The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Lutzman also failed to flower through drink?’

  ‘Nothing so dull, Haviland. Lutzman was murdered by—’

  ‘Mr Haviland?’ Beryl Theakston whispered round the open door. ‘He knows you’re here – Lord Calford. Please come down before he explodes.’

  *

  Lord Calford was chairman and majority shareholder of the Monitor, both London and Paris editions. A large man with a high colour, when angry he could reduce adult men to jelly. His first words to Verrian were, ‘What time d’you call this?’ followed by, ‘Chelsey’s out, you’re taking over as editor.’

  Sitting down at the boardroom table, Verrian said, ‘As you wish, Father. Good to see you, by the way.’

  And that was it, meeting over. Verrian managed a word with a furious Derek Chelsey and learned that today’s ruction was over an article in which the editor had described the British pavilion at the World’s Fair as, “Featureless as the inside of an Aspirin bottle.” It had gone on to state, “While other nations strike postures on peace and war, Britannia will show the world tennis rackets and country-house tea sets.”

  ‘I stand by every word,’ Chelsey thundered.

  ‘Good for you,’ Verrian answered. ‘See you here tomorrow.’

  Beryl Theakston tapped his arm as he flagged down a taxi. ‘Mr Haviland, a letter came for you earlier. Somebody left it at reception.’

  Verrian shoved it into his pocket without looking at it. His father was getting into the taxi with him.

  ‘Chelsey can stand by every word,’ Lord Calford roared, having instructed the driver to ignore whatever direction he’d just been given and go to Place Vendôme, to the Hôtel Polonaise. ‘I came to Paris to raise a hurrah for Britain’s exhibitors and I find the man sneering in my name. Damn swine.’ Lord Calford pulled out a cigar box and extracted a fat Havana, which he jabbed at Verrian. ‘What the hell were you doing in Hun country? Who said you could go? When did you last have your hair cut? Why must you look like a Spanish anarchist?’

  Verrian ignored the questions. ‘Chelsey wasn’t “sneering in your name”,’ he told his father. ‘You own half the paper’s shares but it isn’t yours. The minute it becomes so, it’s dead. That’s why you have men like Chelsey.’

  ‘I haven’t got Chelsey, have I?’ Lord Calford wrenched a gold cutter from his pocket and docked his cigar. He pierced the end with inquisitorial relish. ‘You’re Paris editor now.’

  ‘I won’t regurgitate your opinions either, so you’re no better off.’ Verrian laid his head against the back of the seat as his father ignited the Havana. ‘Drop me off at the next Métro station. I’ve had a long day.’

  ‘Your mother wants to see you – she’s at the Polonaise. I promised to bring you.’

  ‘Mother’s here? What’s she doing back so soon?’

  ‘Wasn’t happy with the outfit she got the other week, needs something distinct and only Paris will do.’

  ‘Something to wear to Jack and Moira’s wedding, perhaps?’

  Lord Calford narrowed his eyes at his son. ‘Glad you know about that. Damn Chelsey and his Aspirin bottle – frankly unpatriotic.’

  Somebody had once observed that, physically, the Havilands were ‘split down party lines’. Lord Calford, Jack and Lucy had seaside colouring, grey eyes and freckles. The sandy Havilands went pink when they drank or grew angry, and scorched at the first ray. Verrian shared his mother’s dark hair, Aegean eyes and skin that tanned. He’d often wondered if his failure to win his father’s love came down to pigmentation.

  At the Hôtel Polonaise, where Lord Calford kept two suites, Verrian’s mother pressed him to stay for dinner. He declined on the grounds that he had nothing to wear … only to discover that his mother had brought a trunk of his clothes with her.

  ‘Including your evening wear, dear.’

  ‘So that’s why you came back.’ He hugged her. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’

  ‘Until you have a wife, I shall bother.’

  By eight that evening he’d rediscovered the glory of a huge bath and inexhaustible hot water. He was in evening dress, in a lounge under pearly light, listening to a pianist play Chopin. The person he’d most like to share it with was not there.

  His mother came in and he stood to greet her. He knew her evening dress by heart – one of the designer Molyneux’s, green satin with a layer of beaded gauze. About seven years old. Since their last meeting, however, her hair had been brought up to date, cut and set in finger waves. He complimented her and she complimented him back.

