Christmas at Tiffany's

by Karen Swan

  ‘Well, I’m hardly blameless. I was the one who left. I could have chosen to stay.’

  ‘And he could have chosen to understand and to wait,’ Suzy protested. ‘You could have been back by July.’

  ‘July? What – are you trying to get rid of me early? I’ve not even arrived yet!’

  ‘Yeah, well . . . I’m going to be needing the spare room, see,’ she said, grinning broadly.

  ‘Huh? Why?’

  Suzy said nothing, just kept nodding excitedly until the penny dropped.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Uh-huh!’

  ‘No!!’

  ‘Uh-huh-huh!’

  ‘Ohmigod, Suze!!!’ Cassie shrieked, clapping her hands and jumping on the spot. ‘You’re going to be a mum? And Arch – oh, he’ll be such a great dad! Ohmigod – do the others know?’ She leaned towards the kitchen. ‘Nooks!’

  Anouk came back into the sitting room, a navy apron covering her matt-gold Louis Vuitton prom dress which was so low-cut, even her tiny bosom managed to tremble. She was wiping her hands on a tea towel.

  ‘What a lot of noise,’ she scolded as Cassie jumped about. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You tell her,’ Cassie said, looking at Suzy. She started biting her nails. Anouk smacked her hand away.

  ‘Well . . .’ Suzy said, deliberating. ‘I just wanted to know whether Bonpoint was better priced over there than it is here. Because I know Petit Bateau is sold in supermarkets in France, but it’s just silly money this side of the Channel, and you know I’d rather Bonpoint, but if it has to be Petit Bateau, then so be it.’ She’d managed it all in one breath.

  There was an amused silence.

  ‘That’s how you tell me you’re having a baby?’ Anouk laughed, palms up, walking slowly up to the screen and planting a kiss on it. ‘By comparing Petit Bateau with Bon-point?’

  ‘Well, that’s going to be your primary function as godmother. Shipping over crates of the stuff.’

  ‘Godmother?’ Anouk repeated, an uncharacteristic catch in her voice.

  ‘And don’t think you’re off the hook either, Fraser,’ Suzy called round her. ‘Yours is to teach baby to cook Sunday lunch by the time it’s eight, or else it’s off to boarding school. Got to earn its keep.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Cassie giggled, her hands clasped together over her mouth, as if in prayer.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Anouk asked, perching on the arm of a chair. ‘Is the morning sickness okay?’

  ‘Urgh, the pits,’ Suzy said. ‘And the munchies are out of control.’

  Cassie rolled her eyes. When were they not? ‘Is Arch excited?’

  ‘Beside himself. Walking around with the scan photo like it’s membership to the Hurlingham.’

  ‘That proud.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Wanna see it?’ she asked, holding up a grainy black-and-white picture.

  ‘Oh, Suze! The baby’s got your nose,’ Cassie cooed.

  Suzy frowned and looked at the picture herself. ‘What are you talking about it? It’s barely got a nose yet. It looks like a coffee bean,’ she contradicted, but she couldn’t stop beaming and her eyes were as bright as buttons. ‘Anyway, so long as it doesn’t have Arch’s ears, it’ll be a result.’

  The sound of voices outside the door made Anouk jump to attention.

  ‘Merde! We have to go, Suzy. Guests are arriving.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ Suzy shrugged. ‘My work here is done anyway. Bon appétit, mes amies!’

  Cassie’s French was good, but not so good that she could keep up with the passionate debate on Sarkozy’s pension reforms, and she sat in silence, hands politely off the table, trying to ignore the fact that she was wishing she was anywhere but here.

  She looked around instead at the stage they had set – the flowers elegantly arranged in a low centrepiece, the dimpled water glasses dappled in the candlelight, four bottles of Chianti standing empty and aromatic on the table, just a couple of garlic-tossed mushrooms left sitting in the bowl, an entire Stilton dug out from the centre with a long-handled silver spoon, and lipstick-ringed cigarettes littering the ashtrays.

