The Dress Thief (26 page)

‘Where is Minuit?’
Javier demanded. ‘Zinaida,’ Javier beckoned at the slender Greek girl. ‘I must see Lune de Minuit dancing.’

‘I’m too short,’ Zinaida protested. ‘I’ll put my foot in the hem.’

‘
Mais oui
, I keep forgetting you are
petite, ma petite
. Who is as tall as Solange? Bah, such a temperamental girl. I am the temperamental one and there is not room for two. Send Nelly back.’ A dresser went, but returned
to say that Nelly was dressing for the afternoon show, already in her tailor-made and having her hat pinned on.

Alix was whispering with Paul when she felt a hand grip her arm. ‘You,’ said Javier. ‘Put on the dress. Can you dance?’

Paul answered for her, ‘I taught her. Of course she can.’ Before she could invent an excuse, Alix was whisked away behind a screen by a dresser. The girl chivvied
her out of her top clothes, saying, ‘If Minuit isn’t ready to show in the salon in fifteen minutes, Mlle Lilliane will cut off your ears.’

Alix shivered. Not from the cold, but because she’d witnessed the mousseline glory of the mannequins’ lingerie and was now exposed in her work-a-day brassière and knickers. The dresser held the gown open and Alix stepped into it.

‘Marcy, do up the hooks.
Heaven bless me,’ the dresser tutted, ‘You’re wearing tennis shoes – and you should be wearing a strapless brassière.’

‘Alix wears tennis shoes because she runs all day,’ Marcy said. ‘And I’ll push the brassière straps under the shoulders. Look … gone. She can borrow my shoes.’ Marcy stepped out of her low-heeled court shoes.

‘
Sockettes de fille!
’ the dresser exclaimed in disbelief at Alix’s
ankle socks.

‘Slip them off, Alix,’ Marcy ordered. ‘Bare legs won’t matter under the dress.’ She patted Alix on the hip. ‘You have a smaller waist than Solange.’

‘Don’t say that too loudly,’ the dresser muttered. ‘That cow takes everything as an insult. She’s always getting us into trouble. Right, Alix, go and dance. Damage that dress and I’ll have your hide for a handbag.’
As she melted into
Paul’s arms, it occurred to Alix that in the last two hours she’d been threatened with being thrown out of a window, ear-loss and flaying. If her audacity fell flat, at the very least she’d have to resign. Which might be no bad thing, though how she’d break the news to Paul …

‘Loosen up,’ Paul muttered. ‘It’s like dancing with a suitcase. I suppose this is all to show off the dress? So let the
dress show. Close your eyes and let me lead.’

Lucienne Boyer sang ‘Si petite’ and Alix tried to imagine she was at Sylvie le Gal’s school of modern dancing and they were exhibiting to an audience of rapt younger pupils. ‘Did you notice I left the Rose Noire early?’ she whispered.

‘Did I notice? When he found you’d gone, Serge Martel stood under the heaps of red rose petals and slowly turned
the same colour.’

‘That’s not making me relax.’

‘In the end, he laughed it off. Came over and treated us to champagne, introduced me to Solange’s friends because they wanted to dance with me.’

‘You wouldn’t dance with me. Why didn’t you ask me?’

A pause. ‘I think I waited long enough for you, Alix.’

‘I’m sorry.’ It was the only thing she could think to say. ‘This is Javier’s favourite dress,
so please help me not to dance like a suitcase.’

‘Then imagine you’re in love with me, that we’re under the
stars, the moon a milky sickle. I’ve brought you away on my ocean-going yacht to … to …’

‘Where?’

‘I can’t think. Whenever I think of water, I see the Seine or the St-Martin canal.’

The music finished and somebody – perhaps Simon Norbert, hoping to catch her out – switched to a record
of Carlos Gardel singing ‘Mi Buenos Aires Querido’. Alix and Paul veered into a tango. Alix forgot she was wearing thousands of francs’ worth of couture miracle and followed Paul in a sequence of sinuous turns, dips, kicks and flicks. She leaned backwards in his arms until she felt the velvet sheath pinch her waist. Rolled back up, spun, and heard the soft crack of fabric around her calves. Opening
her eyes, she found Paul gazing down at her, such fire in his gaze that the snap of their heads away from each other was a relief. The song slowed. They ended with a dip, Alix’s head thrown back, yielding throat and bosom. Paul righted her, still locked in an embrace, and asked, ‘Do I get paid for this?’

‘Course you do. Oh, Paul, listen.’

