The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘I did? You’ll have to explain, old boy.’

  ‘You added a sentence implying that the Spanish government plunders churches to buy arms from Soviet Russia.’

  ‘As it does,’ Jack came back smoothly. ‘Spanish Republicans are Red to their bones. You can’t swing a cat in Madrid without knocking over a Comrade. They should expect the opposition to retaliate with a few bombing raids.’

  ‘And I suppose life on Fleet Street and weekends spent walking the dogs on the Sussex Downs makes you an expert in incendiary warfare?’ Jack’s emollient response of ‘Now, now,’ had the opposite effect to the one intended. The brakes came off Verrian’s anger. ‘I have spent ten months reporting from the Madrid front, striving to be neutral while being fired on and bombed, talking to the troops, eating with them, stepping over the dead. I was allowed on the battlefield because the Republicans trusted me. Trusted. By changing my report, adding that one line, you wrecked everything I built up! The government press department blamed their censorship people for those words, and one poor sod paid the price.’

  The ‘poor sod’ being Miguel Rojas Ibarra, a middle-ranker in the censorship building whom Verrian had befriended through a shared love of jazz and the writings of Cervantes. Verrian described Miguel’s punishment, ignoring Jack’s pleas to spare him such ghastly details so early in the day. ‘You will move heaven and earth to help him. Heaven and earth, Jack, or I’ll go back to Madrid and raise hell. I won’t let Miguel die of his injuries in jail.’

  Jack accused Verrian of being a damn fool, too emotionally embroiled. But he agreed to do what he could, and also promised to wire Verrian his unclaimed expenses so he could get to a decent hotel. ‘You’ll need a shave and a bath if you’ve been a fugitive for a week. Stay awhile in Paris, re-civilise yourself, and I’ll get back to you when, if, I have something to report. Now, there’s something you can do for me …’

  Verrian had a vague memory of agreeing to something, but he couldn’t recall what. He’d left the telephone receiver dangling as nausea swept over him. He remembered dragging himself upstairs to his room, using the banister rail like a lifeline. He’d dropped on to his bed, his skin feeling as if it had been set alight. Had he then dreamed someone had placed cold flannels on his forehead? Made him drink bitter liquid?

  He had no idea if Jack had tried to contact him while he lay sweating in bed, and if Miguel had been released. He must ring London and find out.

  A freight train leaving Gare du Nord made his lampshade swing and he made another decision. New lodgings. Grateful as he was to Laurentin, the hotel owner, he’d rather spend his enforced holiday in Paris in a room that didn’t shake. Unfortunately, it appeared he was trapped for the foreseeable future as he’d left his passport and press pass in Madrid. It would take time to renew them.

  Laurentin just shrugged when Verrian explained his decision to leave. ‘Try Butte de Montmartre, no trains there. Fancy a cognac while I write your bill? Lunch? Shall I lend you a shirt?’

  Verrian answered yes to lunch and the shirt and asked for a cigarette and permission to make an international call. As he dialled, another memory swam back. A female telephone operator talking to him about fog and vintage wine. She’d swung between superiority and giggles, and he had a feeling that in his haze of fever he’d asked her to marry him.

  It was an older female who connected him this time.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ were Jack’s first words to him. ‘You were expected at Rue Boccador days ago – a desk and office were made ready. The staff were all lined up, ready to shake your hand, and you didn’t show!’

  It took Verrian a few seconds to understand what his brother was telling him. The News Monitor’s French edition had its offices on Rue Boccador, not far from the Champs-Elysées. He must have agreed he’d write for the paper while he was in Paris in return for Jack’s help with Miguel, because Jack never gave anything for free. ‘Did you get my friend out of prison?’

  ‘I did. Your gratitude is taken as read.’

  Verrian slumped against the wall. Thank God I got something right. ‘I am grateful. Is he still in Spain – Miguel?’

  ‘Only if he has a death wish. He was given every opportunity to leave with his family. Now, let’s talk about you and your promise to be my political reporter in Paris.’

  ‘Listen, Jack—’ The line broke into the whooping atmospherics that often took over international calls. Verrian resisted the temptation to shout ‘Hello? Hello?’ and whack the handset as it never did any good, except to divert frustration. ‘Jack! Are you there?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘I’m going back to Spain, soon as I can. I’m a war reporter; I won’t fit in here.’

