Headline

by Imogen Robertson

  ‘Dear Miss Koltsova, I am so sorry if I frightened you. I have been waiting here hoping for a moment of your time.’

  Her concerns for herself disappeared like smoke in the wind and at once her nervousness in the crowd became simple rage. She wanted to strike him. She wanted to beat him to the ground and shout murderer. She had a vision of this pressing crowd closing over him, kicking his worthless body on the slippery stone floor till he was rags and nothingness. He gestured to the little table thrust into the crowd where he had been sitting. There was the half-drunk coffee of the murderer, the folded copy of Le Matin the thief had been reading. She wished for a knife, for a gun, for the strength to pick up the table and smash his head in with it while the crowd cheered. ‘Might I ask you to join me? Just for one moment?’

  She managed to nod and he pulled out the other chair for her. His fingers brushed the back of her coat as he pushed it back in for her and it was all she could do not to turn round and spit in his face. The waiter hovered: no, Miss Koltsova required no refreshment but M. Morel would take another petit noir. He watched her while he waited for it to arrive. Tanya looked at the shoes of the men and women passing by. She could not kill him. She must be clever. He thought Maud dead, and he must not suspect otherwise. So Tanya should show not rage, but what? She thought hard of what she should be feeling as the low-laced boots of some idle Parisienne pivoted into the shop opposite. Grief and shame for her friend? With a sickening turn she realised she should be apologising to him, for helping to introduce a drug addict and thief into his home. She was already trembling – well, that would do for grief and shame. So much the better. His coffee arrived and he crossed his legs and sat back while he drank it. She glanced at him. So handsome and so respectable. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and touched it to her eyes, preparing her performance.

  ‘I cannot believe this has happened, Monsieur Morel. Poor Maud. I should have answered your sister’s letter.’ He could take it how he pleased; she could not manage more at first. He set down his coffee cup and nodded. He must be here to see if I believe them, she thought. Why? Because I am the one person who might ask questions, who might have known Maud well enough to see he is a murderous lying thief. Oh, why haven’t you gone away? Why aren’t you in hell? She lowered her face, then lifted it again and looked straight into his deep brown eyes. ‘I had no idea her case was so desperate. The mention of opium in your sister’s letter was a terrible shock. I am so sorry. I did not know her as well as I thought.’ She blinked rapidly.

  It was a tiny change in him, a slight relaxation in his shoulders, in the muscles of his face. The smallest disturbance on the surface of a pool fading and leaving it darkly smooth again.

  ‘I hope you do not blame yourself,’ he said. Tanya concentrated on her own hands. ‘Remember, we lived with Miss Heighton for some weeks and were thoroughly deceived.’

  ‘You are generous,’ she breathed, her mouth ashy.

  His voice was comfortable now. ‘I have sought you out for two reasons. The first is, I know Miss Heighton had relatives in England. She mentioned a brother? I can find no trace of their address in her belongings and Lafond does not have it; his correspondence to her was always addressed to the post office. Hiding her ambitions from the respectable lawyer brother, I suppose. I hoped you might know it. We must write to them, but perhaps it would be kinder to say she met with some accident, rather than reveal the full ugly story.’

  ‘Her family have a right to know the truth,’ Tanya replied quickly, then groaned inwardly – too fierce. ‘Don’t you think, sir?’

  ‘Even in such circumstances as these?’ He shook his head slowly, his smile indulgent. ‘No, Miss Koltsova, you have the proper convictions of your youth. But I think that at times it is kinder to lie. Why poison whatever memories they have of her?’ He sighed and was serious, stroking his black eyebrow with the tip of his index finger. ‘Paris, Paris. So beautiful, so full of traps. Even the most virtuous can find themselves . . . lost. Do you have the address?’

  ‘I do not.’ She tried to concentrate on the newspaper between them. The wife of a former Governor of the Bank of France had been found dead. MYSTERY OF A TRAGIC DEATH the headline read, then just below it: Was she assassinated? Tanya looked away quickly.

  ‘How unfortunate. I have left my address at the Académie, but I think my sister and I will be leaving Paris at the end of January for America. If no one comes in search of her before then . . .’

