The Dress Thief (21 page)

Solange bathed her in contempt. ‘If you have to ask, you shouldn’t be there.’

*

That evening Paul enlightened her. ‘It’s in Pigalle.’ He turned the invitation
over. ‘Boulevard de Clichy, the worst end. “Rose Noire” – for God’s sake, sounds like the pox. It was closed down by the police for stolen liquor and I’ve heard bad stuff about the new owner.’

‘He’s obviously no cheapskate.’ Alix snatched the invitation back. ‘It’s hand-printed. It’s classy.’

They’d met by arrangement at their usual café near the Jardin du Luxembourg. The one where the owner
called them ‘love-birds’ and always brought them a brimming carafe. Paul said, ‘I’m glad you talked to Una.’

‘Who?’

‘Mme Shone. Well, Kilpin.’ Paul drew on his cigarette. ‘She lets me call her by her first name when we’re alone.’

‘How well do you know her?’

‘No interrogation, not today.’ He’d been up all last night with Suzy on his lap to help her breathe, he told her. She was better today.
Well enough for Francine to be trusted to look after her for an hour or two. So far Lala hadn’t succumbed to the croup. ‘We’ll get through this one, but next winter …’ Seeing Alix studying her invitation again, he added angrily, ‘Shall I tell you what I know about the Rose Noire’s owner?’

‘If you must.’

‘When he gets into fights, he doesn’t use a knife.’

‘That’s good.’

‘He uses his teeth.
Anyway, who’ll take you? It says, “and escort”. You can’t go alone.’

‘You?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Not the best time, Alix. Are you sure they’re not shipping in free girls? You know, dollar-a-dance? You could spend all night being groped in exchange for a glass of bad champagne.’ When Alix pushed out her lip, he said, ‘Don’t try that. Anyway, I haven’t got a suit.’

‘But, Paul, wouldn’t you like
to dance again on a proper floor. With me?’

Sorrow seeped into his eyes. ‘Course. Till I drop. But when I hear music, I see my mother. She’d been dancing for money the night she killed herself. The official report called her a prostitute.’

‘Well, it was wrong.’

‘Maybe. Some bastard roughed her up and took her money. Maybe she thought a plunge off a bridge would wash it away.’

Alix didn’t want
to imagine Sylvie le Gal fished out of the river a week after she’d drowned. She let Paul light her a cigarette and blew a smoke ring. ‘Your mother was the first person in Paris to treat me as a friend. She didn’t mock me because I could only fumble a waltz. She’d hold my hands and let me follow her feet till I was perfect.’

Paul blew his own ring that floated over hers. ‘She could teach an elephant
to tango in ten lessons.’

‘Hey, I took eleven.’

He smiled, though sadly. ‘I used to walk up Boulevard de Clichy some nights, looking for her. So I know what goes on in places like the Rose Noire, the people who hang around, what they’re selling. They whisper into your ear, then bite it off.’ Paul then brought the conversation back to its usual sticking place – her promise to steal.

Not a promise,
she objected. ‘Your Mme Kilpin – “Mme Shone”, for pity’s sake – she’s got more nerve than a cat burglar. Taking samples under the première’s nose.’

‘She wanted to give you a shock,’ Paul said, ‘and remind you why we got you the job. You
did
promise. On Place du Tertre you said you’d get the collections so long as nobody asked you to pretend it was moral. Nobody is asking. But the money’s waiting
and I need it. Stop holding out on me, Alix.’

*

The day after that conversation, Alix left Maison Javier thinking,
This morning I was innocent. Now I’m a criminal
.

She’d arrived at work at first light to find Javier and Mme Frankel working on the dress for the World’s Fair. From their rumpled appearances, they must have been there all night. The day before Javier had said, ‘I cannot keep wasting
muslin. How long – two weeks? – until I present this dress to the committee of the Pavillon d’Elégance? Mme Frankel, let us make our decision and lose no more time.’

Walking into the vast studio, Alix stopped dead, her mouth round. A wooden mannequin was decked in a ball dress of gold
dupion silk. More gold than Alix had ever seen in her life. A night shift must have been sewing while she slept.
She walked slowly around the figurine, assessing the gown’s tight waist, the voluptuous skirt that fell in graded flounces. It had a neckline out of a Renaissance painting, which would leave the arms bare. Javier’s dream was that this dress ‘should move like waves of molten gold’.