  ‘Very handsome, dear. I’m sure you’ll get your hair cut soon.’

  ‘I’m sure I will, Mother.’

  ‘Yes, well. Lucy sends her love and says “apologies for her ghastly gob”. Where she gets such phrases …’

  Verrian ordered cocktails and let his mother talk. She told him of the Women’s Institute summer pageant, currently in rehearsal, the cook’s lumbago and a late frost that had nipped the buds on the apricots. He raised a hand.

  ‘Do not tell me about the Mother’s Union bring-and-buy sale. I don’t care and I don’t think you do.’

  ‘I shall when I’m back at Heronhurst. Your father tells me he appointed you Paris editor.’ She watched his face.

  ‘By tomorrow I won’t be.’

  ‘I wish you had more ambition,’ she said. ‘You, not Jack, are the true heir of Quentin Thomas Verrian.’ She always referred to her father by his full name, enunciating each syllable. ‘He founded the Monitor as a voice for liberal opinion, and only you grasp that. Even Jack says you’re one of the few writers who can explain socialism to Middle England without scaring the pants off them. I still own half my father’s shares and as I intend to leave them to you—’

  ‘Jack and I won’t work in harness,’ he interrupted. ‘He thinks I’m wrong about the right things, and I think the same of him. Nor will I work alongside the brother who swiped my fiancée while I was out of the country.’

  ‘I can see that. I’m afraid I was rather poisonous to Moira when they told me. But there … you’re not heartbroken?’

  ‘My heart is like a jobbing violinist’s tailcoat, worn to a thread and badly mended, but it’ll see me out.’

  ‘And your lodgings? Are you still on Montmartre, with that …’ Lady Calford cleared her throat, ‘Russian dancer?’

  ‘Who’s as gorblimey as a pearly queen.’ He explained, ‘Dancers adopt Russian names. It’s a creative tradition. She’s Connie Marshall from Bethnal Green, east London. Her mother did the laundry for a dancing establishment and took her into work one day. Mme Batavsky, a real Russian, took one look at her and cried, “Mary Mother of God, angel’s arms and legs like pipe cleaners!” and enrolled her in the baby class.’

  ‘Heavens. Does she still dance, this – er – Connie?’

  ‘She’s fifty-eight, Mother. These days she lives on her annuity and lets a couple of rooms.’

  Lady Calford looked profoundly relieved. Then, spotting Lord Calford coming through the entrance arch, she leaped to her feet. ‘Clarence, dear, where will you sit? Verrian, move up a little, your father doesn’t like sitting with his back to the door.’

  Nor should he, thought Verrian, since there were at least six former News Monitor editors who’d like to stab Lord Calford between the shoulder blades. Drawing on patience he hoped would sustain him through three courses, Verrian rose.

  *

  His mother retired after they had finished eating. Verrian also tried to make his excuses, but Lord Calford told him that he could jolly well spare his father an hour of his precious time, and ordered cognac. They recessed to the gentlemen’s lounge, his father smoking as he talked – about politics, the forthcoming World’s Fair, now ruined for Britain by bloody Chelsey; about the imminent marriage in France of the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII; about editors, weasels all, with the exception of Jack, of course. Jack had the Haviland mettle.

  Verrian resigned himself to a very late night. Conversation with his
father was like being rolled up in heavy carpet and left out in the sun. Struggling only made things worse.

  ‘Now – how much scandal did the Monitor print concerning that American adventuress Mrs Simpson and her appropriation of our king?’ Lord Calford demanded.

  When Verrian replied, ‘None that I know of,’ his father grunted triumphantly.

  ‘Exactly! And we handled the abdication crisis with unequalled discretion. Did your mother say – I received a letter from the prime minister, commending my patriotic restraint?’ Lord Calford sucked on his cigar. ‘We’re the Absolute Ticket, we Havilands, trustable with privy information. I wouldn’t rule out a viscountcy. Viscount Calford. Sound all right?’

  ‘As a younger son, I can hardly get excited.’ At some point in his life, Verrian had discovered a way of beating Lord Calford in a quarrel. Not sarcasm, not humour. A caressing brutality. ‘Here’s one for you, Father,’ he said. ‘Should I go to my usual café for breakfast tomorrow or make an early show in the editorial office with mop and bucket? It’ll be carnage without Derek Chelsey.’

