April In Paris, 1921

by Tessa Lunney

  ‘No one plays better.’

  ‘And if I won’t play?’

  A pause and his voice went cold.

  ‘Where do you keep the handkerchief? In your handbag? Or under your pillow, where you can smell my cologne as you sleep?’

  Ay, there’s the rub.

  ‘You’re a bastard.’

  ‘You don’t like that smell? It used to be your favourite.’

  ‘This is blackmail.’

  ‘This is protection. Trust me.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘And yet what choice do you have?’

  None and he knew it. I had to trust him, at least for the moment, at least until I could help Tom. There was nothing for it but to sink my teeth into the mission.

  ‘So, these clues – they’re a Dada poem with Keats. Artists and espionage – am I on the right track?’

  ‘Oh, Vixen, I’m disappointed. You know Ode to a Nightingale.’

  I read over the message.

  ‘A mole . . . there’s no mole in the poem,’ I said, and he murmured assent. ‘What’s a mole?’

  ‘Don’t you know your spy lore? Sir Francis Bacon used that term back in the seventeenth century.’

  ‘You used to call them double agents.’

  ‘And I still do. But “mole” seemed more poetic.’

  ‘I don’t rate your skills. You’re no Romantic.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘I’d have to be.’

  And he laughed, which pleased me, which haunted me.

  ‘Too kind. But I expect more from you in the future.’

  ‘If there is a future.’

  ‘You wouldn’t waste my time by getting caught. Not if you value your little farm boy.’ I could hear him swallow. He must be drinking whisky; he was enjoying himself. All his little habits were so familiar – which meant, of course, that mine were to him. I bet he even knew which cigarettes I smoked that day.

  ‘Now, you know I find it such fun when you resist me, Vixen, but it’s time to work. Expenses have been wired to you.’

  ‘I don’t need your money.’

  ‘Buy some stockings. Or a warmer dress – that little sheer number you’re wearing must be very draughty.’

  ‘How do you know? Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t care.’

  He grunted in satisfaction. ‘This little chat was so good I think we should do it again.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Is it Monday already? Then midnight the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘To say what? You’ve given me nothing to work with.’

  ‘Hunt quickly, Vixen.’ His voice was at its silkiest, which always put me on my guard. ‘And don’t get too distracted by the cocks around the henhouse.’ He hung up without a goodbye.

  I sat on the table. Everything was still. I was embalmed in darkness. To think is to be full of sorrow and leaden-eyed despair – there it was again, Keats in my cadences; I’d seen his other spies quote Wordsworth and Shelley and barely be aware of it. They didn’t know I knew who they were, as they never suspected a woman could be a spy. They didn’t know that when I saw them slick their hair back and give that twitchy half-smile that I could see how Fox was inside them, directing them. It used to happen to me. Was it happening again? He had me in his power and he’d keep that power as long as he could. If I didn’t want Tom hung as a traitor – if I didn’t want to be jailed as an accomplice – then I had to obey. I had a mission, but what scared me most was that I liked it.

  I pushed my way out of the office and almost ran into the café. I needed people, lights, music! I needed a drink – or three. I blinked at the brightness and the sound as it overwhelmed me, as it took me in its arms and kissed me all over my face—

  ‘Bertie?’

  ‘Kiki! I’ve been waiting for an age, sitting alone like little Jack Horner without his pie. Where have you been?’

  ‘The phone is in the office.’

  ‘What? Oh! Of course. Oh yes, I got this letter at the Ritz on my way out. It’s from Fox, look.’

  The beautiful paper was decorated with Fox’s black loops. His attention to every tiny detail was beautiful and chilling.

  Ever since I put on a uniform

  I have just one heart for just one boy

  Dream on, little soldier boy

  We’re on our way to France

  Why don’t they give us a chance?

  Goodbye, France

  I’ll take you back to Germany

  A man is only a man

  With Alexander’s Ragtime Band

  F to V.

  ‘Kiki, what on earth does it mean? They’re all Irving Berlin songs.’

  ‘He couldn’t tell me too much over the telephone—’

  ‘Why? Wait, you need a drink. You’re far too pale. Garçon!’

