[Fen Churche 02] - Night Train to Paris

by Fliss Chester

  ‘Oh to be young and beautiful, indeed.’ Fen flapped the newspaper open again and ignored James when he walked back into the room. He came and sat down on the saggy old armchair and nodded a hello to the ladies.

  ‘Captain Lancaster, good morning.’ Rose reached forward and pulled a cigarette out of the packet. ‘And to what do we own this pleasure?’

  ‘Just checking in. As asked.’ He put a certain emphasis on the final two words and Fen was shamed into lowering the newspaper and finally smiling at him properly.

  ‘Thank you, James. Did you find a hotel yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, all tickety-boo. Decent little place round the corner in fact. Close to that Deux Magots place you were speaking of, so, after a nap, which seemed to last most of the afternoon, I popped in there and shared a drink or two with some of the locals. Decent chaps.’

  ‘Good. I was worried about you,’ Fen smiled at him. ‘I’m glad you didn’t get lonely.’

  ‘Not at all. And Simone has offered to show me some more hotspots tonight, so, all in all, my trip to Paris is really looking up.’ He leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his hands together, obviously very pleased with himself. ‘So what’s the plan for today. Art galleries?’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Fen with enthusiasm, then raised an eyebrow at James and carried on, ‘if you think you’ll be interested? Rose has offered to take me to the Louvre. We can meet her friend Henri Renaud too and see if there’s anything we can do.’

  James looked puzzled, so with Rose’s nodded permission, Fen filled James in on her certain style of war work.

  ‘Blimey, Madame Coillard, bravo.’

  The older woman allowed herself a smirk. Then she sat upright and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Come, let’s not tarry here with war stories. What’s done is done. I need to get that list from Henri and you two can get some culture.’ She paused and looked at James purposefully. ‘I feel at least one of you will be greatly improved by some time in our wonderful national collection.’

  Fen stifled a chuckle. She was pretty sure James could take a joke, but she caught his eye just to check. Luckily, he looked more rabbit-in-headlamps than annoyed and Fen really wanted to snort out a laugh. Instead, she gabbled out something along the lines of going to get ready and slipped back into her bedroom to check her reflection and fetch her coat.

  Nine

  The short walk from the apartment to the famous Louvre art gallery took the three of them down the appropriately named Rue de Seine, a road that led towards the city’s great, wide river. As they neared the embankment, they passed the magnificent Institut de France, a building as ornate and embellished as anything you might see at Versailles.

  Fen wanted desperately to go and explore, or even just to linger and run her fingertips along the rough stone wall as it met the cast-iron railings, but Rose kept them on a short leash and soon they had circumnavigated the building and were finally crossing the river via the wooden slatted bridge known as the Pont des Arts. This simple bridge joined the quaysides between the great building of the Institut de France and that of the Palace of the Louvre.

  Once over the water, the three of them entered the art gallery through a nondescript side door, an intriguing thing in itself given the magnificence of the building, and Rose led them through corridors and doorways that would never usually be visited by mere tourists.

  ‘What a maze!’ Fen exclaimed at they climbed another staircase, having been up and down two already.

  ‘These would have been the suites and bedrooms when this was a palace in Louis XIV’s day,’ Rose explained. ‘Before he waltzed off to Versailles, that is.’

  ‘I never knew this was a proper palace,’ James was trying his best to make conversation.

  Rose shook her head in despair as she carried on at pace along the grand corridor. ‘Well, why did you think it was built? The clue is in the name, young man, Palais du Louvre! This is our equivalent to your Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘Except we let our royals keep their heads,’ James muttered, but luckily it seemed it was only Fen who heard, and mouthed a ‘how rude’ at him, much to his amusement.

  Finally they came to a stop outside a beautifully painted white-and-gold door. Rose turned the handle and called out as she entered, ‘Henri! C’est moi!’

  Fen and James held back until Rose called them in.

  ‘Come, come! Meet Henri Renaud, my partner in crime.’

