by Anne Weale
Anny propped her shopping bags against the wall and rushed to his aid. Luckily there was a bench close by. She helped him up and supported him to it. He was not one of the local winos. Although his clothes were shabby, his manners were patrician. It turned out he lived in the same building as she did, in one of the smallest apartments on the top floor. His name was Aristide Dunois.
From then on she spent an increasing amount of her free time with him. His eyesight was poor and he could no longer read the books which lined every room of his old-fashioned home. He did not bother to cook so Anny made soups and casseroles which only needed heating up. When she felt the moment was right, she offered to do some cleaning for him.
Monsieur Dunois was nearly ninety, the same generation as the contessa. Once he had moved in similar circles, but now he was a recluse. His great fear was of falling ill and being put in an old people’s home. He wanted to die where he was.
Anny brought Tom to see him and they had a vigorous argument about the Pompidou Centre which Tom thought exciting and Monsieur Dunois considered a desecration of the quartier known as the Marais. She didn’t mention her new friend in her E-mails to Van, nor were Fran and Julie aware of how much time she spent with the old gentleman.
Five weeks before she was due to go to America for Kate’s wedding, Monsieur Dunois caught a cold which turned to bronchitis. He refused to let Anny call a doctor.
‘If it kills me, so be it. I’ve outlived my usefulness here. I’m ready to move on.’
He recovered, but the illness left him even more frail than before. She knew she would not be able to go to Kate’s wedding. There was no one else to look after him and if he died in her absence she would never forgive herself. An affection had sprung up between them. She couldn’t desert him even though it meant giving up her heart’s desire, to visit America with Van.
She wrote a letter to him, explaining the situation, but put off E-mailing it until the next day. She didn’t start work till ten which gave her time to go to the bakery for a croissant still warm from the oven for Aristide’s breakfast. She and the others ate them only at weekends, but he needed to put on weight. His face was gaunt, his hands skeletal.
As he had breakfast in bed, she had a duplicate key to let herself in and make him a pot of camomile tea before carrying the tray to his bedroom. She found him propped up by pillows, wearing the headset she had bought him to use with audio-tapes of French classics. The curtains were open, letting in the morning sun. The bedside lamp was still alight and Aristide’s chin was sunk on his chest. He was a very light sleeper, roused by the slightest disturbance. But when she put her hand on his, it felt cold and he didn’t stir.
Tom went to the funeral with her. The only other person present was the old man’s lawyer. Afterwards, at his request, they returned to Aristide’s apartment for the reading of his will.
‘Perhaps he was a miser and you are about to inherit his secret hoard,’ Tom murmured, in English, as they sat in the back of the lawyer’s car.
Anny shook her head. ‘I’d like to have one of his books as a keepsake, but I know he was very poor. His rent ate up most of his pension. Last winter he had to sell the last of his pictures to pay the heating bills.’
Although she now had the American trip to look forward to, she felt very sad about Aristide.
His will was brief. His books and remaining furniture were to be sold, the proceeds to settle any outstanding bills and any surplus to go to the organisation called Medicine Without Frontiers. He had left a bequest to Anny: the contents of a small trunk.
Tom helped her to carry it down to the girls’ apartment. When she unlocked it, he said, ‘I thought it might be full of bank notes or bonds, not all that old junk.’
But later, when Tom had gone, and Anny began to sort through the mass of papers the trunk contained, she realised Aristide’s legacy was of the greatest possible value to her.
Van met her flight when it landed at Kennedy Airport.
‘I hadn’t realised before how very French you look,’ was the first thing he said.
That season everyone in Paris who had good legs, and many who hadn’t, was wearing a very short skirt. Anny had searched for tights matched to her suit of deep violet wool, a practical colour that suited her better than black. Her shoes and her bag were a combination of black patent leather and pale grey suede, and round her neck she had wound a long floaty scarf, lent by the magazine’s fashion editor, of palest grey silk chiffon printed in black with leopard-style spots. She knew she looked very different from her sea-urchin self of earlier years.
‘Living in Paris is the best way to learn how to arrange oneself.’ She gave him her hand, at the same time offering her cheek.
He kissed her on both cheeks and then, still holding her hand, inclined his tall head to brush his lips not on her knuckles as she expected but on the inside of her wrist.
The gesture, performed with the casual panache of a Frenchman, stopped Anny’s breath for a moment. She almost reverted to gaucherie by letting slip a schoolgirlish exclamation, but managed to swallow it.
‘How did you like your first transatlantic flight?’
‘I loved every minute. People say what a bore flying is, but it wasn’t for me. Any experience is special the first time you do it.’
As Van looked down at her, for once she could read his mind. She was ninety-nine per cent certain he was wondering if she had made love yet.
‘It was extravagant of you to buy me a business-class ticket. Economy would have been fine.’
‘Economy flights can be hell. I wanted this trip to be fun for you all the way.’
He had come in his father’s car, a luxurious limousine which made the two-hour drive to the Carlisles’ house in Connecticut seem much shorter than in a smaller, less comfortable vehicle.
Accustomed to the aggressive behaviour of Paris motorists, Anny found Van’s style of driving soothingly laid-back. While his attention was on the road, she was able to indulge in a discreet but thorough study of him.
