It seems to me that if someone wants to spend their money here, it isn’t up to me to stop them,” I told her.

“But the community…” insisted Caroline. “Surely you don’t want people of that type – itinerants, thieves, Arabs for heaven’s sake”

Flutter-click snapshot of memory, scowling New York doormen, Paris ladies, Sacre-Coeur tourists, camera in hand, face averted to avoid seeing the beggar-girl with her too-short dress and too-long legs… Caroline Clairmont, for all her rural upbringing, knows the value of finding the right modiste.

“It strikes me that the community should mind its own business,” I said tartly.