  Bertie took me by the waist and led me to a corner table. The seats were plush and there was only one little lamp nearby, so we were very sheltered. He lit my cigarette and stroked my knee. Henri hurried over with a very large brandy and a very serious ‘Mademoiselle’.

  This second message shocked me. Fox had planned too much – two messages through Bertie, the telephone call, Henri – he must have been planning my return for a long time. For longer than I had. I tried to tell myself that this was just his arrogance, just wishful thinking, but I couldn’t shake the notion that he brought me back, that he somehow controlled me from afar.

  The café lights glowed but they seemed so far away.

  Bertie stroked my knee and chatted about nothing until I had imbibed enough to speak.

  ‘Was it that bad, Kiki?’

  ‘No, but it will be.’

  ‘I’m here to help.’

  ‘No – the less you know, the better. Hide in your trench of ignorance, Bertie, it’ll keep you safe.’

  ‘I’d rather go over the top with you.’

  ‘Let’s just be over the top.’

  ‘Knees up, Mother Brown?’

  ‘Rouge your cheeks and roll your stockings down.’

  I gulped the rest of my brandy and Bertie lit me his last Gauloises.

  ‘I hope you know that I’ve no intention of letting you cope with all this . . . whatever it is, on your own.’

  ‘Bertie—’

  ‘Not that you couldn’t – you’re the most capable woman, no, person, I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Thank you, but—’

  ‘But there’s just no call for it.’ He stroked my hair. ‘Friends in need and all that. Besides, we’re alive, we’re together, and we’re in Paris.’

  ‘We’re in Paris!’

  ‘Now, tell me about the songs, Kiki.’

  I sighed. ‘They reference soldiers, Germany and Berlin.’

  ‘They’re a code?’

  ‘Of course. Fox only speaks in code. He can say “Milk, no sugar” but every other sentence has a second meaning.’

  ‘Well, I’m a whiz at the cryptic crossword. Let me give my brain a work-out before we descend into debauchery.’

  ‘All right, but we have to be quick. I can see my other friends looking around for me. They’re terrible gossips.’ I handed over the message from Fox. ‘This note must relate to the message he gave me over the telephone.’

  ‘I don’t understand this at all.’ He stared at the paper.

  ‘I have to find someone – a traitor – who works for some terrible but unspecified enemy. I’ve no idea yet who that might be. This second message seems to suggest that this traitor is German, or the enemy is German, perhaps a former soldier . . . Part of the clue is the code itself. We’re not at war, so the enemy has to be someone who’s good at ciphers.’

  ‘Like a spy?’

  ‘Like one of Fox’s former underlings.’ I enjoyed working at the clues with Bertie, it made these letters from Fox feel like a game. ‘Which is another clue – why me? Why wait for me to arrive in Europe to undertake this mission? I was his only female spy. The only men who saw me were dead, or about to be. Therefore no one will suspect
me and I can get close to this mole. There is no other reason that he would need me.’ No other rational reason, at any rate.

  ‘Gosh!’

  ‘Golly—’

  ‘My giddy aunt—’

  ‘Crikey. Strewth,’ I played up my accent. ‘Stone the crows.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But more next time.’ I nodded at North, who was weaving her way between the tables. She yoo-hoo’d as she made her way to the lavatory.

  ‘So that’s where you’re hiding! And who’s this? Don’t keep him all to yourself, Kiki – come and join us outside. Pascin’s arrived with three models and they’re debating Bolshevism and its relation to the avant-garde – it’s so exciting!’ She sighed. ‘I just love Paris, don’t you?’

  ‘Love it.’ I looked at Bertie. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Love it.’ He took me in his arms and started to foxtrot, humming ‘When I’m Out With You’. More Irving Berlin – I couldn’t help but hum along.

  6

  I Ain’t Nobody’s Darling

  SPARROWS WOKE ME later that morning. They landed on my windowsill to chat, preen and gossip. When the days were bright and clear like this morning, they flocked in for the summer, setting up nests in every available eave. It was so European, it was so particularly Parisian – the sparrows in the geraniums, the tin windowsill in the stone wall – I couldn’t help but feel in love. I rolled out of bed and sat in the window with a cigarette, my velvet cape around me.