  A bespectacled man, who had been sitting behind a large partner’s desk, was rising out of his seat as Rose pushed Fen and James forward to meet him. He was smaller than average, perhaps only as tall as Fen, and dwarfed by Rose with her magnificent pink turban. He was well-dressed and Fen guessed him to be in his mid-fifties, about the same age as Rose and her own parents. In fact, he had that sort of paternal look about him, and it saddened Fen to think that he’d lost his wife and child.

  ‘Partner in no such thing,’ he said warily, regarding the people in his office over the top of his spectacles. He shuffled the papers on his desk, and if Fen and James hadn’t been so stunned by the beauty of the palatial room, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, ornately gold-framed mirrors and shiny parquet flooring, they may have noticed him subtly turn those papers upside down so they couldn’t be read.

  ‘We are safe to talk openly, Henri.’ Rose collected herself and sat down in front of the large partner’s desk. For this visit, she had chosen to replace the turquoise velvet housecoat with a long patchwork overcoat, while the pink turban had been securely fixed in place with a feathered pin. She looked uniquely suited to the grand apartment that they now found themselves in, the rest of them so dull and under-dressed by comparison. She gestured for Henri to sit himself down again too and introduced Fen and James to him.

  ‘Ah, Fen Churche, like the station in London, yes?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur,’ Fen was gracious enough to say no more about the joke she’d heard a thousand times or more in her lifetime.

  ‘And Captain Lancaster. Enchanted to meet you both. Although I can’t think why Rose here would suggest we were doing anything criminal…’ He cocked his head to one side and looked at her, turning the accusation back to her. ‘Even in jest.’

  Rose held his gaze, Fen noticed, then laughed. ‘Henri, you take everything too literally.’ She spread her coat out around her and sat more comfortably in the chair.

  ‘I suppose I’m still too wary, even though the danger of being found out has passed,’ Henri said, noticing that Fen was looking at a small bronze statuette of a female reclining nude, which was on his desk. It was simply rendered, and not explicit in any way – angular, but elegant – she reminded Fen of Simone.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Fen murmured as Henri reached over and picked up the small figurine and handed it to her to look at properly. The bronze was heavy in Fen’s hands, its solidity at odds with the elegance of the sculpture. Fen could just about make out a signature on the flat underside of the piece but didn’t recognise the artist’s name.

  ‘She’s a degenerate,’ Henri said, shaking his head. ‘I mean that purely in the artistic sense. She is beautiful, you are right. It takes a good eye to see through labels and experience art for how it makes you feel. She’s been on my desk for several years now and is very dear to me.’

  Degenerate… Rose had used that word last night to describe the works of art sold by the Nazis to fund their war effort.

  Fen carefully placed the small statuette back down on the desk and smiled at Henri. It must have taken quite some bravery on his part to champion this artist while he carried on his work with the Germans, and she said as much to him.

  ‘Yes, I received a fair few comments, let’s say, from Müller and his goons,’ Henri sighed. ‘But I was only brought on board because I could see the value in artworks they would have otherwise assigned to the rubbish pile of history.’

  ‘Or worse, burned,’ Rose said. Then she flicked her hand in Fen and James’s direction and carried on, ‘Now, run along and enjoy the e
xhibits. Henri and I have work to discuss and you both need some culture. There’s a door to the main galleries at the end of this corridor. I’ll come and find you soon. Enjoy the Mona Lisa, though do remember the poor lady has been on her travels recently so might not look as dewy and fresh as she might.’

  Fen shook her head in amusement. ‘We will, Rose, adieu.’

  She and James took their leave of Henri too and left Rose and her partner – of whatever sort – to their business.

  ‘Culture for me then,’ James breathed out a sigh once they were standing in one of the main galleries.

  ‘She’s just teasing,’ Fen raised her eyebrows at him and he smiled. ‘Come on, let’s find da Vinci’s finest and check she really is all in one piece. Apparently she’s been in hiding everywhere from Chambord to Montauban before coming home to her palace.’

