The Dress Thief (56 page)

One hour. Celestia arrived with the children, dressed in their best. Pepe’s hair was oiled, Lala and Suzy’s plaits were so tight they squeaked. Alix allotted them seats and then said, ‘You won’t
be able to sit still until it starts. Go and draw at one of the tables.’

Twenty minutes. Verrian arrived, looking, to
her eyes, utterly gorgeous in a black tuxedo, bow tie and stiff-fronted dress shirt. She walked into his arms.

He yelped. ‘Needles in your jacket! It’s like hugging a pincushion. Get behind those curtains and turn into a mannequin.’

She dashed away and was told off by Rosa for running.

Noise was building. People were coming. When Verrian pushed a note through the curtains that said, ‘Sixty-four
and counting,’ she let out a breath. She was not to endure the nightmare of empty chairs. The band began to play the sort of music that wafts people to their seats without disrupting the ambience. Another note was handed to her –

‘The mouse is arrived. J.’ Before Alix could puzzle this out, yet another note came from Verrian. ‘The red-faced man in the back row is my father. The lady fanning him
with her programme will be my mother. That dress with the red and pink roses, will you marry me in it?
Je t’aime
.’

‘First girls, make ready!’ ordered Rosa. ‘Alix, you’re shaking like a jellied eel on a tractor.’

The band struck up the opening music – ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’ – and the first four girls swung out between the curtains. Alix heard a sort of snake-hiss and thought,
People
hate it
.

Rosa nudged her. ‘They just got the joke. “Let’s Call the
Whole Thing Off”? Like you nearly did … Isn’t that why you chose it?’

‘I chose “A-Tisket, A-Tasket”,’ Alix said, bewildered. ‘Wait a minute, I saw Una talking to the bandleader. That woman – always gets the last word.’

Then it was her turn to step out, and all she could see was blur. She felt the heat of the room, the eyes upon
her. Programmes tilting as people checked the model number. Saw Celestia, Pepe, Lala and Suzy waving to her. Mémé, in a cyclamen dress and a new hat. Behind them, the Comte de Charembourg. She hadn’t seen him in person since the day of Bonnet’s confession. Hadn’t wanted to … but his smile was so tender she returned it, picked up her stride and carried on. Now she understood Javier’s note. Mousy
Christine de Brioude sat next to her father. They’d both signed the letter supporting her. She thought,
If Christine will let us, Javier and I will make her the most stylish woman in Paris
.

Javier and I? There he was, her dear, forgiving maestro, near the back. He gave her a quiet nod. Good God, was the scowling man a few seats along Verrian’s father? The woman beside him had to be Verrian’s
mother. There was Gladys Fisk-Castelman taking notes, and beside her, Una Kilpin. Beside Una, the reverse of a ray of sunshine, Mr Kilpin. Ah well. Some people had to stay the same. Verrian … where was Verrian? She saw him on her walk back, standing beside a window. They locked eyes.

Back in the
cabine
, Violette – promoted today from
receptionist to dresser – pulled her to a gap in the curtain.
‘Look, a gatecrasher.’

Alix saw a girl standing behind the last row of chairs, making marks in a notebook wedged between her thigh and the seat in front.

Alix said to Violette, ‘As my first pirate, she can stay and have champagne, but take every piece of paper off her, even her bus ticket.’

Rosa tapped Alix. ‘I need you.’

Just time to shake talcum powder under her arms and climb into her next
model. This time, she felt more relaxed. Relaxed enough to be sorry that Paul hadn’t made it. By the time she’d made four appearances, she knew for sure he wasn’t there.

She stepped into a ball gown painted with vast pink and red flowers. The band was playing ‘There May Be Trouble Ahead’. As she and the other mannequins came out in a thunderclap of billowing silk, applause erupted and people
stood. It was in that moment of stunned disbelief that Alix saw Verrian open a window to let a young man scramble inside. A man with red-gold hair. Paul – in naval uniform. The band swung into a fast foxtrot, and Heloïse, Javier’s Titian-haired mannequin, shouted to the newcomer, ‘Hello,
Royale
. Come and dance with me again!’

Paul had no objection and suddenly all the girls wanted partners. There
were plenty of men to oblige. Only Alix refused, until she felt strong arms come around her, smelled the beguiling
invitation of bergamot and plain soap. She sighed, ‘I think it’s all right.’

‘Very all right. Are you going to marry me?’

‘Of course. Will you tell your parents?’

‘Not now. Lord Calford’s never at his best in a crowd.’

‘Will he like me?’

‘No questions – I might step on your hem.’
Verrian said no more while the music played fast. But when a saxophonist improvised a drowsy solo riff, he murmured, ‘I swear, Alix, nothing will take me from you but war or death.’

Alix swept her peony-pink skirt over her arm and pressed close to her love, her eyes closed. The saxophonist played ‘My Blue Heaven’. Their song, their universe.

I would like to thank the following people whose input and support have made the publication of
The Dress Thief
not only possible, but huge fun. Firstly, my agent Laura Longrigg whose creative advice and faith in my writing provided the rocket fuel to get this book into shape. Then there is my editor at Quercus, Kathryn Taussig, whose skill
and enthusiasm has brought this novel into being. Thank you Jenny Richards for conceiving the beautiful cover artwork and Talya Baker for her copyediting. I’d also like to thank Brigid Irwin for her early proofing of the manuscript, novelist Helen Carey for her unwavering support over the years, Mel Hayman-Brown, Emma Cameron and my sister Anna McKay for supplying encouragement and for reading early
drafts with inspired insight. Thanks to my husband Richard who has not only put up with me longer than is reasonable, but who, with his pilot’s hat on, helped my research into aviation. Thanks also to Jeremy Blackham for his advice on navy affairs and who, with Candy Blackham, visited the magnificent interior of St-Sulpice and stood in as my ‘eyes’
on that occasion. In time-honoured vein I state
here that any factual mistakes in the retelling are my own. Appreciation is due to my mother who planted the writing seed and took me on my first trip to Paris; and my son, Sam Evans, who dealt with his writer-mother with patience and good humour. I must acknowledge Eileen Kitchen, doyenne of the London garment industry, whose experience of getting shut into her workroom at night inspired a scene
in this book. And Chrissie Kitchen deserves mention for being a fabulous friend, cheering me on and always being up for a glass of sauvignon blanc. And finally … this book could not have existed without Paris, the city I fell in love with when I was too young to know what I was getting into.