  The thought of Morel pawing his way through Maud’s possessions was repulsive. The headline kept pulling her back. Yes, she wanted to scream, yes, she was assassinated! She moistened her lower lip.

  ‘I have no plans to leave Paris until the summer,’ she said slowly. ‘If her brother comes, I would be willing to see him, and pass onto him anything you care to leave with me.’

  She could feel the gentle smile in his voice as he replied, ‘You are too kind.’

  ‘It is the least I could do in the circumstances.’ I want to tear you apart with my teeth. I shall buy a dog the size of a wolf, like Valadon’s, only with a warrior soul, and he will hunt you over the city, run after you until you are sweaty and desperate and screaming.

  ‘There are her painting materials, of course. And her sketchbooks. Her clothes we thought it best to give to the poor.’

  ‘Perhaps you will have the rest sent to me.’

  He smiled. ‘As it happens . . .’ he gestured to the floor under the marble table, and for the first time Tanya noticed a small suitcase sitting there. ‘I had hoped you might have the address and I could write my letter here and now. It has been difficult for my sister this last week or so, knowing these things were still there in her room.’

  A huge dog, with great powerful jaws to rip your lying throat from your body.

  ‘Naturally that would be uncomfortable for your sister, Monsieur Morel. I shall take them with me at once.’ Tanya stood and he did the same before picking up the case and handing it to her. She hesitated. ‘Madame de Civray? What did you say to persuade her to keep this affair quiet?’

  Morel gave a half-smile. ‘Oh, the dear Countess – she is as sentimental as every other American I have met. They are like children.’ He stroked his eyebrow again. ‘She was distressed indeed to hear of Miss Heighton’s fate. I am convinced the tiara means very little to her. She hardly looked at it, and the suggestion that the theft be suppressed was all her own.’

  ‘She is a good woman,’ Tanya said fiercely, then afraid she had been too emphatic, managed to smile. ‘I shall take proper care of these things, Monsieur Morel. Thank you for letting me take them.’

  He bowed and she walked out into the street and out of his sight before stopping on the pavement and lifting her face so the light rain could freshen her skin. Sasha lifted the umbrella over her head and waved to Vladimir.

  ‘Was that the man, pudding? Oh, I knew it! Oh, he looks like my cousin’s eldest – and a devil that boy is. Half the bastards in the village are his.’

  ‘What shall I say to Maud, Sasha? He wanted to write to her family, but he hasn’t the address.’

  ‘Tell her that then. And be grateful you haven’t worse news to share. Now are we going to that old tart’s place or not? I’ve more soup for Miss Maud.’

  Maud heard Tanya’s voice in the hallway, shouting up a greeting to whoever happened to be in the studio above. One of Valadon’s regular visitors was a crazed Italian. He came almost every day and Maud could often hear him, slightly muffled by the floorboards, declaiming Dante as he sat at Valadon’s feet while Maud lay drifting in and out of an uneasy sleep below them. The door was pushed open, and there was Tanya as bright as morning with her peasant maid trotting behind her and a fat bundle in her arms.

  ‘Dear! How are you this afternoon?’

  The maid began clucking round the stove at once as Tanya trotted up to the bed.

  ‘Better.’

  Tanya felt her forehead with the back of her hand and tutted. ‘But still not well. N
ot to worry, Sasha has driven half the French staff out of the house roasting bones and making all sorts of jellies. They taste horrid, but they’ve cured me every time I’ve been ill.’

  Maud managed to smile, but Tanya became serious. ‘Now, my love, I am not sure how to say this to you, so I am just going to talk very fast.’ She did, watching Maud’s face. Maud made no sound, so Tanya watched the colour in her cheeks, the white of her throat. Eventually she ran out of words and set the suitcase down on the floor. She could hear Maud’s breathing.

  ‘Perhaps I should have kept quiet. Should I put this out of sight?’ Maud nodded and Tanya crouched by the bed to slide the case underneath. There was nowhere else to hide it, after all. She remained crouching and put her hand on Maud’s arm, trying to read her expression.

  ‘I can’t bear that they should go on in the world, Tanya. I know what Valadon said, but I bet if they had done this to her . . . Why? Why should I run away?’