  Fox’s messages sat next to Tom’s letter on the trunk that I used as a table, held down from the breeze by an empty wine bottle. Lines from the notes played through my head, like a song I half knew but couldn’t quite remember. I was sure that my instincts were right – the mole had to be one of Fox’s protégés, which is why he spoke in code, and why he needed me. It also occurred to me that if Fox needed me, then he also needed me as a gossip columnist and café patron, as it was through my Parisian life that I would find the mole. Otherwise the clues were simply too opaque. I needed time to work through them all.

  The morning mist had burned off and the view was clear to the river and beyond. It was the perfect light to be Pablo’s model for the first time. I shoved all the notes in my handbag and splashed my face. I needed coffee, lots of it, and some really quality breakfast. I slipped on a blue cotton day-dress, patterned with swallows, and headed down to a café.

  Everyone knew where Picasso’s studio was. It was one of the things foreigners learnt almost as soon as they arrived in Paris, along with the opening hours of their national embassy and the number for Western Union. It was practically a place of pilgrimage, and if you hadn’t gone there under your own steam, then some enthusiastic Brit or American would drag you to rue la Boétie to hang around outside the big double doors, hoping for a glimpse of the Great Man. I spent an entire afternoon there just after the war, when the soldier I spent my afternoon leave with – a certain Paul Nash, official war artist and modernist firebrand – wanted to knock Picasso down for not joining the war effort but couldn’t bring himself to ring the bell. We sat on fruit boxes, with a bottle of red, a packet of cigarettes and two army blankets, and watched the sun go down in the December afternoon.

  So I knew where to go. I made my way over the cobbled streets, past the fruit and flower vendors, through the market, over the Seine, along the grand boulevards. The sun shone, the chestnuts blossomed, and I felt as light and carefree as a child’s balloon. Not even the limping newspaper boy, who seemed to follow me around every corner, could pull me down.

  I pressed the little buzzer by the olive-green doors. A boy in a ragged uniform appeared at the tiny service-door off to the side.

  ‘Oui, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘I’m here to see Monsieur Picasso.’

  ‘Your name, please.’ He spoke with such Gallic weariness, all four foot seven of him, that I struggled not to laugh.

  ‘Kiki Button. The Australienne.’

  He sniffed and closed the little door. I heard nothing for some moments and was beginning to worry, when the main door rolled open and I was let in. I tipped him and he suddenly smiled, huge and innocent like the child he was. I wanted to hug him and feed him, but someone else was at the door and his cynical, ‘Oui, Monsieur?’ fell onto the cobblestones. I headed over the courtyard and up to Picasso’s flat.

  ‘Kiki Kangaroo! What time is it? Ah yes, excellent.’ Picasso was effusive. He kissed me on both cheeks as he held his wet paintbrush away from me. I’d been ushered into his studio by the stern housekeeper, along with a pot of coffee and a plate of plain biscuits. Pablo was surrounded by sketches of dancers in striking poses, arms flung up, skirts swirling, frowns on their faces. As soon as he kissed me he turned back to his work, some type of quick sketch for a theatre. It was red and yellow, with his typical bold lines and what looked like bull horns. I poured some coffee, took a biscuit and watched the painting in front of him transform from a few lines into a full theatre, complete with curtains and seating.

  He sighed and flung down his brush. He turned to me, hands on hips. ‘Café?’

  ‘Right here. What’s this?’ I indicated his work.

  He shrugged. ‘For the Ballet Russes. They do a flamenco show, Cuadro Flamenco, with some friends of mine from Barcelona. Diaghilev, he doesn’t know how to talk to the dancers, he treats them like furniture as he did with all his Russians.’ He stuffed two biscuits in his mouth and gulped his coffee. ‘You know that Olga is a dancer? My wife?’