  The pair followed their noses to find the famous painting, but all the while, Fen noted how empty the gallery was. There certainly wasn’t as much on the walls or plinths as there had been the last time she’d been here, albeit that was probably in 1934, long before the Nazis decided they wanted most of the exhibits for themselves. There were some other tourists, however, or perhaps they were Parisians using the gallery as a good spot for a tryst. The thought reminded her of Simone’s offer to James and she asked him about it.

  ‘So where’s Simone taking you later?’

  ‘She mentioned some jazz café, I think, perhaps a bar or two. You should come, too.’

  ‘Oh, I… well, I’m not really up to it after, you know… I mean, I don’t want to intrude.’

  James gently touched Fen’s elbow and said, ‘Arthur would want you to start living again, you know.’

  The mention of her darling fiancé, now dead thanks to a Gestapo firing squad, brought tears to Fen’s eyes. She quickly rubbed them with the heels of her hands and smiled up at James, his kindness reminding her of how kind and patient Arthur had been too. Hadn’t it been Arthur who had asked her to look out for James? Perhaps, in his infinite wisdom, he’d asked James to look after her, too.

  ‘Thank you, James,’ she managed, while fishing around in her pocket for a handkerchief. ‘Perhaps I will.’

  ‘Good. I think it’s what Arthur would have wanted.’

  ‘You like her, don’t you?’ Fen asked James, as much to change the subject and give her eyes time to dry before they moved on from the Rubens they had been admiring.

  ‘She’s a classical depiction of the feminine form, but if you’re talking about Simone and not the painting, then yes, she’s quite a looker.’ James winked at her, making her laugh a little.

  ‘She was in the Resistance too,’ Fen told him, then added, ‘Brave and beautiful. The whole package.’

  This didn’t elicit as much agreement from James as Fen had expected and instead he gave a half-smile and wandered on to the next painting. Maybe he wasn’t looking for love after all and, like her, just wanted a friend to show him around Paris. That they could do it together was a comforting thought. If Arthur could never share her experiences of being here, then his best friend would have to do. And perhaps, if they went somewhere terribly à la mode, they might even get to try a Coca-Cola.

  Fen and James had just about taken in all the culture they could wish to when something caught Fen’s eye in one of the smaller galleries.

  ‘James, look here.’ She pointed at the small oil painting. It was a still life, its dark background a foil for the vase that was spilling over with colourful flowers, greenery, grasses and wheat fronds. Looking closer, there were bugs and insects hidden among the exotic blooms, butterflies and spiders, an alert lizard and a snail, leaving a delicate silver trail.

  ‘Very nice, if you like that sort of thing,’ James muttered, rather non-committally.

  ‘It’s not the merits of the painting I’m interested in,’ Fen replied, leaning forward across the stanchion rope to get a better look, ‘although those tulips are beautiful.’

  ‘Imported from Turkey apparently.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Tulips,’ James stated. ‘Everyone assumes they’re native to Holland, but the Dutch imported them from Turkey.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ said Fen, standing back again from the painting. ‘But not as interesting as the fact that there is an almost identical copy of this painting on my bedroom wall at Rose’s apartment. Down to that little snail and everything.’

  ‘Hmm,’ James took more of an interest in the exquisitely rendered Dutch still life. ‘Perhaps Madame Coillard was Le Faussaire after all?’

  Fen shook her head and elbowed him in the ribs.

  ‘Excuse me,’ a woman’s voice interrupted their play-fighting and Fen and James apologised and allowed her to look at the painting. ‘Any idea who it’s by?’ she asked them.

  Fen looked at her. She was probably in her late forties and dressed smartly, a fox fur slung over one shoulder and a natty hat set at an angle. So Parisienne. And too vain to wear her reading glasses, Fen thought to herself as she leaned in and read the small card that was attached to the wall next to the painting.

  ‘Ambrosias Bosschaert – 1573 to 1621.’

  ‘I see, thank you,’ the smartly dressed lady said and peered closer at the painting. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she muttered, ‘down to the ladybird and everything.’

  ‘Madame, do you have a copy of this painting?’ Fen recognised her own thoughts in the woman’s words.