  On the surface, everything seemed to be going exactly as it should. The room looked the part, she looked the part, but she felt lonely, isolated and restless. Like a fake; a drifter. Suzy’s reaction to her new look had disconcerted her. She might have tried to hide it, but it had been the same as Henry’s in New York – a polite smile unable to hide the concern in their eyes as Cassie changed again into someone else. It exhausted her too – didn’t they realize that? How many more times would she change before she finally gave up the search and said, ‘Okay then. I’ll stop here. This is the one. This is the one I’ll be’?

  She tried to tell herself that at least she was getting different perspectives from all this change. If they were in New York right now, for example, it would be grey goose vodka in the glasses and salted endamame beans on the plates. In Scotland, single malt, roasted venison and treacle tart.

  She thought back to the last dinner party she’d been to – Thanksgiving at Kelly’s apartment. She closed her eyes for a moment and pictured everyone sitting cross-legged on the floor in the warm flickering light, her patch of grass in the centre of the table, a hidden solitaire; she remembered the light in Kelly’s eyes, Brett’s tears, how Bas had whirled her off her feet in celebration . . .

  The difference was not down to the food or the drink or the decoration, not even the location. It was that she had been among friends.

  ‘Some more wine, perhaps?’ the voice next to her enquired.

  Jacques, Florence’s husband, was smiling at her kindly, a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in his hands.

  ‘Yes, thank you. Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘Sarkozy has that effect,’ he smiled, pouring, and she fidgeted in her seat, trying to get back in the flow.

  ‘So, what do you think of our city?’ he asked, rescuing her from the wider conversation as he pushed her glass back towards her.

  Cassie reached her hand out, resting her fingers either side of the stem.

  ‘It’s every bit as beautiful as I had heard.’

  ‘And you had really never been here before?’

  Cassie shrugged apologetically. ‘My husband and I . . . we didn’t really travel much,’ she said simply. ‘And he doesn’t speak French, so . . .’ God forbid that she should have visited Anouk on her own.

  He nodded, as though understanding more than she was saying. ‘I am very sorry to hear about your divorce.’

  Cassie just nodded. What did you say to that? It sounded like she had suffered a bereavement.

  He looked at her, his dark grey eyes intelligent and inquisitive. He had a ‘strong’ nose and huge hands, the backs of which were speckled with dark hair. Everything about him physically was slightly overscaled and coarse, yet there was a gentleness to his manner that compensated for it. He reminded her of Gabriel Byrne, a larger version. ‘Were you with someone in New York?’ he asked.

  She could tell from the question that Anouk must have told him about Luke, but she was reluctant to go into it.

  ‘Yes. Yes I was.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘He wanted me to stay there and move in with him,’ she said in as few words as possible. ‘But when I asked him to wait till the summer, he dumped me.’

  ‘Tch,’ Jacques said, shaking his head. ‘That is the difference, you see? American men do not understand the beauty of space.’ He moved his hands like a conductor. ‘If he had done as you asked, you would probably have remained true to him here in Europe, yes?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But his pride got in the way and now he has lost you for good. If only he realized that a little space would have sent you straight back to him.’

  Cassie pondered on this. He was right, she supposed. She would never have cheated on Luke whilst she was here. The problem hadn’t been her inability to commit. It had been his inability to wait.

  ‘It is
the same with your husband.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Cassie looked at him.

  ‘No doubt, with a little time, you would have forgiven him too and taken him back.’

  Cassie exhaled forcibly at the remark, as though someone had come up and squeezed her hard around the ribs. ‘Uh . . . no. Actually, I wouldn’t have,’ she demurred quietly. ‘Time wasn’t an issue in that instance.’

  Jacques looked at her. ‘You mean you really wouldn’t have been prepared to even try?’

  Cassie looked away, indignation prickling all over her, and realized that everyone had stopped talking pensions and was now listening in on their conversation instead.

  ‘That’s right,’ Cassie replied in a quiet voice. ‘I wasn’t even prepared to try.’

  Jacques sat back, clearly astonished, and a small murmur rippled around the table.

  ‘I think what we have to remember,’ Anouk said diplomatically, ‘is that things are different over there.’

  ‘Over there?’ Cassie looked up at her. She knew her friend was trying to build a bridge, but she’d managed instead to belittle Cassie’s response into something gauche and parochial, as though the vow ‘forsaking all others’ was nothing more than a playground rhyme.