  His father boiled up on cue. ‘Why can you never ask a damn simple question?’ He relit his cigar, having growled at it for going out. ‘I don’t understand you, never did. I offer you a suite here at the Polonaise and you trot back to some dormitory with bedbugs.’

  ‘There are no bugs chez Rosa and there were none at my last place. The patron there used to take a blowtorch to the bedsprings once a month. I only moved to get a quieter night’s sleep. Montmartre suits me.’

  ‘Crawling with artists and lefties,’ Lord Calford grunted. ‘I suppose you would feel at home. When you were twenty-two I offered you a prime job at the Monitor and you went off to Russia to scribble for a Bolshevist rag. People said you were a communist then and they say you’re one now.’

  Verrian picked up his glass, and cognac fumes warned of throbbing temples and persistent memories. ‘If we’re to understand the communist world, we have to see it from the inside, otherwise we’re just guessing.’

  His father swallowed smoke, blew it out. ‘Well, you’ve lost your chance of ever editing a decent British newspaper. Just as you lost your chance with Moira. Warned you not to neglect her.’

  Verrian shrugged. ‘She could have waited or joined me.’

  ‘Sir Chester Durslop’s daughter, hacking about Spain under fire?’

  ‘She’d have been in brave company. But it’s as well she didn’t because I fell in love with someone else. Enduring love, not the English drawing-room variety.’ Verrian gave his father a frank gaze and, when nothing came back, downed the rest of the fiery brandy. ‘I’ll send them a pair of china poodles and stay away from the wedding so they don’t have to blush. Now, excuse me, Father, I’m going home.’

  Lord Calford followed him into the hotel foyer. ‘I won’t stand for family rifts, d’you hear? And I won’t stand for you bringing a foreign tart home. Lucy saw you with some Jewess shop girl. Foist a gold-jangling Jezebel on us, I’ll bar every door against you.’ A cloud of smoke brought Lord Calford’s outrage straight into Verrian’s face.

  Verrian walked out.

  *

  Back at his lodging, throwing off his outdoor clothes, he saw a white corner protruding from the pocket of the jacket he’d slung over the shoulders of his evening wear. It was the letter Beryl had given him.

  Dear Mr Haviland, I have been sent an invitation to a new nightclub on April 29th, the Rose Noire, and wonder if you would like to attend as my escort? I hope you will not think this forward, but I know so few men in Paris. If you cannot or do not wish to, it doesn’t matter. Yours –

  ‘Oh, Alix,’ he groaned. Tonight was the twenty-ninth. He shouldn’t go. One, he was in his customary post-Calford mood. Two – he’d resolved to break off the friendship for both their sakes. And three, four, five and six. On the other hand –

  It was only midnight. His watch told him he had time to find the Rose Noire, and since he’d just spent an afternoon learning about her grandfather, seeing Alix was arguably duty, not pleasure.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The jazzmen swung their instruments, slicing through sound and light. Frazer Hoskins and his Smooth Envoys. Alix stroked her bare arm and thought, I want to dance. She looked at her three companions, all absorbed in the music. Won’t somebody ask me to dance?

  She’d thought getting here was all that mattered and was discovering it wasn’t. Having got Paul, she’d got Una too. And Gregory Kilpin, who hadn’t smiled once.

  Paul, what a transformation! The labourer had disappeared beneath a white tuxedo and black tie that Una had borrowed from her husband’s wardrobe, and Paul’s straw-coloured mop was greased to a dark honey. He’d been friendly to Alix in the taxi coming here, but that sense of being special, of being the single object of his gaze had gone.

  Please, Alix silently begged as she saw Paul lean over to light Una’s cigarette, somebody ask me to dance.

  ‘Frazer Hoskins should run an iron over his Smooth Envoys.’ Una’s hair rippled in the light as she blew smoke across the table. A silk-jersey Lucien Lelong dress was poured over her contours. Alix had assumed it was a Lelong original, until Una disabused her: ‘A copy, and so good even I forget it’s not the real thing.’ Una said now, her eyes on Paul, ‘I never heard swing played with violin and guitar.’

  ‘This is Paris.’ Paul touched Una’s wrist and Alix flinched at the intimacy. Had they forgotten Gregory Kilpin, sitting inches away? ‘In America they play the music of the soul.’ He pitched his voice over ‘Limehouse Blues’. ‘Here we have hot jazz played by gypsies. Every city finds its pulse.’