  The woman stopped leaning and straightened her back. The fox’s legs swung to and fro as she walked off, having not answered Fen at all.

  Before James could venture their usual response to such behaviour, the familiar scent of ylang-ylang and tobacco alerted them to Rose’s presence.

  ‘Come, come!’ She waved at them from the other end of the vast, empty gallery space and her voice echoed through the air.

  ‘She’s not a shy, retiring flower, is she?’ James whispered out of one side of his lips to Fen as they got closer. For this, he received another elbow to the ribs.

  ‘Hurry, you two, we have work to do!’ Rose ushered them out of the gallery and into the fresh air, striding out before them so swiftly it left Fen no time to pose her question over the identical paintings.

  The day was a mild one for the time of year, and as they crossed the Pont des Arts back to the Left Bank of the Seine and towards Rose’s apartment, Fen noticed the many couples strolling around together, enjoying the crisp autumn weather. The leaves of the large lime trees were just starting to turn, their fruit dangling like large fluffy cherries. Fen had a pang of grief; she would have so loved to have brought Arthur here and walked arm in arm along the river, just passing the time of day, like those couples were doing.

  Rose hurried them both along. ‘No dawdling, my dears,’ she called back to them as she swept her way along the pavement like a ship in full sail.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ James stopped walking and rested his hands on his hips as the three of them were nearing the end of Rose’s road. ‘It’s just there’s a rather good-looking little café there and I might stop in for a bite to eat, if you don’t mind.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You’re more than welcome to join me. It is lunchtime after all.’

  When he said that, Fen became aware of her own rumbling stomach and looked towards Rose to see what she would say.

  Surprisingly, to both Fen and most likely James too, Rose did an about-turn and headed into the café. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But lunch is on you, Captain. And I’m hungry.’

  Ten

  The café was an utter delight. Fen tucked into an entrecôte steak, glistening with a herbed butter, while Rose lived up to her promise – or threat – of being exceptionally hungry and dug into a coq au vin that looked so rich and hearty, unlike anything Fen had seen in the days of deprivation throughout the war. James had joined her in having the steak, but she could see he was also wolfishly eyeing up the steaming pot of stew in front of the older woman.

  ‘You think I didn’t know
the best thing on the menu?’ Rose looked at them both with a definite twinkle in her eye. ‘I had to spend my ill-gotten gains from painting all those German officers on something.’

  ‘I’ll trust your recommendation next time,’ James said, and Fen nodded, though she couldn’t fault the juicy steak that was on the rarer side of medium. She remembered this style of cooking from her schooldays and her initial horror at seeing the bloodied juices seep out of a lightly cooked piece of red meat. She’d become not only accustomed to it, however, but realised now how much she’d missed it once they were back in England where the haut-est of cuisine had been boiled beef and cabbage in her college refectory. And then, with the outbreak of war and the years of rationing, this sort of luxury had been hard to come by at all, however it was cooked.

  ‘This is delicious,’ she murmured, in between mouthfuls, and wiped a piece of pan-fried potato around the garlicky juices on her plate. ‘Ma and Pa would be so jealous. Real French cooking!’

  ‘The best!’ Rose raised her wine glass – she had insisted on a carafe of the vin de table too – and clinked it with the others. ‘There was a silver lining to being occupied,’ Rose continued, ‘with the German army in town, they made sure that the restaurants had enough food. But it takes a local to know which cafés have true artists in the kitchen.’

  ‘I thought it had all been rather hard-going?’ Fen asked, before popping another piece of the succulent steak into her mouth.

  ‘Oh, it was and it wasn’t,’ Rose sighed and then took another sip. ‘Don’t get me wrong, the war was terrible and it destroyed many, many lives and businesses. But Paris was a bubbling crucible of opportunity, for some at least. I sold more paintings during the occupation than ever before. We,’ she gestured around the room and Fen took it to mean the whole of Paris, ‘were still the centre of the world’s art market and there were fortunes to be made. Still, thank the heavens, it’s over now.’