If Paul had sent her roses yesterday, Vera would have been able to tell what they meant to her, but today in the horror of Maud’s death and disgrace, Tanya showed no signs of caring.
Her aunt was reassured. ‘Well then. Go to sleep again. And take your tonic. What a blessing I never had daughters.’ She leaned forward over the bed so that Tanya could kiss her powdery cheek. ‘Well. Good girl.’ She strode off while Aunt Lila bent for her kiss too.
‘I am sorry I spoiled it for you, Aunt Lila.’
‘I do not think you can help it. And I do not like the taste of champagne.’ She straightened up. ‘That young man Allardyce is clever. He wrote a note with his flowers, addressed to us. He was afraid that we would not have had a chance to collect a souvenir because of your falling ill and sent a little box of them; it was prettily done. But Tanya, your father will not support you if you marry him, and you can have no idea of the misery it is to be poor. I escaped it because my sister was beautiful enough to make your father love her and allow her to help her family. I thank her in my prayers every day.’
Tanya had no idea that Lila had seen so much or guessed so well, but the mention of the misery of poverty made her think of Maud, not Paul, and she felt the useless tears gather in her eyes again. ‘Poor treasure,’ her aunt said again softly then Lila left the room in the purple wake of her sister.
When they had gone Tanya tried to sleep again but could not. Tried to write in her diary but could not. Sasha brought in Paul’s roses and she barely looked at them. She was nothing but miserable. An hour after her aunts had left the house to begin making their calls, Sasha let herself in. She began to tidy up a little, straighten out the silver and pearl hairbrushes on the dressing-table, but all the while she was shooting sidelong glances at Tanya until the girl could ignore them no longer. ‘What do you want, Sasha?’
‘A little farm, two pigs and some chickens. You?’
Tanya gave a half-laugh, picked up a clean handkerchief from the bedside-table and blew her nose. The first of her angry grief had settled into dull misery, and she gave her answers automatically. ‘Paint, canvas and a forest.’
‘You can sit on the porch of my farm, if you like.’
‘As long as I help feed the pigs.’
‘That’s right.’ It was a ritual exchange and it comforted her. Sasha sat beside her and put her arm around Tanya’s shoulders. The young woman leaned into her.
‘Maud Heighton is dead, Sasha.’
The servant crossed herself. ‘Lord have mercy on her! That nice English girl?’
‘Yes.’ They sat together in silence for a while and Tanya breathed in the scent of her old nurse’s blouse. Sasha received a small bottle of eau de cologne from Tanya’s father every year at Christmas and wore it, carefully rationed, every day. It made Tanya think of home. Eventually Sasha shifted.
‘Lord, you’re getting big. Thanks be to God. There’s a letter for you.’ She pulled it out of her blouse and handed it to her. It was slightly crumpled. Tanya wiped her eyes and opened it, but as soon as she saw it was addressed from Rue de Seine, she guessed it would be another account of Maud’s death and she pushed it back into the envelope. ‘And there’s a person waiting for you in the kitchen.’
Tanya looked up. ‘Who? Why didn’t you tell me? Did she bring the letter?’
‘A Frenchie. And no, she didn’t bring the letter. Says her name is Yvette. Has the manners of a street cat. She can hold on while we have a cuddle, can’t she? Anyway, I had to wait until Vera and Lila were well out of the way. Lord, they haven’t changed. Those two were just the same twenty years ago.’
Tanya scrambled out of the bed and reached for her dressing-gown. ‘Yvette from the studio? The model? Didn’t you recognise her?’
Sasha crossed her arms and sank her chin into her chest. ‘Models? How should I recognise her? I don’t like to look.’ But Tanya had already run out of the room.
Yvette was sitting in front of the fire with her feet up when Tanya came dashing into the kitchen. The cook was filling Yvette’s coffee bowl for her and the model held a half-devoured meat pie in her other hand. As Tanya came in, she swung her legs to the ground and stood up, swallowing her food and wiping the crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘At last!’ She gulped coffee from the bowl and gave a swift approving nod. ‘Have you got any money?’