  Jack’s laughter sounded metallic, like something from a fairground slot machine. ‘You’re our new man in Paris, Verrian. You gave your word in exchange for your chum Miguel’s life—’ A click indicated the line was lost.

  *

  Verrian studied the bill Laurentin put next to his ashtray, counting up the days since his arrival. Good God – he’d been ill for almost two weeks. The last time he’d been on his back so long was at school, with diphtheria. Laurentin confirmed it.

  ‘You arrived in the early hours of 21st March. Lucky I stay open for the night-workers, hein? You had some breakfast, made a telephone call and fell down. I didn’t know what to do with you – you had no papers.’

  ‘I’m grateful you let me stay.’

  Laurentin used a napkin to smack crumbs off the table. ‘We had a conversation in French, but then suddenly you were talking Spanish. The local doctor speaks Spanish and said you were having a nightmare about burning to death. We decided it was malaria and gave you quinine. My waitress Marie mopped your brow.’

  Laurentin wedged open his door and began setting up tables on the pavement for the early lunch crowd. Spotting a newspaper on Verrian’s table, open at the report of the Durango bombing, he sighed. ‘You need a vacation for the soul. Enjoy the possibilities of Paris.’

  Friday, 2nd April

  Christine’s future mother-in-law, the Duchesse de Brioude, had arrived at Boulevard Racan after church on Easter Sunday and was to stay a little over a week. A pleasant woman, if rather overpowering, her coming had thrown Jean-Yves’s world into chaos.

  Rhona had hired extra staff for the occasion, who got under everyone’s feet. She’d filled the house with flowers that made them all sneeze. Discovering the Duchesse disliked small dogs, she shut Tosca and Figaro in the music room, where they howled incessantly. This morning Jean-Yves had taken her aside and said, ‘My dear, we have nothing much with which to impress the Duchesse, so how about we simply make her comfortable and welcome?’

  Rhona took this as a criticism and punished him with icy formality. So he retreated to his study, a move that also allowed him to stay close to the telephone. At least he didn’t have to keep sneaking to the front door in an attempt to intercept letters. Ferryman had taken on that job. Through necessity, Jean-Yves had confided something of the blackmail threat to his secretary, though by no means all. He’d explained that ‘an unpleasant individual’ was attempting to extract payment from him for a spurious bill. ‘Repairs to a clock that I never owned.’ It was a common fraud, he told Ferryman, to which men of his standing fell victim because petty criminals knew they’d pay to avoid embarrassment. ‘I’m telling you in case you should encounter this scoundrel. Don’t enter into conversation with him; just refer him to me. It goes without saying that the ladies must not be troubled with any unpleasantness.’

  Had Ferryman swallowed the story? The boy had made that bow Ninette so despised and murmured, ‘Very good, Monsieur.’ There had been no more telephone calls, and no more soiled letters. Perhaps the blackmailer had given up? Such men were often cowards, or lazy. Perhaps he’d slunk off in search of easier prey. So, for the first time in many days, Jean-Yves felt able to write letters and read the newspaper without constantly glancing at the telephone or feeling the need to che
ck who was walking along Boulevard Racan.

  His light spirits lasted until a quarter to twelve that day, when Rhona entered his room and reminded him that they were all taking lunch together at home and surely he wasn’t intending to sit down with the Duchesse in his lounging jacket?

  In London, where they’d lived most of their married life, Rhona had been brittle and worldly – but charming too. She’d been capable of humour and the house had been alive with bustle, piano music and laughter. But a new obsession with appearances had descended within days of their arrival in Paris. As she’d stepped out of the car at Boulevard Racan, a sort of defensive snobbery had settled on her. He’d first put it down to homesickness – a loss of the familiar – but he could no longer deny that Rhona had changed fundamentally. No more laughter, no more music. Her life was now all about out-Frenching the French: couture suits and Reboux hats, sending out cards to the correct set of ‘friends’, eating in chichi places and admiring the right kind of art. Even the dogs wore coats in each new season’s colour and went to a fashionable spa to be washed.