‘To what?’

‘The silence.’

It was then that Simon Norbert
chose to lift the gramophone arm with an unpleasant scrape. Marcy hustled Alix off behind the screen. ‘We need to get this dress off you five minutes ago.’

*

Paul was waiting for Alix in the studio, back in his baggy trousers and mariner’s jacket. ‘I’ve got a shift at the building site later, and if I don’t get some sleep first, I’ll die.’

Telling him to wait in the corridor, she approached
Javier, who stood at the window, so lost in thought it was half a minute before he noticed Alix or the package she was holding.

He took it. ‘And this is … ?’

‘Horsehair lace, Monsieur. My grandmother made it. The ladies of Alsace used to decorate their heads with it. This morning I had to go back up to our apartment and I found my grandmother staring at a picture we have of a girl with lace
butterfly wings on her head.’

Javier drew the weave through his fingers. ‘This is sometimes used in ball gowns and in the theatre … you are thinking …’

‘Oro. Feel how light it is. Yet stiff enough to bear weight. A glimpse of it beneath Oro’s flounces would be beautiful.’

‘And where would I get forty metres? And at what cost?’

Her heart dived. ‘From Alsace, I suppose.’ Then a thought raced
in. ‘From Fabrication Textile Mulhouse in Rue du Sentier. M. le Comte de Charembourg is a director of the firm, and he comes from Alsace. He’ll understand what you need.’

‘Ah, the comtesse’s husband. Well, well. I will send four horsemen galloping to the Sentier. Meanwhile, your young man is hopping from foot to foot.’

Alix hurried Paul out to the street where she said, ‘I’ll see
Mme Frankel
later about money. What d’you think? Were they impressed?’

‘Alix, I don’t know these people. The older man – is he Javier? – enjoyed himself, but the younger—’

‘Simon Norbert. He’s nobody.’

‘He certainly isn’t your friend.’

‘Who cares?’

Paul put his hands on Alix’s arms. ‘You can’t afford enemies. Who took you home last night?’

‘Just a man I know. I wanted to go anyway.’

Paul said, ‘Listen,
about me and Una … it just happened. She called one night, all done up in her furs. She walked on to the
Katrijn
like a Russian queen, bringing one bottle of chilled gin and one of martini.’

‘Always helps.’

‘I’m her fun. A way of punishing her husband. But I like her,’ he said defensively. ‘And she’s lent me more money. She sold some jewels and it means I can keep the girls at Aunt Gilberte’s.’

‘So Una can call when she pleases. No kids cluttering the ship.’

‘That’s not fair. Una’s a good person and, like she said, you didn’t want me, so why should it matter to you? And soon we’ll all be making money. How’s the musketeering?’

‘Shush, not here. Go home and get some sleep.’

As Paul strode away, a wine-red Peugeot pulled up. The driver got out, slamming his door in a yawning stretch.
On
cue, Solange emerged. Her hair hung loose and she was wearing one of the fitter’s smocks. Actually she did look unwell, pale and hollow-eyed. Alix didn’t want to be seen by her or by Serge. Not after the way she’d shown him up in his club. She was sidling towards the trade door when her name was shouted.

It was Paul, sprinting back towards her. ‘I forgot to change my shirt,’ he gasped, indicating
the frill at his neck.

Alix groaned. ‘How could you not notice?’ Solange and Serge were staring in her direction. ‘Simon Norbert will yell at me again.’

‘Nothing to what will happen to me if I go to a building site in a frilly shirt.’

‘Come on.’ They entered the trade entrance of Maison Javier. Serge tipped his hat as she went by. Nothing to hint that he was angry, but the length of his look
suggested a game in its early stages. He wasn’t done with her.

*

Mme Frankel was searching for Alix, having given her the task of dismantling all of Oro’s flounces again so they could be lined with horsehair lace. Javier had telephoned FTM and been told of a supplier in Mulhouse. Within half an hour, an order had been placed which would be sent to Paris by train. ‘When you’ve unpicked,’ Mme Frankel
said, ‘take the flounces to the pressing room with a fabric sample, so the women can test their irons first. And Alix?’

‘Madame?’

‘If you need a tablet for your monthly pains, go to the sanatorium. If anybody challenges your presence there, say you have my permission.’