‘What are you doing here? Why?’
‘I’m here to get money, because I need it.’
‘I’m not going to give you money for no reason!’
‘It’s not for no reason. I told you, I need it.’
‘Why do you need it, Yvette?’
‘Because I went on a spree over Christmas and I haven’t got any at the moment.’ Tanya stamped her foot and the cook found she had pressing business in the far corner of the room. ‘All right! Don’t fly at me! I can’t tell you because if I do, you’ll keep me here an hour, and I need to leave right now. But I swear, if you knew why, you’d be glad to give it to me.’ She crossed her arms over her chest and looked Tanya straight in the eye.
Tanya drew a deep breath. ‘How much do you need?’
‘Oh sweetheart, I could kiss you. Twenty francs should do it for now. You got it in silver?’
‘In my desk.’
‘Then go and fetch it, will you? Come on, get a move on!’
Tanya obeyed in a sort of daze and when she returned she found Yvette pacing in front of the fire. The purse was snatched from her hand.
‘Yvette, about Maud – have you heard?’
Yvette looked wary. ‘Heard what?’
‘That she stole a diamond tiara from Madame de Civray, then when the Morels found it she . . . threw herself into the river.’ Tanya’s voice broke over the last words.
Yvette looked stunned for a second, then thrust the purse into her pocket and swallowed more of the coffee. She was looking at the broad back of the cook.
‘That’s bad. Look, can you get away today? I’d like to talk to you.’
Tanya looked towards the cook as well. ‘I have to stay at home,’ she said clearly, while staring at Yvette with her wide, tear-reddened eyes.
‘Shame. If you could get away you might look in at the bar next to my office and ask for Daniel. He might give you an address nearby.’ Tanya nodded. ‘Take heart, princess.’ And then she was gone.
Two hours later, Tanya found herself standing on the doorstep of a rather shabby house on Impasse Guelma.
‘You brought your maid with you?’ Yvette was standing in front of her looking angry and dirty with a dusty apron tied over her dress.
When Tanya looked up from under the brim of her wide hat, Yvette noticed that her eyes and nose were still red. ‘I can’t go wandering around Paris without Sasha.’
‘But you sneaked out of the house!’
‘Still, Yvette, there are rules.’
Yvette looked as if she was about to give her opinion of the rules then stopped herself and tapped her foot. ‘Can she be trusted?’
‘Of course she can. Yvette, what is all this about? I don’t like going and asking for waiters by name in bars. If anyone had seen me – particularly when I’m supposed to be sick in bed . . . Is this your house?’
Yvette raised her eyebrows. ‘No, it is not my house – and if you don’t want to be noticed, have you thought of not wandering about in white satin with a maid, a chauffeur and a hat you could serve a roast boar on?’
Tanya touched the brim; it was loaded with wax cherries and feathers dyed green.
‘Oh,’ she said, and looked so surprised at the idea that Yvette laughed.
‘You are priceless sometimes, princess. Still, I’m glad you are here, maid and all. Get your driver to go and wait in Place Pigalle though before anyone notices, then come on in. But mind your skirts. I’ve been cleaning for hours and the place is still as filthy as all hell.’
Tanya gave Vladimir his instructions, then Yvette ushered her and Sasha into the hallway and pushed open a door
to the right of the uneven staircase. It led to a good-sized room, dim with shadows and dust. Broken bits of furniture were stacked against the walls, old packing cases and general detritus. In the corner, under the single window and next to a cane armchair was a single low bedstead. There was a girl lying on it under thin grey blankets. A wolfhound was stretched alongside her, one forepaw over the sleeping girl’s shoulder. Tanya took a step forward and the dog looked up.
‘It’s all right, Tanya. The dog is friendly. Go and see who it is,’ Yvette said softly.
Tanya felt a sudden lurch of hope and ran forward.
‘Maud! Oh, Maud!’