  He rolled a cigarette with one hand and drank coffee with the other, talking at me the entire time. ‘Yes, that’s how we met, when I began to design for Diaghilev. But he doesn’t understand.’ He shrugged again. ‘He has reached his limit. He has no duende, I see that now – or else he lost it – or else he just glowed with the reflected light of Olga’s talent, of Nijinsky’s and Stravinsky’s and all the rest.’ He put down his coffee and walked over to a mirror that sat on top of the mantelpiece. He painstakingly cleaned all the crumbs off his face, chin, smock; he checked his teeth and smoothed his hair. He stubbed out his cigarette and turned to me.

  ‘So, Kiki Kangaroo, I want to paint you as a can-can girl after the show. The step is over there, and a drape. Sit on the cushion and I will begin.’

  I’d never been an artist’s model before. Did I just strip off here, in front of him? Did he even want me naked? More importantly, what about the detective work he needed me to do for him?

  He was busy getting a sketchbook and pencils together. Next to a window was a little raised platform, very similar to the one at Manuelle’s. On it was a chair, a side table, a jug and a large white cotton sheet that looked more than a little grubby. I picked it up gingerly. ‘Do you want me to wear this?’

  He looked up sharply and frowned. I stood there for a long time as he considered. ‘What underthings are you wearing? Do you wear a camisole, something like that?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Then forget about the sheet. Just take off your coat, dress, hat, gloves – leave the shoes on. Let’s see them – ah yes, leave them on.’

  My shoes were new and shiny. They were patent black leather and more suited to evening than daytime, but I loved them so much that I wore them all the time. They had little silver stars along the side and a silver heel. They didn’t even match my cotton dress, let alone my blue silk camisole. But when does that ever matter? I was glad that my underwear was clean, though. It was a present from my mother – and by ‘present,’ I mean that she wired me some money for sensible shoes to wear to work and I had this tailored for me instead. The blue was bright, almost electric, and stopped just under my bottom. There were black lace panels on the knickers, which could be seen through the slit at the side of the slip. I wasn’t wearing a corset either, as I’d conveniently left them all behind at Bertie’s flat. My stockings were clipped to suspenders that hung from a little band around my waist. When I turned around to sit on my chair, Pablo was staring at me.

  ‘Do you dress like th
is all the time, my Kangaroo?’

  ‘Mostly, yes. Much better for movement. Shall I sit here?’

  ‘Ah . . . yes, yes,’ he seemed distracted, ‘just drape yourself over the chair. Yes, put your hand on the table, tip your head back, yes, just like that – now, put one leg over the arm of the chair.’

  I was spread over the chair like a lady of the night as she waits, tired but awake, for her next man. Pablo looked me up and down, not really checking my pose at all, just looking at me. He came over and put his hand on my knees, moving my legs apart so the angle was more intense. He stroked the inside of my knee with his thumb, almost absentmindedly. Then he breathed in sharply and turned back to his seat.

  ‘Very good. Sketches first . . .’

  He worked very quickly. He seemed to finish sketches like they were cups of coffee. He looked at me but only saw me half the time, the other half I was a collection of angles and lines. It was odd, to see him see me, so the tension built between us, then it suddenly disappeared so I was nothing more than a pose. Despite the lasciviousness of it, the pose was quite comfortable, as if I’d just flung myself down after a long night. I had expected to become one of Picasso’s flat-paned women and so hold a tortured naked pose for hours. As soon as he sat me down I realised that was preposterous – the planes were in his mind, not my body – and I could easily hold this pose for a long time.

  I had a good view of his studio from my chair. It was a mess. There were paintings and sketches and sculptures stacked everywhere. Piles of used art paper and newspapers lay in rumpled heaps. Jars of old water lined shelves like biological exhibits. Pencils were heaped in jars that held down tablecloths splattered in paint. All the paintbrushes seemed clean, standing to attention in beautiful, if splattered, vases. There were also many swatches of fabric and a model of a theatre, and various photographs of flamenco dancers pinned to the walls and scattered on the table. A window was open to let in a breeze and to let out the paint fumes. Despite all the clutter at floor level, the high windows and higher ceilings made the room seem airy and light, some kind of optical trick, not unlike Picasso’s own work.

  ‘Kiki, turn your face to – ah yes, very good.’