Natalie Meg Evans
Suffolk, 2014

The Dress Thief
makes reference to many couturiers, shops, people and events, and it may help to know which existed – indeed, still exist – and which are my inventions.

Of the couturiers mentioned … Chanel, Lanvin, Vionnet, Lucien Lelong, Patou, Poiret, Worth, Schiaparelli and Molyneux are real. Hermès, which features in the early pages, is of
course real too, and in 1937 launched the printed silk squares so famously associated with them. Jeanne Lanvin was famous for her perfume, Arpège, whose bottle features a design of herself and her little daughter Marguerite holding hands. She also created ‘Lanvin blue’, which Jean-Yves de Charembourg considers to be the only blue that blends perfectly with yellow. That is strictly his own opinion
but he will happily defend it over a glass of chilled Alsace Riesling. Lanvin blue is described as a lavender shade, but in my view it is closer to the petals of a periwinkle flower. M. Javier, who as a couturier is entirely my own invention, agrees with me as he does in most things.

Mabel Godnosc is also a figment of mine, but there were numerous Mabels in Paris at the time the book is set,
in London and in New York, shamelessly copying and
reproducing haute couture for the masses – entirely in the service of democracy. Modes Lutzman is Alix’s invention and, as Alix is my invention, you will not find it however many times you walk up and down Rue Jacob.

The Deux Magots on Boulevard Saint-Germain is real. I have drunk coffee and written a few paragraphs there, as every novelist should.
The carved Chinese wise men gazing down from their high perch alone make a visit worthwhile, though the traffic outside is more intrusive than it would have been for Alix and Verrian. Arantxa’s restaurant is invented, but based on a real one near the Sorbonne, whose steaks I will never forget even if I can’t recall the exact location. The Rose Noire is fictitious, but Bricktop existed in Rue
Pigalle, its proprietess Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith being an American hot jazz legend and friend of Cole Porter. She kept her venue open throughout the thirties, closing only with the outbreak of war.

Verrian Haviland’s employer the
News Monitor
is invented and I borrowed the title from the long-gone
Loughborough Monitor
. Zollinger’s, the Swiss chocolatiers that Alix visits on Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré,
is an invention, which is a shame as – had they been real – I’m sure they would have sent me a box of hand-wrapped chocolates every Christmas. Lindt and Suchard
are
real, however, and make lovely chocolate (
Well, you gotta try, petal
, as Mabel Godnosc would say!). Speaking of whom, Mabel’s bible, the
New York Fashion Daily
, is emphatically not real. Do you think I’m going to accuse a real newspaper
of running counterfeit frocks?

All my named Parisian locations are factual with the exception of Boulevard Racan, where the comte de Charembourg resides. I named his street after Seigneur de Racan – an aristocrat, poet and dramatist – who was, most fittingly, disappointed in love and often financially embarrassed. In one of those moments of strange serendipity, I was in the 16th arrondissement,
researching locations, when I glanced up at a street sign and discovered I’d wandered into Square Racan. Kirchwiller in Alsace does not exist, but do go to Alsace if you can – drink its wine and visit its medieval towns. I recommend October when the leaves have turned gold. Mesmerising.

Alix lived in Wandsworth in south London before going to Paris, and Wandsworth is every bit as solid as you
might wish. Charlotte Road, Alix’s drab street, does not exist. Had it done so, it would now be expensively gentrified and a nightmare for parking. Arding & Hobbs department store, where Alix had her first job, is still going strong as part of the Debenhams chain. Grindle & Whiteleather, Lucy Haviland’s clothes store of choice, has no existence outside my imagination and, had it existed, would have
gone out of business in the 1960s as Mrs Whiteleather would have vetoed short skirts and Mr Grindle would have refused entry to any gentleman not wearing a tie. Heronhurst, home to the Havilands, is offered up as a vocal exercise and tongue-twister, but can’t be found on any map of West Sussex.

*

The town of Durango in the Basque region of Spain was bombed by German and Italian warplanes on 31
March
1937, entering history as the first undefended civilian settlement to suffer aerial attack. The more famous Guernica was bombed by the German Condor Legion and Italian war planes on 26 April 1937. Though these attacks, and the devastating firestorms they caused, caused international shock and revulsion, it is well to remember that Madrid had experienced repeated bombing over many months
without other nations doing much to intervene. The Spanish Civil War is often described as the seedbed of aerial conflict, the grim ‘practice run’ for the slaughter and destruction of the years following. The report on the Guernica bombing, part of which I selectively quote in the novel, appeared in
The Times
newspaper on 27 April 1937 having been cabled to London from Bilbao by the correspondent
George Steer.

Pablo Picasso first showed ‘Guernica’ at the Paris Exposition
Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne
, which features in
The Dress Thief
. Having been commissioned to paint a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the Expo, he added this now-iconic panel in response to the bombing of Guernica, doing much to raise awareness of the atrocity. The painting is now on permanent
display in Madrid.