After an hour spent unpicking gold dupion, Alix took Mme Frankel’s advice. The sanatorium was off the salon, being as much
for the benefit of clients as staff. It wasn’t unusual for ladies to faint after several hours’ fitting. The resident nurse insisted Alix sit on the edge of a bed while she checked her pulse and temperature and asked penetrating questions about boyfriends and ‘romance’. Alix realised the woman was probing to see if she was pregnant and answered that she was fine.

‘That’s good, dear,’ the nurse
replied. ‘You’d be surprised how many girlies aren’t, and I’m often the first person they can tell.’ She watched Alix down a glass of fizzing analgesic then said, ‘Early to bed with a cup of hot milk, what I advise during ladies’ week.’

Alix felt a giggle boiling up. She was still giggling as she came into the reception area where she’d waited with her basket the day of her interview. A man sat
there alone. A newspaper shielded his face but he must have heard her, because he lowered the sheet when she came near. It was the Comte de Charembourg. He stood, held out his hand and raised an eyebrow at her brown smock. ‘Why do they make you dress like a penitent?’

His palm felt dry and over-warm.

‘It protects the dresses …’ Then she threw politeness away. ‘Monsieur, you look ill.’

‘Old
ailments.’ He touched his lapel, near his heart, then kissed her cheek. ‘You, on the other hand …’ He trailed off and it dawned on Alix that he was nervous. Some reserve was understandable, considering what had happened to her after their last happy lunch date back in March, but he seemed almost afraid of her. Clearly, signing her name ‘Mathilda’ had struck home.

‘Thank you for my scissors,’
she said abruptly. They were hanging around her neck on a ribbon.

‘I hope I chose right. I guessed what kind would be most useful. They’re not too delicate?’

‘These are perfect. Monsieur—’ She said it just as he blurted out, ‘Alix—’

She indicated he should go first.

‘I’m so sorry you were frightened that awful day.’ He reached out to touch her hair. ‘It was a misunderstanding. A bill got lost—’

‘Monsieur, you were being blackmailed. The man told me.’

‘I see.’ He put his palm to his forehead, as if to quell a pain there. ‘Alix, I’m trying to protect you. It’s all I’ve ever tried to do, protect you and … and my daughters from harm. If I could tell you more, I would.’

Would you?
she wondered. ‘Did you pay up, Monsieur? Did you pay that disgusting man a million francs?’

‘Not that much,
heavens, no.’ He cleared his throat and turned his neck uncomfortably. Alix held his gaze until he
said, ‘I only paid half that. Whoever my blackmailer is, he has a practical streak. He believed me when I said I couldn’t raise one million, so we struck a deal. I can only pray that I’ve done enough. Now, forgive me, I must go and do my duty. Madame la Comtesse and my elder daughter are in there
somewhere.’

‘In the salon?’

‘In a fitting room. Javier is making Christine’s wedding gown.’

So Alix had heard. The comte’s wife had been a nightmare, reducing both the fitters and her daughter to tears. ‘Will your daughter welcome your opinion?’

‘Hmm. I think young ladies have a very particular use for their fathers. More to do with our wallets than our fashion sense. Don’t you think?’ Seeing
her reaction, he made a quick gesture. ‘I’m sorry. That was supremely tactless.’

She asked slowly, because she was suddenly afraid she would cry, ‘How could you of all people forget that I have no father?’

‘Alix, I meant … Forgive me.’

‘He saved your life.’

The comte made to leave, but she snatched his arm. Their eyes locked and both felt the impact. ‘That’s not true either then, that story
of my father walking between you and the guns?’

‘Would anybody lie about such a thing?’

‘They might, if they were trying to hide a shameful secret. What about my mother? When was the final time you saw her?’

He jerked. ‘Not here, Alix, please.’

She checked that they were still alone. ‘I know you met Mathilda many times. Bonnet said you were like a big brother to her and that you met later
during the war, when she was a young woman. And she fell … Bonnet hinted that she had feelings for you. Did you love her? Did you educate her, as you did me? No, actually don’t answer,’ she said, noting his ashen face. ‘Better silence than lies.’

‘Alix, I wish things were different. Believe me, falsehood is not my way.’

‘One last question.’ It came unbidden. ‘Do you know where my father is buried?’

No answer. The man she’d looked up to as friend and mentor was squirming. It was clear that the Comte de Charembourg had no idea where to find his ‘friend’ John Gower’s last resting place.

‘Monsieur, when you look at me, what do you see?’

‘You have no concept of “last question”, have you, Alix?’ He touched her shoulder in contrition. ‘What do I see when I look at you? When you smile, I see a
clean page. So, please, always smile for me.’