The sick room oil on canvas 64.8 × 76.3 cm
This beautiful and unusual picture was once thought to be the work of Maurice Utrillo. It shows part of the walls and ceiling of a room as seen, we assume, by a sick person lying in bed. A small window is just in view at the top right of frame, though the sky seen through it is uniform cream white, and at the bottom left, note what appears to be a handful of holly stuck into the top of a bottle. Note also, however, the multitude of colours used to make up the grey of the walls. A picture that seems so empty is, on close examination, shimmering with colour interest.
Extract from the catalogue notes to the exhibition ‘The Paris Winter: Anonymous Treasures from the de Civray Collection’, Southwark Picture Gallery, London, 2010
CHAPTER 3
Tanya collapsed into the chair by the bed and burst into tears. Every few seconds she would wipe her eyes so she could again convince herself that the girl in the bed was her lost friend, then start to cry again. Yvette put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, then moved away, biting the side of her thumb.
Sasha had followed them into the room. She closed the door and crossed herself on recognising Maud, then started examining the stove in the centre of the room. After a minute or two she opened it and began to work on the fire. Tanya managed to stop crying. Maud’s eyes had not opened and her breathing sounded uncomfortable, viscous. Her skin was bluish-white and her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat. Tanya touched her brow with the back of her hand and felt the heat of a high fever.
‘Oh, Yvette! I think she’s very ill.’
‘Yup.’
Yvette had settled into a beaten-up armchair at the other end of the bed, her legs hooked over one of the arms and swinging. Her mouth was a thin line and Tanya noticed for the first time how tired she looked. Sasha appeared to have finished work on the stove. It did seem to be giving off a more even heat now. She approached the sickbed as Yvette and the wolfhound both watched her suspiciously, and took Maud’s hand. The girl was sleeping very deeply, somewhere beyond sleep. Sasha said something to Tanya without looking at her.
‘She wants to know if a doctor’s seen her, and if so what he said.’
Yvette shifted in the chair, pulling her legs beneath her. ‘That’s where half your money went. He gave her a draught of something – laudanum, I think. Though, bless her, she didn’t like it much. Ended up with half of it down his shirtfront. He said to keep her warm, and try and get her to eat. Keep her quiet and wait it out. She’ll live or she won’t.’
Tanya blinked rapidly then spoke briefly in Russian. This provoked an angry-sounding stream of words from the maid. Yvette watched, amused in spite of herself as Tanya tried to interrupt, but she never got further than a syllable. Eventually the maid ran out of breath and put her hand out. Tanya meekly extracted some coins from her purse and handed them over. The maid tied her shawl over her grey hair and stalked out of the room.
‘You know, I think I like her,’ Yvette said at last. Tanya bent over Maud and brushed a strand of hair from her face.
‘Sasha doesn’t like doctors a great deal, but she knows how to look after the sick. She’ll cook up something foul-smelling on the stove and it’ll help. I hope. What happened, Yvette? The Countess told me she’d stolen the tiara . . . How did you find her?’
Yvette watched as Tanya carefully removed her hat and set it, after a microscopic hesitation, on the floor beside her chair. ‘I have no idea what happened. One of the river rats turned up at the party last night at the Bâteau-Lavoir looking for me. His father pulled Maud out of the river two nights ago and would have sent for the gendarmes straight away but she bribed them not to. Asked them to let her stay until she recovered.’
‘But why did she send for you?’
‘Because she didn’t recover, you ninny. She gave them the rest of her money to come and fetch me. At least, I suppose she did. I couldn’t find another penny on her. Anyway, the kid found me. I guess his people don’t like the cops much after all, so that might be another reason they bothered coming to me. So I went and found her.’
‘Was she awake?’
Yvette swung forward in her chair and put her head in her hands. ‘Not really. She recognised me and said some things, but the only bit I could understand was I must not take her back to Rue de Seine so I thought of this place. I spent all my coin on the cab to get us here. Miserable bastard, that cabbie was. Oh, I hate them, snooty self-satisfied lot.’ She stared angrily at the floor. ‘If I’d spent a bit less at New Year I could have got a doctor sooner.’
