Early One Morning (3 page)

Sir William Orpen grunted to himself as he traced the line of Eve’s breast. Still not right. So hard to capture the complex shape, the muscles and fat and tendons, the way the right one rested on the rumpled sheets, the beautifully delineated curve running from her left armpit, the glorious blush of pink at the tip. He’d done her twenty, twenty-five times, and on each occasion he reached this stage where he was convinced he could no longer capture Eve’s beauty. He had to work through it. He always had before. Now she was no longer a teenager, it was getting harder. The unlined, guileless, still-pubescent body has been simple. In her late twenties, she was becoming more complex, more interesting, more of a challenge. More beautiful. He could see it in the new lust in the eyes of his friends, even if not in Mr Chaplin’s.

When he had taken Eve as a mistress at nineteen, his circle had just considered it the sad sign of an aging roué, and they treated her as a child. Now, though, they could see what Orpen had been feeding off all along, a luminescence, something ethereal that took your breath away. Now they were jealous. Some, he was sure, wondered how long before she grew bored of a fat, wheezy old man losing his teeth and hair, and moved on to someone else. Like themselves, perhaps.

‘Bill.’

He looked up from the canvas, across the squalid clutter of the studio, over empty champagne cases, discarded palettes, abandoned portraits, to the bed where Eve reclined in all her glory.

‘Bill.’

‘Shush.’

‘Bill, I am freezing.’

Orpen made a harrumphing sound. He had his overcoat on, and was sweating, but maybe she had a point. He’d put weight on these past three years, an extra layer of insulation. Perhaps too much. His small frame didn’t suit it, and his once chiseled face was beginning to soften and sag around the edges. But there was one noticeable benefit of keeping the studio cool. ‘As Orpsie always says—it makes y’nipples stand up.’

‘It’ll make them drop off unless you put some heating on.’

The phone made its ineffectual rattling sound at him and he snatched it from the cradle. ‘Hoi-hoi? Antoine. Yes. That ’25 Margaux you got me. Got any more? What do you mean? I drank it. Don’t be ridiculous. Lay it down, my arse. It’s for drinking, man, not mollycoddling.’ He watched Eve wrap the sheet around her. ‘Just get me two more cases, quick as you like. As you were, love.’

‘Not without a bit of warmth.’

Orpen considered this for a moment and finally yelled: ‘Williams,
Williams.
’

The door opened a fraction and he could see the top of his chauffeur/valet’s head. ‘Williams. Put some heat on in here, will you, there’s a good fellow? Oh, and bring me some more wine. Bit of cheese. You know the drill.’

The door closed again. Orpen heard the whoosh of the boiler and the gurgle of pipes. ‘Happy? Come on then, be like a furnace in here before long and your tits’ll go all droopy.’

Eve obligingly rearranged herself on the bed, and Orpen made some speedy adjustments to the line of her breasts on the canvas, rationalising that it was deliberation that was causing him to get it wrong. Go with the moment, the impression. Sure enough the fast lines began to capture her perfectly.

There was something slightly off, though. He had run out of the soft rosy red, the blush that Chenil in Chelsea did so well. Must get some more sent over, he thought. Stuff from Barbeux just not the same. He flopped off his stool and stood back to admire the likeness.

As if he had been waiting for the interval, like a patron late for a concert, Williams entered with a tray bearing bread, cheese, olives and red wine. He cleared a space on the paint-encrusted table and proceeded to ease the cork from the bottle, careful not to look at Eve. Orpen caught her playful smile as she spoke.

‘I’d like a glass, Williams.’

‘Yes, Miss. I brought two glasses.’

‘I’ll have it over here.’

Williams hesitated. He poured three big glugs into each goblet, glanced at the smirking Orpen, and crossed the minefield of a studio to the bed, keeping eye contact all the time. As he handed her the drink, Eve raised herself on one elbow and opened her legs slightly.

Williams couldn’t help it, his eyes flicking down to the blond tangle of hair. He felt himself redden, and heard Orpen guffaw. As he left Orpen shouted: ‘Careful, Williams, men have got lost in there,’ then ducked as an empty paint can whistled by his ear.

Williams turned around and looked at the ruddy-faced painter. ‘Don’t worry, sir, I’m like Theseus. Always carry a ball of twine.’ As he closed the door he heard an explosion of joy burst forth from his diminutive employer.