One look at Javier’s face this morning, Mme Frankel’s too, told Alix that the dream had got stuck.

They’d tried
underwiring the flounces, but that made the skirt stand out like a tent. Stiffening-cloth had allowed movement in one direction at a time, like a tolling bell. ‘So your job today, Alix, is to unpick all these flounces and line them with starched tulle. If that doesn’t work,’ the première said, ‘I’ll wrench out my hair and use that.’

Javier said, ‘The dress is called “Gold” in Spanish: “
Oro
”.’

‘
Burro
,’ Mme Frankel said. ‘Mule.’

Javier laughed and shouted for his personal maid. ‘Ana-Sofia, fresh coffee!’

As Alix got to work, Javier, Mme Frankel and assistants turned their attention to other works-in-progress. Having scrapped all the evening wear in his spring–summer collection because there’d been no time to complete it, the late-running mid-season line was to be just ball gowns. A
break from tradition and a commercial risk because of the cost and labour involved. But Javier relished breaking rules. Tradition was for dowagers and courtiers, he said.

Towards midday Mme Frankel straightened up and said, ‘Javier, I wish you’d plough your whims into your work, not into the schedules. Fourteen ball dresses will kill me.’

Javier looked up from inspecting a bolt of cloth that
had just been delivered. ‘Whims are the butterfly wings of creativity.’

Pauline Frankel snorted. ‘Then somebody hand me the fly swat.’

‘Madame needs more coffee,’ Javier announced to the room. ‘Everyone, ten minutes rest, come back inspired.’

This is it, Alix decided. The moment excuses run out. Smothering every qualm, she ran downstairs to the lavatories. Locking a door behind her, she took
off her shoe and retrieved some folded paper from the toe. This morning, she’d rolled a pencil to the back of the cistern. It was still there. Sitting on the lavatory seat, she sketched the dress she’d watched Mme Frankel working on all morning. It was easy enough. She’d already seen the working drawings – the front and back views – and she’d handled the fabric. Later, if she got the chance, she’d
snip off a sliver.

Next she sketched Oro, ears straining for footsteps. Nobody would have questioned her swift exit. After all, she’d been working without a break for five hours. But that didn’t stop her imagining the word ‘thief’ flashing over the lavatory door. Only the memory of Paul’s distress, his fears for Suzy, made her carry on.

When they broke for lunch at two – Javier’s days were always
off kilter – Alix dashed to her usual café for her staple of onion soup and bread. She bought
jetons
for the telephone and rang the number on Mme Kilpin’s card. A woman answered, announcing herself as Mme Kilpin’s maid. Alix hesitantly explained her business. The maid said she’d been expecting her call.

‘Mme Kilpin hopes you will come here to her home on Avenue Foch, this evening, so you can
discuss plans in detail.’ The maid gave the directions. ‘Come at seven. A taxi will take you away at eight as Madame has an engagement. Do not mention Madame’s name to anybody at your place of work, or at home.’

‘What about a fake beard and a big hat?’ Alix muttered as she hung up. It was starting, the theft. She felt sick.

It was 29
^th
April and tonight was the gala opening of the Rose Noire and she still hadn’t found a date. She did, however, have a dress, a breathtaking creation she ached to dance in.

As ordered, she’d gone to Avenue Foch after work the previous Friday. The black maid had spirited her up a backstairs into a small office that clearly doubled
as Mme Kilpin’s shoe room, as racks of blonde-coloured suede, kid and glacé leather lined the walls. Their meeting had been brisk, Una Kilpin doing most of the talking. Alix was to accumulate a portfolio of stolen designs, to be presented to an American associate of Mme Kilpin’s who would oversee their mass production. Alix must note every detail, as detail was key. ‘Get going and don’t get caught.’
Mme Kilpin then rang for the maid to escort Alix down to a waiting taxi. And that was it. Faster than having a tooth pulled and, actually, less painful.

