Headline

by Imogen Robertson

  ‘Sylvie, do I understand rightly? You do not wish to continue with this attempt to abandon the drug?’

  ‘I cannot. It is too sudden. I was stupid.’

  ‘And your brother has no supply in the apartment? I will happily force a lock on his bureau and explain later what has happened.’

  Sylvie shook her head and sank further into the corner of the cab, closing her eyes. Maud thought of her father. When he was taken into hospital, the nurses had stopped him drinking. Maud’s step-mother stood by Maud at the grave staring fiercely at the earth as it covered the coffin, Albert’s little hand held tightly in her red fist. ‘It was the cutting off the drink that killed him. Seen it before when a drinker gets taken in by these religious types. So keen to do you good, they’ll kill you in a minute.’

  Maud put her hand on Sylvie’s knee and said quietly, ‘Can I fetch it for you? Do you know where I should go?’

  The girl did not look round or open her eyes, but Maud felt her shudder with relief. ‘Oh Maud, will you? Thank you. I am sorry to be so much trouble.’

  ‘I am happy to help you in any way, my dear.’

  Sylvie half-laughed, half-gasped and brought her hand to her face. ‘There is a little place in the Rue Croix des Petits Champs – it sells prints and ornaments from China. Ask the girl for “a box” – she’ll know what you mean. Just wait till you are the only customer there.’

  Maud didn’t ask her any more, letting her rest in the shadows while the cab danced and dodged along the streets. Once back inside the building, Sylvie straightened up as they passed the concierge’s door, but the effort came at a cost. Maud wondered if she would be able to get her to her room, but somehow they managed. In the safety of Sylvie’s bedroom, she helped her undress, and when Sylvie was in her shift, Maud pulled back the covers so the sick girl could crawl into her bed. Maud fetched water then opened her purse. Sylvie saw her.

  ‘Maud, no. Don’t use your own money.’ Sylvie rummaged in the single drawer of the bedside-table. ‘Here, take this. Please – I insist.’

  Rather than a coin or a note, Maud found she was holding a small brooch, a bar set with diamonds with a sapphire in the centre. ‘I’ve no paper money to hand. Pawn it, please. Rue des Blancs Manteaux. I never wear it.’

  Maud would have argued, but Sylvie had already turned away with a low groan. She decided she would do as she had been asked, pawn the jewel and buy the opium. The decision made her shiver with complicity. She was no longer the same as other women of her class and country. She dropped the brooch into her clasp bag and snapped it shut, then let herself out of the flat feeling like a woman of the world for the first time since she had come to Paris. The skies were growing dark and fat with rain.

  Shop Interior oil on canvas 152.4 × 182.9 cm

  A bravura riot of pure colour, but notice the presence of the shopkeeper in her dark tunic. She ignores the viewer, is a point of calm and control in the centre of this profusion of oriental luxury and excess. Chinese and Japanese art and artefacts were extremely fashionable throughout the Belle Époque and were a profound influence on artists from Manet to Pierre Bonnard.

  Extract from the catalogue notes to the exhibition ‘The Paris Winter: Anonymous Treasures from the de Civray Collection’, Southwark Picture Gallery, London, 2010

  CHAPTER 12

  The sense that she was doing something difficult and dangerous for someone she cared about made Maud brave. She went to the government pawnbroker’s shop prepared to meet any sort of insult or insolence but found in fact a clean and efficient office, and the people waiting with her did not seem desperate or ashamed. There were ladies in fashionable walking dress talking to each other with the same ease as if they had run into each other in the glove department in Printemps. Some men in worker’s overalls sat with bundles of clothing between their knees, but several of them were comfortable enough in their surroundings to lean back on the benches with their flat caps over their eyes and sleep until it was their turn to magically transform their property into a few coins.

  When Maud’s number was called, the man behind the desk greeted her with a polite smile. He examined the brooch through a jeweller’s loupe that left a crease in the skin below his eye when he removed it. He wrote for a few moments in a notebook and handed her one of the carbon copies, stamped and sealed, explaining that she should take it to the cashier. Then he put the brooch into a little labelled bag and shut it inside one of the drawers below his desk, wishing her a good day as he did so.