He was twenty-nine now to her nineteen and a half. The gap was narrowing. Wearing a dark blue blazer over a light blue shirt, open at the collar, with pale khaki chinos, he looked as if he had walked out of one of the ‘old money, gracious living’ ads in American glossies like Town and Country and the US edition of Vogue, which were read from cover to cover by the journalists on the magazine she worked for.
But he would have looked equally at home in the editorial pages of prestigious French and Italian magazines. Like other Americans she had met while working in Paris, he displayed his European heritage in his olive complexion and black hair. But whose genes had given him eyes as blue as the Madonna’s robes in old master paintings or the overalls of French workmen?
The pleasure she found in looking at him after a long separation made her forget not to gaze for too long. Suddenly, the freeway being clear, Van turned his head and caught her watching him.
A year ago she would have blushed and looked quickly away. Now she had the poise to smile and say, ‘Your shirt reminds me of a colour Duccio uses in his paintings. Fran’s boyfriend has upgraded his PC and given her the old one, so we now have a CD-ROM drive and can browse the world’s great art galleries.’
‘I can’t believe you spend many evenings sitting at home, holding hands with a mouse. Is Tom still in tow?’
‘He’s gone home and I’ve been too busy writing to gad about much. Just recently the most fantastic story fell right into my lap. It’s so good I think it could speed up my transfer to editorial. But before I tell you about it, how’s Project X going?’
‘We have a launch date now. All we need is some more investment. That’s not so easy to get. You’d be amazed at the number of top-level businessmen who have only the vaguest idea how the information superhighway is going to revolutionise the world in the next few decades.’
As he talked, with the fierce conviction that had long ago convinced Anny he would one day be up there with Gates in the panth
eon of men who had made major contributions to the information revolution, she wondered how much it would change him.
‘So far our major investor is Emily Lancaster.’
‘Who’s Emily Lancaster?’ asked Anny, visualising a rich American widow whose principal interest was increasing her late husband’s fortune.
‘She’s a software engineer, British by birth but raised over here. Her grandfather was the owner of Cranmere, one of England’s finest stately homes. Emily grew up under the aegis of James Gardiner. Does his name ring a bell?’
‘One of the kingpins in the computer industry, isn’t he?’
‘That’s right. Back in the early Eighties, Gardiner was known as “The Young Lion of Electronics”. He’s the brain behind Oz computers. He married Summer Roberts, the designer. They met when she was Emily’s tutor at Cranmere.’
The smile round his mouth as he spoke of her set off Anny’s mental alarm bells. But her tone was casual as she asked, ‘How old is she? Where did you meet her?’
‘At a computer convention. She’s about the same age as I am... with much the same views about the future of cyberspace.’
‘What is she like as a person?’
‘You’ll be meeting her at the wedding. She divides her time between Cranmere and an apartment in New York.’
Anny’s heart felt like a stone dropped from a bridge into fathoms of ice-cold water. Was this aristocratic Englishwoman with her computer expertise the one who would capture Van’s heart, perhaps had already captured it?
‘I’ll look forward to that,’ she said brightly. ‘But aren’t you at all nervous that she might accidentally leak your ideas to James Gardiner who has the funds to make use of them before you can?’
‘Gardiner doesn’t need to pirate other men’s brainchildren. He has plenty of his own. But anyway Emily isn’t privy to our secrets.’
‘If she doesn’t know what the project is, how have you persuaded her to invest in it?’
‘She knows me and believes I’m capable of the same kind of breakthrough her uncle achieved.’
She’s in love with you, Anny thought glumly. ‘Does she work for him?’ she asked.
‘No, she has her own company, Emel. Its most popular product is Dresscode, a database for clothes and accessories. It comes in several forms. There’s a complex version used by the costume departments of theatrical and ballet companies and a simple one to help women allocate their clothes budget, work out cost-per-wear and so on.’
‘Sounds a good idea.’
‘After you’ve met she’ll probably send you a copy. What’s this fantastic story you mentioned?’
‘I made friends with an old man in one of the other apartments. He called himself Aristide Dunois. Nobody knew his real name was Prince Guy Aristide Dunois de Guermantes and that during World War Two he was a Resistance fighter, one of the “people of the night” with a price on his head.’
‘Have you persuaded him to disclose his real identity?’
‘No, but he knew I was itching to become a staff journalist. When he died, a few weeks ago, he left me a trunk containing all his private papers, with a letter giving me permission to use them in any way I liked. He had a fascinating life before he fell on hard times. I’ve written a profile of him. It’s being considered now. I’m hoping that when I get back they’ll have decided to use it.’
‘Did you bring a copy with you? I’d like to read it.’
‘I’d rather you read it in print under my byline.’
‘What about illustrations? Will they be able to find old photographs of him?’
‘I’ve supplied some with the text. The trunk contained several albums. There’s one particularly good shot of him on a Côte d’Azur beach in 1924 when sunbathing was the in thing to do. He’s with a lot of other leading lights of the Twenties. He was terribly handsome.’
Van took his eyes off the road to give her a quizzical look. ‘It sounds as if you’ve fallen in love with your subject.’