Before she left, though, there’d been an unforgettable moment. When Alix had casually mentioned the Rose Noire – her lack of anything suitable to wear to its opening night – Mme
Kilpin had chuckled, ‘Poor Cinderella.’ Then, ‘Come with me.’

She’d taken Alix into her private suite, opening a door in what Alix had presumed to be a mirrored wall, revealing …

The eighth wonder of the world. Mme Kilpin’s evening-gown collection. Her hostess had then uttered the most magical words Alix had ever heard; ‘See if anything grabs your fancy, kiddo, but be quick. I have to go out.’

It had taken days for Alix’s heart to stop thumping. She’d been
on tenterhooks all today, desperate to leave work and have one last stab at persuading Paul to be her escort. Because without a male escort, going to the Rose Noire was out of the question. The ticking-away of the hours had been agonising. Then, having dropped her scissors for the fifth time, she’d been told to go home. She looked feverish, Mme Frankel said.

Alix hadn’t needed telling twice.
A brilliant idea had hit her: she would hire Paul an evening suit and pay Brandel, Mémé’s former charwoman, to mind Lala and Suzy for the night. Paul would have no excuse to say no. If he still objected, she’d shame him by saying that if she was thieving, he could at least take her dancing. Leaving the métro at Pont Marie, she ran to the Quai d’Anjou.

Only to find the
Katrijn
gone. Alix sank
down on a bench. This couldn’t be happening. Dancing to a jazz band in a rakish club had become an obsession. Which meant she had about five hours in which to find a man …

*

At the
News Monitor
offices on Rue Boccador, she learned that ‘Mr Haviland’ was on a working trip to Germany. Expected back tomorrow night at the earliest, the receptionist conceded when pressed. Alix was invited to leave
a note. She wrote a few lines, feeling utterly dispirited. Was it one shovel-full of pride she’d swallowed, or two, coming here to ask Verrian to be her date? Nothing for it now but to head back to the Quai d’Anjou, a journey that took two hours because of some unexplained train failure at Châtelet. Close to crying, she stumped over the Pont Marie and down the wharf stairs … and there, in her mooring,
was the
Katrijn
! Alix ran forward shouting, ‘Paul!’ so eagerly a fisherman on the wharf shushed her. So she threw a pebble at the cabin window.

She saw the flick of a curtain. ‘Paul, hurry up,’ she giggled. Francine was on her boat, watering her seedlings and grinning, all gums. ‘Give him a chance. He’s hauling on his trousers.’

Did that mean Paul was between shifts, and she’d woken him from
the depths of sleep? She’d go on board, Alix decided, and wait for him to stumble into the light. The gangplank was in place. A new gangplank, with batons for grip. Her terror of the old one must finally have got through to Paul. She’d thank him for it, even kiss him perhaps. But only after he’d agreed to take her to the Rose Noire. She thought guiltily of the letter she’d left for Verrian. Maybe
he wouldn’t get it in time – or at all. The girl on the reception desk had taken it very snottily.

She stepped down into a windowless galley kitchen lit by
an oil lamp, noticing that the draining board was strewn with the remains of lunch. Cheese rind, torn bread, olives. Perhaps Paul had taken the girls down the river for a picnic. But where were the girls?

‘Paul?’

She heard whispering. Then
the cabin door opened and Paul was there, naked to the hips, buckling the belt at his waist. She thought he blushed. She certainly did.

‘Alix – what are you doing here?’

She searched for the smile he always had for her, that always replaced fatigue. No smile. ‘I came earlier but you were away,’ she said, fear making her sharp. ‘Where were you?’

Before he could answer, a voice came from behind
the cabin door. ‘Honey, who is it?’ Then Alix saw hair the colour of wood shavings and a determined chin, which came to rest on Paul’s shoulder. A possessive hand curled round the muscular stomach. ‘Well met by oil light,’ said the apparition.

Alix gripped the front of her dress, bunching the fabric like a confused child. ‘Paul? Say something.’

Paul stared at the floor.

Mme Kilpin ducked under
his arm. She was wrapped in a bed cover, dishevelled and sated. Embarrassment was nowhere. ‘Alix, this boat is too small for catfights, if your thoughts were tending that way.’