Tanya pulled up the blankets over Maud’s shoulder; the dog stirred and then settled again. ‘Sasha will help. God would not give her back to us then snatch her away again.’ Yvette looked unconvinced. She stood up and began to pace. ‘Do you think she did it? Stole that tiara, then threw herself in the river?’ Tanya asked. ‘The Countess said it was very valuable.’
‘I don’t know. I’d have laughed in your face if you suggested such a thing last week. I’ve been thinking about it every second since you told me. She’s frightened of something. So maybe she did take it, but . . .’
‘But what, Yvette?’
She put her arms out. ‘I don’t think she’s stupid, Tanya! If she wanted to steal from the Countess, there must have been a dozen little things lying around. Why take a bloody great tiara? Something impossible to sell, that would be missed? It’s the sort of thing a child would take if it wanted to dress up.’
Tanya nodded slowly. Her right hand went up to her earlobe, twisting the pearl she wore there. ‘But the temptation . . . being poor is difficult.’
Yvette shifted her weight to one hip and lifted her eyebrows. ‘Is it? It’s hard, is it?’
‘I mean for a girl like Maud . . . Oh, don’t look like that at me, Yvette. The Countess said she was a dope fiend.’
‘Rubbish. She’s been reading too many detective novels.’
‘No, she said Morel told her so! He said that Maud was addicted to opium and had been stealing his sister’s jewellery and selling it.’
Yvette paused, then shook her head. ‘Then I don’t believe a word of it. This stinks, Tanya.’ She turned on the Russian girl, suddenly triumphant. ‘She had money enough on her to bribe the bargemen. The kid said she had coins sewn into her skirt hem. That’s not what a dope fiend does. As soon as they have a franc, they spend it on what they need. They don’t spend hours at classes, or sketching when there’s some spare cash. Anyway, I’d have known if she smoked in any of the Paris dens.’ Her voice was bitter and tired.
‘How?’
There was a long pause while Yvette pulled at a loose thread on her cuff. ‘Because I would have seen her there. There aren’t many places to smoke in Paris, but I know them all.’
‘Oh, Yvette!’ Tanya said.
‘Don’t “oh Yvette” me. I’m not a fiend. Just sometimes . . . When you have a pipe in your hand you don’t have to worry about anything else, about growing old or having no money or a way out. You are just happy. And I don’t do it often. And Maud would never . . . I mean, look at her. She’s English!’
‘You’re right,’ Tanya said after a pause. ‘It does stink.’ Then her voice rose a little. ‘I just don’t understand what’s happened.’
‘Oh, give me strength! Will you stop saying that, princess? Who does?’
There was a long sile
nce. Tanya blushed and Yvette felt awkward and cruel.
‘Where are we?’ Tanya said quietly at last. The stove was crackling away now and, looking around, Tanya could see the work Yvette had been trying to do. The floor had been swept, though it was only bare boards and there were still piles of dust in the corners of the room. There were other stools and chairs against the walls. A table, its broken leg tied together with string, stood between the bed and the wall. There was a clean glass and water jug on it and behind them a vase improvised out of an empty wine bottle with sprigs of holly in it.
Yvette pushed the hair off her face. ‘A friend’s place. Suzanne Valadon has rented it as a bolt-hole now she’s left her fancy banker boyfriend for her new lover. I knew she’d never last long as a bourgeoise. She has the studio upstairs, but she’d no use for this room and wanted to sub-let it. That’s where the rest of your money has gone. Rent.’
‘We are safe here?’
Yvette nodded. Then: ‘There’s no way to know what happened to her until she wakes up. If she wakes up, the poor chicken.’
‘You like her, don’t you?’ Tanya said after a pause.
‘I do.’ Yvette sat back down again and sighed. ‘Most women in Paris seem only to think about being looked at. It makes me sick sometimes. She watches.’ Yvette stared up at the cracked grey plaster of the ceiling. ‘You think she’s just all bound up in herself, then she’ll say something and you realise she’s been listening.’
‘It’s your job to be looked at, Yvette.’
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