  ‘Well, here, an affaire is . . . it is not a reason for a marriage to break up,’ Anouk explained.

  Cassie felt her stomach lurch at this sudden shifting territory. What was Anouk saying? That she didn’t agree with Cassie’s actions after all? That she thought she should have stayed?

  ‘And she would probably have a lover herself, the wife,’ Anouk continued, trying to placate her.

  ‘A lover herself . . .’ Cassie repeated. ‘You make it sound so whimsical – self-indulgent almost, as if you’re deciding to treat yourself to a cashmere dress or the last of the chocolates.’

  ‘I wouldn’t qui—’

  ‘But it gives absolutely no hint of the scheming duplicity, lies and betrayal that come with every kiss, does it? Of the dreams and hopes that are trampled upon with each touch?’

  She stared straight at Anouk, pink-cheeked, outnumbered, and mortified to be making a scene at the dinner party where she was supposed to be making new friends.

  There was a long, awkward silence as the two hostesses clashed invisible swords.

  ‘Well . . .’ Anouk said slowly, stubbing out her cigarette and grinding it into the ashtray. ‘Would anyone care for coffee and petits fours?’

  Cassie sat chastened and silent as everyone nodded enthusiastically and quiet pockets of conversation started up again. Everyone seemed eager to move on and defuse the tension caused by her overreaction so that it didn’t linger over the cheese.

  ‘You must be tired from your flight?’ said Guillaume, the man to her right. He was slightly built with an aquiline nose and light brown hair that had once been blonde, and he was technically her ‘date’ for the night, although he had spent most of the evening in conversation with Anouk. Anouk had mentioned in passing, with her usual breeziness, that French women don’t date, they throw dinner parties, and given that Florence was married to Jacques, Victoire – a textiles designer – was married to Marc, and Anouk was with her boyfriend, Pierre, an IT whizz so handsome that at first glance Cassie had earmarked him for Bas, it meant that she and Guillaume, for tonight at least, were a couple. ‘They always say to allow a day for every hour of time change.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I can plead that, if I’m honest,’ Cassie smiled, grateful for the elegant reprieve. ‘Anouk took me to the hammam on my very first afternoon.’

  Guillaume nodded, gentle laughter lines pleating around his brown eyes. ‘Ah, of course, the hammam! It is almost a rite of passage for women here. Sometimes I think they hold secret meetings in those places – like the Masons.’

  ‘Well, I’ve certainly never known anything like it.’ She didn’t like to mention she’d been a stranger to cleanse-tone-moisturize before landing here.

  He laughed quietly. ‘The pursuit of beauty is like a fulltime job for many women.’ He looked at her, regarding her thoughtfully. ‘Not for you, though. You are very beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cassie said, blushing, knowing better than to push back a compliment from a Frenchman.

  He smiled and started telling her about his last trip to the coast and she listened appreciatively. He was attentive, and attractive too, but he wasn’t Luke.

  And she wasn’t looking.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘There’s some post for you today,’ Anouk said as she shut the gate behind her. She dropped it into the panier as Cassie unlocked the bike from the pay station. She was lucky. There was a Vélib bike rack directly opposite the apartment, which allowed her to cycle to work each morning and have less than a 200-yard walk at the other end. Anouk didn’t bother. Her studio was only two streets away. Even in five-inch Louboutins she could walk that.

  ‘Bonne journée, chérie,’ Anouk said, kissing her lightly on both cheeks. Their disagreement at the dinner the week before had passed without further mention. There was little point in bringing it up – there were some cultural differences that not even a makeover could remedy.

  ‘Are you seeing Pierre this afternoon?’

  ‘Of course.’ Anouk smiled and flashed a tiny glimpse of cherry-red bra strap threaded through with a blue velvet ribbon. ‘New! You like it?’

  ‘Of course,’ Cassie chuckled, as she put on her helmet.

  ‘Shall we eat in tonight? It is the fish market today. I thought I would get some halibut?’