  The shop on the corner of Rue Croix des Petits Champs was very different. The air was perfumed with sandalwood and every available inch of space was crammed with fancy goods decorated in strong colours. The ceiling was hung with opened parasols, all painted with birds of paradise and trailing greenery, and the shelves were packed with bowls, some painted with blue dragons chasing their tails, others in vivid red and green cloisonné work. There were dozens of little figurines, dragons and lions in blue enamel seated on plinths and showing their teeth, half-open ivory fans and black lacquer boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl. A Chinese woman stood behind the counter at the back of the shop, her dark hair pulled back from her face and wearing a high-collared dark tunic. She was wrapping a scarlet bowl patterned with chrysanthemums for a gentleman with thick white whiskers. She used a great quantity of newspaper and chatted to him in fluent French while she worked. When the package was tied the gentleman left, touching the brim of his hat to Maud as he let himself out of the door, leaving the bell jangling behind him. The woman cleared away her paper and string and folded her hands, waiting till Maud approached.

  ‘I was told to ask for a box,’ Maud said, trying not to blush. The woman’s expression did not alter. She lifted her hand and with her palm flat indicated the shelves surrounding them. ‘There are many here, miss. Would you like one of these?’

  Maud shook her head but said nothing.

  ‘Very well.’ The woman slid from her stool and went into the back of the shop, returning a little later with a box the size of Maud’s clenched fist. It was decorated with a picture of a phoenix lifting its heavy body away from the dark brown of the wood. The woman named a price, about half what the pawn shop had given her for the brooch and Maud counted out the money. The phoenix disappeared into wrappings of newspaper and string, and though the woman did not chatter as she had done to the man with the white whiskers, she was perfectly calm and the pleasant smile never left her lips. Maud realised she had expected something sordid; that the shop would be dirty and half-empty – an obvious front for vice; that whoever served her would be skeletal and creeping. She looked back over her shoulder as she left. The shopkeeper had picked up some sewing from the basket beside her and did not look up. Maud hurried back towards the river and Rue de Seine through the courtyard of the Louvre feeling oddly diminished, the colours she had seen in the shop beating behind her eyes.

  Sylvie’s bedroom was large and rectangular with a polished brass bedstead draped in white linen, the twin of Maud’s own. The bedside-table was piled with cheap editions of English novels, the only books Maud had seen in the apartment other than the ones she had brought into it herself. The shutters were closed but letting in the last light of the afternoon through the slats. Two small armchairs upholstered in malachite green, embroidered with pale yellow and pink silk, sat in front of the fire. Sylvie must have heard the door to the apartment open, for she was sitting up on the edge of the bed with her dressing-gown on when Maud tapped and opened the door.

  ‘Did you get it?’

  Maud nodded and reached into her bag for the phoenix box, but Sylvie had already stood up and padded round to the other side of the bed, her bare feet making no more noise than a cat’s. She dropped to her knees and pulled a tray from under the pleated valance. The tray was narrow, perhaps eighteen inches long and richly enamelled in scarlet and a dark but powerful green; its geometric patterns were studded with white circles, each containing a Chinese character in black. Cloisonné work. On it was a
lamp with a glass chimney, the base decorated to match the tray, and to one side of it lay a pipe – a tube about the length of a conductor’s baton, but thicker, with a bowl in blue and white porcelain attached to its side which looked strangely like a door knob. The mouthpiece at the other end was ivory. On either side of the lamp were a number of small tools and boxes, all decorated with the same enamelwork. Maud was reminded of the luxurious dressing-cases for rich travellers that had occasionally passed through her father’s sale room. Every convenience at hand.

  ‘Fetch me a cushion,’ Sylvie said. She was trying to light the lamp, but one match after another failed.

  Maud placed the cushion beside her, put the phoenix box containing the drug on the tray and took the matches from Sylvie’s hand. She bent over the little lamp to light it and fitted the glass cover over it again while Sylvie twisted the lid off the wooden box, lifted it to her face and inhaled deeply. Something in Maud told her she had crossed a line in her life, that the act of lighting the lamp for Sylvie was one of great significance, but what that significance was, she could not say. She felt worldly and wise again after the challenges of her shopping excursion.