  Tanya nodded. ‘The whole time I was talking to him I was longing to shoot him through his black heart – if I could find it.’ She moved till she was sitting on the floor by the bed, her chin on her arm next to Maud’s face. ‘Perhaps if you shot him and we explained what happened, they would forgive you.’

  ‘I would like that.’ The two women were silent for a while. Sasha turned from the stove and sighed when she saw Tanya curled up on the floor. She decanted her soup and shuffled over with it. Tanya smiled when she saw the bowl. It was one of a grand dining set Vera Sergeyevna had brought from St Petersburg, stuffed in straw and only produced on the most splendid of occasions. Sasha had obviously taken a liking to Maud. Tanya wrinkled her nose when she smelled the soup, but Maud showed no sign of distaste and took the bowl carefully. Thinking about shooting Morel had calmed her a little.

  ‘How do you say thank you in Russian, Tanya?’

  ‘Spaceeba.’

  ‘Spaceeba, Sasha.’ The old maid blushed and she patted Maud on the shoulder before returning to a stool by the stove and rummaging around in her workbag for something to mend.

  Maud was just finishing her meal when Yvette came charging in, her hair and coat damp with rain. She kissed Sasha before dropping the coat over a chair and throwing herself down on the bed. ‘Urff, what a day. Rain and rain. And nowhere warm in this whole damn city. Let me share your blanket, Maud, there’s a dear. I’ve spent the morning freezing my tits off for Adler, then when he’s done for the day it’s all, “Sorry – I’m a bit short at the mo! Come back for the rest on Tuesday when I’ve sold my canvases!” Arsehole. No one’s going to buy his stuff for more than firewood. The canvas was worth more before he started daubing all over it.’

  Tanya tutted. ‘Why do you have to be so crude, Yvette?’

  The French girl shifted round to look at her. ‘Why do you have to be so prissy? You know I’ve got tits. Painted them often enough, yourself.’

  ‘It’s not ladylike!’

  ‘Ladylike? Oh, save it for the ballroom, princess! I thought all you ladies loved my dirty comments. It’s as close as you virgins can get to roughing it in Paris, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wish you’d stop calling me a princess. I’m not! And even if I were, it’s not my fault.’

  Maud put the soup bowl carefully aside and lay back down. ‘Oh stop it, both of you. Yvette, Tanya saw Morel today.’

  Yvette’s eyes widened and she gathered the blanket round her and burrowed across the bed so she was closer to Tanya. ‘No! Tell at once! That bastard. How did you keep from throttling him?’

  Tanya launched into her story at once while Yvette cooed and whistled. ‘Thank God he didn’t have your address, Maud. You think he was checking whether you believed them, Tanya?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Yvette reached forward to stroke Tanya’s cheek with her knuckles. ‘Clever girl. Oh, by the way, has Perov proposed?’

  Tanya picked up the pearls that hung around her neck and began running them through her fingers like a rosary. ‘Yes. On Saturday.’ Morel had driven the thoughts of Perov out of her mind. Now they came back, she could almost smell cigar smoke again.

  ‘And?’ Yvette said, her eyes wide.

  ‘I asked him to let me finish the spring classes at Lafond’s before I gave him an answer.’ The pearls were twisted so tightly around her fingers their tips turned pale and bloodless. In the quiet they could hear the rain beating in sudden squalls against the high window. ‘My father has written to me. He talks at great length about the advantages of the match.’

  ‘And Paul Allardyce?’ Maud said, shifting on her bed so she could see Tanya’s face.

  ‘He doesn’t ask me to choose. He just stands by and watches. I wish he’d just take me away. I’d go with him if he did, and I think he knows that – but he does nothing.’

  Yvette got more comfortable in the bed, making the springs groan. ‘How can he? Oh Tanya, we all know you love the poor man and don’t like the rich one much. How is waiting until Lafond’s spring classes are done supposed to change that?’

  Tanya scowled. ‘I don’t know. But something might happen.’

  ‘The horse might learn to talk . . .’

  She looked round at Yvette. ‘What does that mean? Paul said it, and I don’t know what it means.’

  Above them there was a muffled exchange of shouts and the sound of something being thrown across the room. They all looked upwards and waited for the drumroll of footsteps down the stairs and the front door to slam. Another of Valadon’s family dramas.