  Rhona had also changed towards him. He supposed she wished he was riding alongside her, correctly attired, as she assaulted the citadel. But interestingly enough, it was he who had become the more authentic Parisian …

  He had taken a mistress. Hélène was the wife of a Polish count who was absent most of the year, preferring Cannes to Paris. Hélène gave Jean-Yves all he needed sexually and intellectually, and left him alone in all other regards. They met three, four times a week.

  Rising from his desk, he told Rhona that the Savile Row suit he was wearing was quite adequate for lunch en famille – ‘But you look upset. What’s troubling you, my dear?’

  ‘There is a matter I’ve been trying to raise with you since last month. Don’t deny it, Jean-Yves, the minute I catch your eye you come and lock yourself in here.’

  He didn’t deny it. ‘You have me to yourself now. I’m listening.’

  ‘It was a Saturday morning … I don’t recall which Saturday, but I was at Maison Javier for a dress fitting and I saw somebody there – a scruffy girl with a basket.’

  ‘Had she wandered up the wrong staircase?’

  ‘I have no idea, Jean-Yves. One does not show curiosity about such people. My point is, I knew her. It was the creature you occasionally took out to dinner when we lived in London.’

  ‘How do you know?’ The words were out before he could stop them. He cleared his throat. ‘What I mean is, I took many people out to dine when we lived in London.’

  ‘Many young females … really?’

  ‘Of course not. One or two perhaps, daughters of friends who were stuck in town, that sort of thing. What is your point, Rhona?’

  ‘This creature – she’s different. She had the most penetrating expression. An appealing quality, like a starving spaniel. Ordinarily I would not lower myself to mention it, but things are different now. Until Christine is safely married, Jean-Yves, this family’s behaviour must remain above reproach. Who you meet, the places you are seen – they matter. People will make judgements about the family allying itself with the Duc de Brioude. Dalliances – or even dinners - with needy Jewesses simply will not do.’

  She turned her face from him, presenting a smooth cheek – her way of communicating that she’d said her piece and there was nothing further to discuss. Trembling with an anger that threatened to overwhelm him, Jean-Yves counted ten, twenty heartbeats. When he’d mastered himself, he told Rhona he’d booked dinner at Maxim’s for the Monday coming. ‘Philippe prefers dinners at home, but we should take him and Mme la Duchesse out on her last night, don’t you think? I’m giving you fair warning in case you need to have another dress made.’

  ‘By Monday?’ Realising he was being funny, she nodded. ‘As you’ve booked, we must go. I will inform the Duchesse.’

  As her heels snip-snapped away, Jean-Yves released a long breath. So, finally, Rhona had bumped into Alix. It must have been Alix – who else possessed eyes worthy of such a quarrel? But what could have brought Alix Gower to Maison Javier? And looking scruffy … though he doubted that. To Rhona, anything but couture that one’s maid had pressed that morning was scruffy. How did she know it was Alix when they’d never met? For he’d made damn sure of that. This new mystery usurped everything, even his blackmailer. When the desk telephone shrilled, he jumped like a salmon before snatching up the receiver. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Please may I speak to M. le Comte de Charembourg?’ A young voice, shy.

  ‘You are doing so.’

  ‘Monsieur, it’s me, Alix Gower.’

  ‘Alix?’ Was this a trick?

  ‘I … I hope I’m not troubling you and I’m sorry to call you at home, I know I shouldn’t, but I really want to speak to you. I – I have something to confess.’

  Chapter Nine

  On Saturday, 3rd April, carrying his worldly goods in a wooden vegetable box, Verrian Haviland rode the funicular up to the basilica of Sacré-Coeur on the Butte de Montmartre. Reading the directions supplied by the accommodation agency, he wandered into a square brimming with artists, tourists and those who must be locals, from the way they slouched on café chairs. He made an unhurried scan of the area: cobbles, peeling shutters, trees bouncing into leaf. Yes, Place du Tertre would do fine for now.

  His prospective landlady was called Mme Konstantiva, and the girl at the agency had told him that ‘long ago’ she’d danced with the Ballets Russes. So when a majestic woman opened the door to him, he addressed her in his best Russian, a language he’d picked up during an unpaid apprenticeship on a Moscow newspaper. The woman stepped back with a graceful gesture and invited him in.