  Sylvie was lying down on the floor with the tray beside her. Maud curled her legs underneath her and watched while Sylvie pulled a twist of waxed paper from the box and teased it open. It held a dark brown, slightly oval ball which glistened in the lamplight. Maud watched fascinated as the girl prepared her pipe. A tiny morsel was separated from the greater mass of the ball then needled to the edge of the bowl and heated on the lamp. Sylvie then put her lips around the mouthpiece and inhaled; there was a slight fizz and crackle as the drug vaporised. Her body seemed to relax at once. She did not fall into a stupor, nor behave as if she had become instantly drunk; nor did she seem to see visions – all of which Maud had suspected might happen. There was just this loosening in her muscles and a slow cat-like smile.

  Almost immediately, she lifted herself onto her elbow once more to prepare another pipe and inhaled it in the same way. Maud could hear the faintest bubbling sound as she drew in the smoke. She then set the pipe down and looked at Maud. The tray in front of her, iridescent in the lamplight, was a burst of prime colour. In the outer glow of the flame Sylvie had become a spirit of greys and pale purple shadows: the lilac silk of her dressing-gown with its cream trimming of antique lace, the girl herself, her blond hair falling around her face and large grey eyes. Maud had left her sketchbook here when she had first put Sylvie to bed. She reached for it and drew the pencil out of the spine.

  ‘May I?’

  ‘If you wish, Maud.’

  She began to draw. It seemed no time at all before the knock at the door heralded the waiter and their evening meal.

  Sylvie oil on paper, mounted on canvas 69.2 × 64.7 cm

  A woman reclines in half-light with the paraphernalia of opium smoking laid out in front of her. This is a sensitive, intimate painting of what was seen at the time as a dangerous vice. The drapery around the room, the subject’s dressing-gown and even her skin seem to be painted in shades of smoke.

  Extract from the catalogue notes to the exhibition ‘The Paris Winter: Anonymous Treasures from the de Civray Collection’, Southwark Picture Gallery, London, 2010

  The weather was becoming more and more unpredictable, and inclined to turn viciously cold without warning. Sylvie said it was too chilly to sketch outdoors so instead took Maud driving through the Bois de Bologne in a hired car or on shopping trips in the grand department stores. Maud saw Sylvie smoking on one more occasion, when she asked if she could paint rather than sketch her. There had been some discussion at the Académie about the advantages of producing a work in a single sitting, and Maud was keen to experiment.

  They established themselves on the floor of Sylvie’s room, Maud pinning her oil sketching paper to a deal board to support it then choosing her tints, squeezing each onto the palette in abstemious amounts, attaching the little tin cup with its reservoir of linseed oil to its edge, setting out her hog-hair and sable brushes. As she did so, Sylvie prepared her tray with a similar satisfaction, and Maud was aware that the ritual was important to them both. Then each settled to their addiction.

  Time ceased to consist of one moment following another. Maud’s hand travelled with a will of its own; she felt as if she were hardly present. Her body was obeying its training to observe and record without intervention. Each tint she required she could mix at once, and the sensuality of the process took over her senses. Moving the brush along the paper was like brushing soft skin with her fingertips. The long lines of the picture appeared beneath the gentle pressure of her brush, the shape of the dusky shadows behind Sylvie, the pattern of light through the shutters . . . She painted for two hours then slowly put down her brush; it rattled with the others in the jar and it sounded like applause. Sylvie seemed to have fallen into a half-doze and Maud left her, to clean her palette and brushes before the evening meal arrived.

  Maud managed to persuade Sylvie to visit the Louvre once – but almost immediately, they ran into Francesca. Maud was very happy to see her out of the studio, and the two women began to talk about the painting in front of them for a few minutes until they realised that Sylvie had, rather pointedly, wandered away. It was clear she did not wish to be introduced. Maud did not know how to apologise for her.

  ‘She is not used to company,’ she said, rather awkwardly.