The following day Orpen was still wrapped in his dressing gown at midday, coughing and spluttering. Eve had donned a knee-length dress in
velours frappe
, the embossed velvet currently sprouting up across Paris shops, with simple black pointed-toe high heels. As always the face was scrubbed, devoid of any trace of powder or lipstick, and the only jewellery was a simple crucifix. While Williams stood mute in the corner she towered over Orpen, who seemed to be shrinking down into the winged armchair.

‘Come on, Bill. I promised Sylvie. She wants to meet a racing driver.’

‘Bloody stupid sport,’ he rumbled. ‘All that noise and smell. Eh, Williams?’ He looked over for support. ‘Oh, forgot. You like that kind of thing, don’t you?’

‘I shall take Sylvie myself,’ said Eve petulantly.

‘Off you go then. I’ll finish you off from my imagination. Should know what you look like naked by now I suppose.’

Eve thumped him on the arm and swept past Williams. Orpen looked balefully after her. ‘You’d better go, Williams, or she’ll try to drive the damn’ Rolls. Then we’ll all be in trouble.’

Thanks to Orpen’s vacillation, they were a good forty minutes late for the premier race at the Montlhery circuit. The grandstands of the banked track were full, most of Paris having turned out to see the last race of Robert Benoist, former world champion, before he took up a post as sales manager for Ettore Bugatti.

Williams was forced to park the Rolls in a field some considerable distance from the entrance, and worried as he felt the wheels of the giant vehicle slip and slide on the mixture of grass and mud that was the legacy of a long, wet winter.

When he finally switched off the engine, happy they were on solid enough ground to give him traction when it was time to leave, Eve opened the door, peered down at the ground and sniffed.

‘Williams. What is this?’

‘What, Miss?’

‘Where is the … car park? The Tarmacadam? The gravel. This is … this is mud.’

‘And I have white shoes.’ Sylvie was a willowy brunette with a high-pitched voice and a rather skittish, nervous manner. If she had been a horse Williams was certain she would have been a bolter.

Williams felt his boots squelch as he stepped down and looked at the flesh-coloured stockings the women were wearing. There was no doubt what contact with the field would do to them. He rolled up his sleeves and held out his arms.

‘All right, then. Who would like to go first? Miss?’

Having seen the two women to the VIP box, Williams had his boots polished by one of the gnarled old men—a ‘ruined face’ from the war—touting for business around the car parks then took to the tunnel and walked through to the central grassed reserve of the track. Passing through the damp concrete tube he could feel the vibrations from the cars above, and as he emerged the raucous noise assaulted his ears. Now he could smell the fumes, the stink of methanol and the acrid stench of burnt rubber. Twenty cars were out there, Talbots, Alfas, Maseratis and Bugattis, hammering around the oval track, engaged in a mechanical dance, positions swapping with each lap, some passing on the straight, others taking the dangerous ‘big lick’ around the banking at each end.

Williams shook hands with a few of the other chauffeurs, turned and surveyed the track once more. Down here, the noise was intense, amplified by the giant horns of concrete created by the banking, boxing their ears as the cars screeched and growled their way around the track.

Williams could not make much sense of the race. He sought out and found Robert Benoist, the man who should be out front, but unless he was behind a couple of very fast back markers, he was trailing.

Williams borrowed a pair of binoculars and scanned the crowd. Eventually he found Eve and her friend Sylvie over by the finish line, in the cordoned-off area where champagne and canapés were getting more attention than what was happening out on the track. To the people in the VIP enclosure, motor racing was just another backdrop to the social calendar—it could be horses, shooting, opera, the scenes changing as if it were theatre. The two women were attracting a coterie of admirers, emboldened by the absence of Orpen who, he was under strict instructions not to reveal, was actually suffering from gout, rather than a hangover. Williams spent a few seconds studying Eve, and switched back to the track and his struggling hero.

Robert Benoist was a great driver but clearly in decline. A former world champion, a World War One fighter ace at the age of twenty, a man with as many mistresses as cars—and he had a lot of cars—he was manfully struggling with his Delage. The company were about to withdraw from racing—like so many other small outfits, the economic situation was forcing them to retrench. So both man and machine were bowing out, but not as gracefully as they would have liked.