  Verrian thanked her in Russian.

  ‘English or French, ducks, else find an interpreter. I’m as Russian as cod and chips. You can call me Rosa.’ She eyed the crate Verrian carried on his shoulder, with its label declaring ‘Quality Savoy cabbages’. ‘What are you then, the Archduke of Austria? Where’s your retinue?’

  She spoke English, so he answered the same. ‘Some way behind, carrying my robes of state.’ Because she kept staring at the crate, he added, ‘I’m not as poor as I look. Will a month’s rent in advance be acceptable?’

  ‘Whatever suits, ducks. Come on in. Watch the carpet – bit of a death trap. C’était la guerre. You’re a good-looking boy, ain’t you? Dark for an Englishman. What is it, Welsh?’

  ‘Cornish, on my mother’s side.’

  She took him upstairs and opened a door, saying, ‘You can have the double, since you’ll fall off the end of a single. I only let two rooms, and this is the biggest.’ The bedroom smelled faintly of cat and the last occupant’s hair cream. ‘View of the square at no extra charge and you can see Sacré-Coeur from the bathroom. You’ll be staying long, Mr … um … ?’

  ‘Haviland. A month, probably.’

  ‘Writer, are you?’

  ‘Of a kind.’

  ‘Thought so. Illegal for writers to shave properly, ain’t it?’

  He grinned. ‘No – merely discouraged.’

  ‘I’ll give you a gander at the facilities. Usual terms – you get your own key, you tiptoe inside after ten, twenty francs for a bath, no girls upstairs unless you can give me the names of all four grandparents. Fancy a cuppa?’

  ‘I could murder one.’

  *

  At home in St-Sulpice, Alix sat on her bed, sliding silk stockings over her knees. What to wear though? She’d screwed up every ounce of courage to telephone the Comte de Charembourg the previous day, and he’d been so kind, inviting her to lunch today, but he hadn’t said what style of place he was taking her to. Alix pushed open her window, testing the air. Warm, but not sunny. How very unhelpful.

  She reviewed her choices. One could not call her clothes a ‘wardrobe’; though this was supposed to be a furnished flat, the wardrobes had never arrived. Alix’s garments hung from a broom handle balanced on ratchets.

  She wished she had something in white linen, to
be worn with a little cashmere cardigan, but reality was that same pink cotton dress, forever blighted by the memory of fish and Mlle Lilliane. Her amethyst? No, the amethyst dress was too sexy for a man who’d known her as a small girl.

  She took down a shift dress of parchment-coloured crêpe and held it against herself. She’d sewn this in her last year at school, adapting it from a cover of Vogue. Miss Maguire, the needlework mistress, had doubted Alix could work without a pattern and was sniffy about French fashion, which she considered rather indecent. Alix had taken an entire term over the project, partly because Miss Maguire insisted, at a late stage, that sleeves be added. ‘One never goes bare-armed except in the evening, Alice.’ They called her Alice at school, finding ‘Alix’ too foreign.

  ‘Sleeves will spoil the line, Miss Maguire.’

  ‘Then make something else. I shall find you a Butterick pattern.’

  So Alix had added short sleeves. The dress, based on a design by the couturier Madeleine Vionnet, had suffered a final insult when, ahead of the fashion show the needlework class traditionally gave at the end of summer term, the headmistress had insisted Alix iron it.

  ‘It’s crêpe marocain, Miss Peachman,’ Alix protested, open-mouthed in the face of such philistine stupidity. ‘It’s meant to be crinkled. If I could show you Vionnet’s original, you’d understand.’

  ‘Press it, or it will be confiscated.’

  Poor dress, but it was the safest choice. Alix slipped it over her head, buckled on ankle-strap sandals. Her hair had long grown out of its school bob, and her current style was to brush it straight across the left side of her head and pin it so that curls fell over her right ear. Since seeing the American woman in Hermès, she’d begun to pluck her brows thinner. Checking herself in her dressing mirror she decided she no longer looked twenty-going-on-fifteen – thanks to Paris, she was growing into her true age. A dab of perfume, a straw hat, and just enough time to get clear of the flat before Mémé came back from the market.