  ‘Great,’ Cassie smiled, sitting herself on the saddle and leaning forwards on the handlebars. ‘I’ll go to Poilâne and get us some nice sourdough and black olives to go with it.’ She resisted the urge to punch the air in glee now that carbs were back on the menu, albeit in morsel quantities. ‘See you later.’

  She pedalled off, the tips of her bob fanning out like ruffles from underneath her helmet. She swept over the Pont Saint-Louis and towards the Quai de la Corse, where she joined the main body of rush-hour traffic towards the huitième district.

  It was the end of January and Paris was still in hibernation. The lime-tree buds were still tightly wrapped, and the Seine was a belligerent beige that refused to glitter or gleam except in the most dazzling of mid-winter sunbursts. But here and there Cassie could see the city was beginning to flirt with the idea of spring: occasional snowdrops clustered around the roots of silver birches, the fountain was free-flowing most mornings, and there was usually dew, not frost, on the windows when she opened the curtains in the morning.

  She parked her bike in the usual spot, and with her helmet under one arm and the post curled into her bag – she had recognized the handwriting on the top envelope immediately – she walked quickly to the office.

  ‘Bonjour, Martine,’ she said to the receptionist as she strode through and pressed the button for the lift. It occurred to her – as it did every morning – to climb the stairs to her office, but the thought was gone as quickly as it came. Kelly might not approve, but then what Kelly didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. She was in Paris mode now.

  She was the first in. She had to be. They were busy-busy-busy at the moment, though without the stress and expletives that had accompanied the busy period at Bebe Washington’s. The couture show had happened the week before to rapturous acclaim, and now the atelier was in back-to-back meetings with stellar clients going through their diaries and choosing suits for the carousel of charity lunches, dresses for Club 55, ballgowns . . . Katrina Holland hadn’t shown, but Anouk had told her she’d made a splashy entry to the Valentino show, arriving with no less than three walkers, each holding one of her shih-tzus.

  On her desk was a file. Kane Westley, the designer, had been in situ and spearheading the label’s renaissance for fifteen years now, and to celebrate they were producing an enormous limited-edition coffee-table book charting the company’s new legacy. The book would only be sent to the top tier of customers, and there was to be a lavish
party to celebrate its closed-doors publication in April.

  Cassie was charged with doing the picture research from the archives for the book, researching locations for the party, and pulling together the goody bags. For someone who’d been in the city less than a month, it seemed somewhat perverse to be expected to know about party venues for an international crowd that habitually frequented the most exclusive clubs, hotels and penthouses across the globe. On the other hand, given that Florence had been put on the spot to conjure up a job out of thin air, location-hunting meant she was basically being paid to explore the city.

  Of course, Suzy had waded straight in when she’d heard the brief.

  ‘Sweetie, I’ve done more Paris weddings than I can shake a stick at,’ she’d cried down the line. ‘Everyone wants to get married in the Capital of Love. Look, I’ll email you a list of locations, but it’s for your eyes only, okay? You go check them out and see whether they work for you. A lot of them are private, uninhabited premises I’ve got on an exclusive arrangement only thanks to shameless stalking and creeping flattery. Don’t let me down!’

  ‘This is it,’ Cassie thought, as she grabbed her post from the bag and opened the topmost envelope. The chaotic handwriting gave Suzy away as much as her signature taupe stationery embossed with a pale blue cake. She scanned the contents quickly. There were glossy brochures for two lateral apartments – one of which had roof gardens overlooking the Palais Royal – three townhouses, a château on the southern outskirts on the road to Fontainebleau, and a 220-foot yacht with an exclusive mooring near the foot of the Eiffel Tower. There was bound to be something in that lot that would make even the Dior elite feel excited.

  She sent an email to Florence, saying she was scouting locations and would be back before lunch. Folding the list, she put it in her bag, then reached for the other letter – a large brown A4 envelope bound twice over with brown packing tape. As she began to open it, the contents rattled.

  Déjà vu? She opened it, and an earthy, musty smell wafted out. Yes, seeds.

  The card was written with the same brown ink as before, except that there was no motivational motto this time, just care instructions. ‘Well, what the heck are they, Henry?’ she wondered to herself, pulling out a handful and staring at them. They could be sesame seeds sent over on the Eurostar for a mid-morning snack, for all she knew.