  ‘The bandleader’s from New Orleans, I’ll buy that.’ Una slanted her cigarette holder towards a sweating black trumpet player. ‘Maybe the horn section too, but the rest jumped ship at Toulouse, bet you a hundred.’

  ‘I hope that’s a joke, Una, or I’ll be reviewing your allowance.’

  Alix checked to see if Gregory Kilpin was joking. His mouth suggested not. Una’s husband had small darting eyes and rather unformed features, as if he’d melted a little. According to Una, he’d been born in a Glasgow slum – ‘A year ago he had a brick taken from that very slum and plated with gold,’ she’d confided.

  A waiter brought them champagne, slipping the bill into a leather folder at Kilpin’s elbow. ‘I suppose I’m paying for you pretty people tonight?’ Kilpin grunted.

  ‘Naturally,’ Una answered, ‘as you’re the only one here who owns a shipping line. Oh, listen, they’re playing “Autumn in New York”.’ She extended a hand and Paul escorted her on to the dance floor, Alix following with her eyes. Una danced languidly, and Paul led her with his usual ease.

  Gregory Kilpin bent towards Alix so his words reached her undiluted. ‘I know you’re something to do with this dress-exporting business. Just don’t think you’re going to scramble all over her like ivy.’

  Alix felt like saying, It’s the other way round, but Kilpin’s presence had a damping effect on her and she couldn’t bring herself to respond. Picking up her champagne, she let her focus melt. The band had upped their tempo to a faster swing, the horn section rising to play the eight-bar bridge. When they finished, they sat down behind their inlaid mother-of-pearl music stands and the drummer took up the rhythm. A guitarist joined in, then the clarinettist rose to his feet, eyes closed for an improvisation. Frazer Hoskins and his Smooth Envoys sounded wonderful to Alix.

  Looking about, she saw none of the dollar-a-dance girls Paul had feared. Nothing to suggest the Rose Noire was the haunt of anything but attractive, sophisticated people. Did Solange Antonin’s boyfriend really own this place? People often made things up … they gilded themselves, like Gregory Kilpin and his brick.

  Alix stroked the skirts of her dress. Her choice from Una’s wardrobe was another Lelong copy, this one a dark caramel. It left one shoulder bare, showing very little but revealing a great deal and she loved its feel. She could develop a taste for silk jersey, and for Lanson champ
agne, she decided.

  At a neighbouring table, six or more Javier mannequins sat with their escorts. One of them bent to pick up an evening bag and Alix saw Solange Antonin’s dark head resting on the shoulder of a man in a white tux. A moment later, they all stood up to dance. At the close of each season, most couture houses allowed their mannequins to keep one of the dresses they’d modelled, and Javier was no exception. Alix knew she’d have taken the one Solange wore tonight, with its glove-tight bodice and skirt made of a thousand tags of black organza, each with a single sequin. She watched Solange glide on to the dance floor, her partner leading. They slid into a foxtrot and Alix’s throat tightened with envy.

  Face it, she told herself, this evening was a misery. All she could see was other people enjoying themselves. She glanced up to see a tall man coming down the stairs and her heart stuttered. Verrian? He’d got her letter! She half rose as he walked towards a cocktail bar lit with coloured bulbs … then realised he was somebody else.

  A singer came to the microphone. ‘Can’t they find a white girl to sing?’ Kilpin muttered.

  Lenice Leflore was Creole, her black hair in a chignon fixed with a lily. When she sang ‘These Foolish Things’ with a slight catch, Alix’s pain intensified. ‘I need fresh air,’ she gasped, getting up without any idea where she was going. To the ladies’ room if she could find it. Then a hand fell on her arm and curled around her elbow. A teasing voice said, ‘Told you you’d end up the prettiest girl in Paris. Let’s dance.’

  *

  She blinked at the white tuxedo, a dark-red rose in the buttonhole. At a pair of smiling lips and light eyes that contained no fear of rebuff.

  ‘I can’t dance with you. You’re Solange’s –’ she tripped on the word lover – ‘friend.’

  ‘If you say so.’ His accent was difficult to place. A bit of Paris, a bit American. She looked around for Paul but saw Solange instead, the girl’s fists bunched. This was serious. Solange might have a hatpin in her evening bag. ‘I don’t pinch other girls’ men,’ Alix said firmly.