Williams removed his cap, pushed back his oiled hair and repositioned the binoculars. As he did so he thought he saw something. Benoist seemed to be on fire.

Robert Benoist was convinced he was on fire. Smoke was drifting up through the cockpit to his nostrils. At the moment it was rubber and canvas, but he could tell from the pains shooting across the soles of his feet that flesh would be next. He tried to lift them away from the glowing metal of the footwell, but the revs dropped alarmingly. He had always complained about the heat from the exhaust that ran along the outside close to his shoulder, but that was nothing compared to this. Someone had come up with the bright idea of lowering the driving position to enable the car to be more streamlined. Now he was virtually driving with his feet on the engine block. As he neared the pit entrance he yanked the wheel to enter.

As he skidded to a halt at his station, mechanics surged forward to begin refuelling and Robert leapt out and signalled to his brother. ‘Maurice. Here. Now!’

Maurice was recounting his tales of Verdun, and the heroic story of how he got his limp, to the exquisite Annie Dubrey, and was slightly irritated by this interruption. Then he noticed that Robert’s feet were smouldering.

Maurice held up his palm to Annie to show he would continue his heartbreaking exposition shortly and ran down, exaggerating his disability as he went. ‘Your hat.’ Maurice hesitated. Robert had a perfectly good white racing helmet on. Why should he want his prize felt trilby with the silk petersham band?

Robert snatched it from his head, ran to the water barrel and plunged it in. ‘Robert. It’s new, damn it,’ whined Maurice.

Robert climbed back in and placed the limp hat over the accelerator pedal. ‘I’ll buy you ten, brother.’ He roared away, savouring the temporary sense of cold bleeding through the ruined tread of his racing boots. All he had to do now was keep off the glowing brake pedal.

Williams watched Benoist wiggle out of the pits, lunging with the power full on, giving him a back end dangerously close to breaking away and spinning him. He felt a little prickle at the back of his neck. Maybe he’s not such a slow old man after all. For twenty minutes he watched Benoist reel in the rest of the pack, until he swept past the leader in a big arc, right up the banking, his outside wheels threatening to grab nothing but air, before he swooped down and almost removed his opponent’s radiator.

Williams looked up at the VIP enclosure, to where Sylvie and Eve were clearly leaving, not even waiting for Benoist to take the flag for the final time. Reluctantly he pulled himself away and headed for the car park.

As the chequered flag flashed by in a blur Robert Benoist felt himself deflate, his bones turn to rubber, and he had to fight to stop himself slumping over the wheel. Finished. Over. Getting out on a high note, that’s what he liked. Or at least, that is what he had convinced himself.

He raised an arm in salute as sections of the crowd began to stand and applaud, more for the last decade, he knew, than any performance over the last hour or two. Robert pulled over into the pits, holding out his hands to try to keep the well-wishers back. A few camera bulbs detonated and he tried to remember to smile with his mouth closed—oil-specked dirty teeth looked so unattractive in the newspaper.

He took off his helmet and goggles and searched the faces for his brother. And there he was, behind one of the new hand-held cine cameras, his precious toy, making hand signals, as if he expected Robert to dance.

‘Maurice, turn that damned thing off, come over here.’

Maurice limped to his side, the signal for others to press in, thrusting programmes for Robert to sign, photographs, scraps of paper.

‘Sorry about your hat.’

Robert reached down and brought up a few crispy strands of felt, stiff like over-cooked bacon. He wondered how his feet had held up, but was frightened to look. They felt as if they had been flayed and then toasted.

‘Ettore Bugatti has organised a welcome-to-the-firm dinner for you. But you may want to make your excuses.’

‘Why would I want to do that?’

Maurice whispered in his ear. ‘Your friend Françoise has come from Nantes. She wants to see you.’

Robert laughed. Maurice knew he would have to take his wife to any dinner, if only for appearance’s sake. ‘Where is she?’

‘At the Hotel Plasse.’

Robert paused to sign a few more souvenirs, desperate for a drink and a bath. ‘Can you get a message to her?’

‘Of course.’

‘Tell her to wait up for me. I am sure I shall need an early night after all this exertion.’

Before Maurice could answer a snapper barged his way through. ‘Gentlemen, could I get a picture of both of you? For
Paris Life
? The retiring driver and his younger brother.’