  Yvette put her arms over her head, stretching out her shoulders. ‘It’s a story. A man is about to be executed but he says to the King, “Don’t kill me. If you delay chopping my head off for a year, I’ll teach your horse to talk.” The King says, “Fine, go ahead,” and the man’s friend says, “What are you doing? What’s the point in that?” The man says, “A lot can happen in a year. I might die, the King might die. And who knows – the horse might learn to talk.”’

  Tanya frowned over this for some moments then said quietly, ‘Am I the horse?’

  Yvette laughed under her breath, then clambered off the bed and kissed Maud’s cheek. ‘Come on, Tanya, let’s leave Milady here to rest.’ Tanya got to her feet, still looking thoughtful, and they left their friend to the sound of the rain and what good sleep could do.

  CHAPTER 6

  Maud was woken by a peal of laughter from above. It was deep dark outside, and she lay still for a moment, wondering if she could get back to sleep again. Upstairs, someone had begun playing the flute. It was a strange, open song. Almost too subtle, too gentle, flowing on as if the rules of music meant nothing to it. The voices grew quiet. Maud swung her legs out of bed and lit her candle; match after match failed until she managed it. She remembered Sylvie’s shaking hands over the opium lamp, the feel of her skin as she took the matches from her. She tried to stand, bent over and still half-leaning on the bed. Her muscles were weak and complaining, as if they had forgotten the way to keep her upright. She waited, then stood straight in the shadows. It was a small victory but it felt like her first in a long time. The wooden floor was cool, almost soft under her bare feet.

  She knelt down carefully, leaning on the bed again as she did so, then reached beneath it till she touched the varnished wicker of the suitcase. She pulled it slowly towards her, unbuckled the leather strap and opened it. Her materials were all in their usual places; her sketchbooks just as she had left them. She looked at her hands, spread out the fingers then relaxed them again. It was almost two weeks since she had drawn anything, and her fingers felt stiff and old. It was the longest time she had gone without drawing since she was an infant.

  She undid the ribbon that held her palette to the inside of the upper lid; it tilted into her waiting hand and she saw tucked beneath it her oil sketches, one of Tanya and some from the atelier, and the painting of Sylvie, all where she had left them, pressed flat against the lining of the case. She laid them down to one side without looking at them, then pulled at the slippery
upper lining of the case with her fingernail until it came loose. There was her collection of fifty-franc notes, her savings from her time with the Morels. She stared at the notes in her hands as she had done on that first night, but rather than feeling rich, looking at them now she felt a tearing darkness in the middle of her chest. This was what she had cost.

  She put the money back in its hiding-place and was about to replace the oil sketches, but the portrait of Sylvie stared up at her and she could not put it away with the rest. All the while the flute continued to play, meandering, exploring the air. She placed the painting on the floor while she tucked away the others, then twisted round, her legs folded under her, to look at it properly. The candlelight gave it movement, as if the smoke of the pipe was still moving in the air. She reached forward and touched the line of Sylvie’s shoulder, feeling under her fingertips the texture of the paint. How had these things come back to her, found her among the dead?

  She closed her eyes and she could see Morel in her room, in black and white like a film, his movements jerky, bundling her few clothes up to send to the poor, burning the cards she’d left by her bed in the fireplace, leafing through the sketchbooks and wondering if they could be turned to his advantage, an opportunity to check that the story had taken.

  Maud opened her eyes and let her fingers brush Sylvie’s hair, half-pinned up. The interview with Sylvie and Morel on that last evening came back to her in all its details, the injustice of it, the cruelty. She tried to believe she had seen in Sylvie some softening or regret, but she could only think of her casual ease as she stepped over Maud’s body after she collapsed. For a moment Maud felt too sick to live. She was nothing, she had meant nothing, and she had not belonged in those comfortable rooms. She belonged nowhere. She bowed her head and listened to the slow flow of the flute then she clenched her fists. A sigh went shuddering through her, then she stood, staggered a little, set her jaw and found her balance. The wall of her cell was covered in drawing pins. Holding her painting by one corner she shuffled across the floor then pinned up the portrait where she could see it from the bed. As she turned away, the strange song of the flute ceased and there was a burst of applause, cheers and whistles. A man was calling for more wine, someone began to scrape at a violin.