  Francesca rolled her eyes. ‘Tanya did say she was a bit of an odd fish. Beautiful, though.’

  ‘I should go after her.’

  ‘Of course, treasure. But you should also take my advice and get married. It’s so much easier to be dependent on a man for one’s bed and board. As long as my husband is fed and I tell him he’s a handsome devil once a week, he’s as good as a lamb. Now hurry along.’

  Every time Maud suggested going to one of the museums after that, Sylvie accused her of wanting to see her artist friends and of being bored with her company. During one of his brief appearances in the flat, Maud mentioned this to Morel. He nodded and chewed his lip. ‘I understand, Miss Heighton. Sylvie has never been fond of company or crowds. I can only say that your friendship and patience has improved her greatly. You would have to have seen the stupor in which she lived in the past to truly appreciate this. I only fear that our home will become tiresome to you. A healthy young woman like yourself should not be so confined.’

  Maud protested. ‘Please, Monsieur Morel! I am more than happy.’

  He did not seem to believe her. ‘I know what happened a few days ago, Miss Heighton. Sylvie would never have attempted to give up the drug without your example; even if that attempt failed, it gives me hope. But I must arrange some thank you fitting to your help for us. Let me think on it – a Christmas gift!’

  Maud slept badly that night. It was the first time she had not enjoyed a full night’s rest since she had arrived at Rue de Seine. She lay, uncomfortably awake, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, trying to account for it. She thought of the picture of Sylvie. She had stored it with her other sketches in oil in the lid of her painting box and she could feel it glowing there. The picture, and her ability to paint it, to bring it so close to what she saw in her own mind, excited her. It was a bold piece in the narrowness of its range of hues, shocking perhaps in its subject, but not vulgar the way she found some of Manet’s nudes vulgar. There was none of the flat, blatant invitation of Olympia, or the contrived nudity of the Académie’s bound Andromedas, fastened to a rock for the sea-beast or for the critics to examine the quality of her skin. Still, it was certainly true that the painting of Sylvie was sensual; frankly so.

  Maud turned over in her bed, echoing the pose of the painting, wondering what her brother and sister-in-law would say if they saw the picture. She had nothing to be ashamed of, she told herself. Nothing – so why this creeping sense of shame as if she had lost something? She had absorbed in her youth an idea of herself that could not, it seemed, include pawn shops and opium lamps. They put
her outside her class in a way that having a drunk as a father had not. He had never left the house without a collar and tie, and people would exchange a ‘Good day’ with him in the street though they crossed the road to avoid her step-mother.

  Maud wondered why it had been so important to her to stay in lodgings that could be thought respectable even when she was starving, why she paid the fees at Lafond’s to paint the nude with no men in the room. She felt as if she were on a tower of Notre Dame looking down like one of the gargoyles at herself – herself as she had been, spinning in little circles in her sensible black working dress, as confined in her movements as a child’s toy, when all around her, experiences and lives which she could not think of, could not admit to knowing, existed just out of sight.

  Feeling suddenly vertiginous, she opened her eyes, sat up to pour a glass of water and went with it to the window. The gaslights shone ghostly in the thick dark and although she could not see the river, she could sense it, the mass of water between the embankments, pushing itself towards the eventual relief of the open waters of the English Channel.

  Catching sight of herself in the glass, she toasted her reflection then set the glass down; as it clicked down she heard another click – of a latch in the hall. She stepped noiselessly across the floor in her bare feet and knelt down, peering through the keyhole like a butler in a peepshow film. Sylvie’s door opposite was ajar and the light fell across the corridor for a moment before it was blocked by the shadow of a man emerging from the room; he turned to say something in a low voice and Maud saw it was Morel. His shirt was untucked, his braces hanging down from his waist. He was laughing a little, showing his white teeth. Sylvie appeared beside him, her body hidden by the angle of the door. She put a hand to his face and reached up to kiss him, her lips pressing his face just by his mouth. The warmth of their affection gave Maud a pang of jealousy. She thought of her mother, and wondered if she would ever be loved like that again. They said something more, too softly for Maud to hear, then Morel turned towards his own room and Sylvie quietly shut the door behind him.