‘I should think a lot of women loved him when he was young. But his dashing looks didn’t last into old age.’
‘Is there enough material for a biography?’ Van asked.
‘I hadn’t thought of that. I think there might be. But a book takes a lot more effort than an article. I’m not sure I could do it.’
‘Of course you could,’ Van said emphatically. ‘If the subject matter is there, it’s merely a question of disciplining yourself to write a few pages or so many words every day.’
‘Easier said than done, especially if I’m working flat out as a staff writer.’
‘You’ll have to cut down on your social life,’ was Van’s somewhat acid comment. ‘If dating is more important to you than getting ahead, so be it. But nothing worthwhile was ever achieved without sweat and sacrifice. It’s possible that when the profile comes out you’ll be approached by some publishers. The story of a blue-blooded war hero who died in obscurity has a lot of appeal. What about his love life?’
‘He had three wives...not because he was fickle but because they all died. His first wife was in his Resistance group. She got caught and sent to a concentration camp. His second wife died having a stillborn baby. His last love was a French actress, already incurably ill when he met her. They had less than a year together.’
‘Sounds to me as if the contents of that trunk could earn you a lot of money,’ said Van. ‘Get hold of some first-class biographies to see how it’s done before you start. I can lend you a couple of good ones.’
His confidence in her ability to cope with such an ambitious venture was warming.
With this new possibility opening up, the expectation of a step up the career ladder awaiting her return to Paris and, starting now, an exciting holiday in the company of the man she loved, she should have felt on top of the world.
As indeed she would have done had Van not told her about Emily Lancaster.
CHAPTER SIX
TWO days later, after breakfast on the morning of Kate’s wedding, Anny went up to her bedroom to change for the ceremony. It was being held in the Carlisle family mansion because Kate’s parents were dead.
While most people staying in the house were still in bed, florists had started transforming the living room, dining room and hall. Now a stylist from the best salon in Hartford had arrived to do the bride’s and several other ladies’ hair. Caterers were laying places for sixty people to sit down to a five-course luncheon at two long tables at right angles to the top table.
Anny felt overwhelmed by the luxurious standard of living Van’s relations enjoyed. She had known they were rich, but the reality of their riches was so different from the threadbare grandeur of the palazzo that she couldn’t quite adjust to it. Here there was nothing shabby. Even the antique furniture, although authentic period pieces, had had all trace of wear or damage removed by skilled restorers.
As she had declined the services of the stylist, preferring to do her hair herself, she went downstairs ahead of time, hoping to spend a quiet hour in Mr Carlisle’s library which he had shown her on the night of her arrival.
When she opened the door, expecting to find the room empty, a haven from the bustle going on elsewhere, Van and his father were there.
‘Oh...I’m sorry...I should have knocked...’
Before she could back out both men rose. ‘Don’t run away, my dear,’ said Mr Carlisle. ‘We were only passing the time. Allow me to say you look charming.’
‘Thank you.’
While his father was speaking, Van had come to where she was standing. He removed her hand from the doorknob, drawing her into the room and closing the door behind her.
‘I second that,’ he said, smiling down at her.
The wedding was informal with the men wearing lounge suits. As she had never seen him in a suit before, she was dazzled by Van’s masculine elegance in perfectly tailored lightweight grey worsted with a finely striped blue-on-white shirt and a silk tie the colour of lapis lazuli. A white carnation was tucked in
his buttonhole and a navy-spotted claret silk handkerchief overflowed his breast pocket. He looked every inch what the French called an homme du mond, meaning a man of the world with a special air of distinction.
‘I’ll go rustle up some coffee,’ said Mr Carlisle. ‘Failing that, it’s never too early for a glass of champagne.’ He left the room.
‘That dress is the essence of chic,’ said Van, still holding her hand and appraising her outfit as they moved towards the window with its view of immaculate lawns and well-tended borders.
‘It’s nice of you to say so, but I think all your female relations will recognise its humble origins. This is a mass-produced cheapie. It won’t compare very well with designer numbers.’
‘My male relations don’t know designer from thrift shop,’ Van said dryly. ‘They’ll be looking at the figures inside the dresses. You’ll be right out in front of the competition on that count.’
The compliment was accompanied by another appraisal, this time of the curves above and below her slim waist cinched by a wide shaped belt exactly matching the softly clinging grey chiffon, its colour matching her eyes.
He had not looked at her in this way since she modelled the dress he had said made her look like a mermaid. Then he lifted her hand and, instead of kissing it in the usual way, pressed his lips to the delicate skin over her pulse.
The intimate sensuality of the caress was as unexpected and unnerving as a seismic shock wave. A moment later it was over. He had released her hand and was waiting for her to sit down in the chair vacated by his father. Trying to maintain an appearance of composure while thrills were still running up her arm and her heart was behaving like a Geiger counter measuring maximum intensity, she sank into the deep leather chair.
‘So...what do you make of the American side of my family?’ he asked, relaxing in the other chair.
‘I feel a bit out of my depth,’ she admitted. If the touch of his lips on her wrist had such a shattering effect, what would happen if he kissed her on the mouth?
