The Paris Secret (28 page)

‘Heard from Noah?’

‘Huh?’

Ines snapped her fingers. ‘Noah. The rich handsome American guy with a Renoir and a Bugatti and the hots for you?’

‘Oh.’ She shook her head and tutted. ‘No. I told him not to call me again.’

‘
Why?
’

Flora remembered the tense car ride back into the city – how she’d angrily brushed his hand off her thigh and refused to look at him, fuming at his presumptuous behaviour and the way
he’d practically taken ownership of her in front of Xavier, like a dog peeing to mark its patch. He’d sent fifty yellow roses to the office the next day, a flamboyant apology that had
failed to move her; she couldn’t be bought, nor would she be owned, and she’d repeated her request that he not contact her again in a brusque text. Since then, silence.
‘We’re not compatible.’

‘Compatible? Huh,’ Ines snorted with a ‘why am I not surprised?’ roll of her eyes.

Flora changed the subject. ‘So look, let me know if you’re coming down then.’

Ines sighed. ‘Sure. I think it’ll probably be Thursday. Bruno’s getting his schedule today so I’ll text you later.’

‘Cool.’

They hung up, Flora inhaling deeply as she looked around the ordered space. The scent of roses lingered in the air and the countertops were stained where petals or stems had been crushed, dark
circles from buckets sunken into the grain.

She went back to work on the small Dalí sketch she’d pulled down before Ines had rung. It was only ten inches high, pencil on paper. She turned the frame over and saw the remnants
of an old oval sticker on the back. She squinted, peering at it closely, trying to make out the faint type. But ‘. . . NNA’ was all that was clear.

Anna? Vienna? She photographed the sticker close up and measured it, knowing she’d need to cross-check it against copies that would hopefully be held at the Attlee & Bergurren Gallery
in Saint-Paul. That the sticker was oval should make it easier to match to others – if she was lucky, other more complete stickers – in which the type was clearly visible.

A polite cough made her turn. Jacques Vermeil was standing by the door.

‘
Pardon
, I did not wish to disturb you.’

She rose to standing. ‘Oh, no. It’s quite all right.’

‘Do you mind if I come in?’

‘Please do,’ she smiled, motioning towards the artworks arranged around the room.

Jacques walked in, a polite but hesitant smile on his face as he scanned the multitudes of paintings that now stretched up to the ceiling and over every wall. ‘Good grief. There are . . .
so many.’

‘Yes,’ Flora replied, feeling uncomfortable. They both understood the subtext to his words. So many paintings, so many families . . .

‘It shouldn’t be a surprise. You gave that presentation the day after we unlocked the door. You flicked through all the pictures with us and yet . . .’ He blew out his cheeks.
‘To actually see them all.
Here.
It feels more. It feels worse.’

‘Monsieur Vermeil—’

He turned round to her. ‘Jacques, please. We have been through this . . . this ordeal together. We are friends now, are we not?’

Flora gulped. Oh God. Like she wasn’t feeling guilty enough. ‘Jacques,’ she said quietly, trying to smile. ‘I just wanted to say how sorry I am. I wish we had
never—’

He shook his head, beginning to pace. ‘The truth had to come out some day.’ He nodded, stopping to look up at a fine Canet mountain scene, high on the opposite wall, his hands folded
behind his back. ‘Who knows? Perhaps it will turn out to be for the best this way. I never saw a picture of my father before this weekend. Can you imagine?’

She shook her head. She definitely couldn’t imagine that.

‘It goes without saying I wish he had not been what he . . . was. But, speaking as a child, wanting to know about his father . . . ?’ He shrugged. ‘My mother would shut down
whenever I even raised his name. She said it was too painful for her to think of the past.’ He raised his eyebrows and shared with her a doubting look. ‘But my mother is still alive and
she does not need to lie to me any more. There’s still time. I can finally ask my questions and learn the truth about my father from the person who knew him best.’

Flora didn’t hold out much hope that it would be a happy story. Notwithstanding his links to the Third Reich, he’d been a poor husband too, she thought, thinking back to the letter
she’d found – Jacques’ aunt’s advice that his mother stick with Franz, ignore his philanderings, have a child. Have Jacques.

‘Has she . . . has she said anything to you yet?’ Flora enquired, hesitant.

He gave a bemused smile. ‘No. God, no. Not yet. My mother is a strong woman, Flora, but this has shaken her profoundly. I do not think she ever thought she would have to look me in the eye
and tell me the truth about what my father was. She wanted me to be proud of him, to
respect
him.’ He fell silent for a minute, as though the effort of speaking was simply too much,
his feet shuffling over the floor in tiny steps as he looked at the multitude of paintings that had been other people’s joys, had been stolen from them or sold under duress, the threat of the
labour camps hanging above their heads like a swinging scythe.

She watched him, saw how his eyes flitted over the paintings with evident pain.

‘I don’t doubt  that everything  she did,  changing our name, breaking from my father and his past – she did it to protect me. She wanted there to be no darkness
in my life, no shadows. I suppose that is the legacy of a war, is it not? The survivors reach for the light.’

Flora thought of all the mirrors in the Paris town house – there was no hiding there. In that home, you had to look at yourself, from every angle.

‘And maybe she was right. Maybe it was better not knowing. If I could step back into last week and change events, I would. But I never dreamed this was what lay in my history. For all
these years I wanted more – I wanted more knowledge, I wanted him. I resented my mother for not being him, for being there when he was not. I was her only child and she herself a grieving,
young widow – she poured all her love and hopes into me and I, in turn, found her love for me a burden.’

He looked at the floor.

‘I perhaps have not been the son she deserved. Not kind enough. Not here enough. I escaped to Paris at my first opportunity.’ He shrugged. ‘But I am here now and the truth is
with us. It is here in this room.’ He held out his hands. ‘Every one of these paintings has a story, a history. And my father is the one that binds them all. He is the dark thread that
links them together.’ He turned to face Flora. ‘So my mother
will
talk to me, she
will
answer my questions. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but one day soon I will learn the
full truth and I will face it with the courage my father lacked.’

‘I want to help you in any way I can, Jacques.’

He smiled, turning to face her square on. ‘Good. Because I have decided what to do. Will you join us for drinks in the study at seven o’clock this evening? I have asked my family to
make sure they are all in. There is something important I would like to say.’

‘O-of course.’ Oh God, no. Not another family meeting . . . ‘Actually, I haven’t met your mother yet. I feel I should introduce myself. It’s strange being here in
her house, not having met her.’

‘And you shall, this evening. My mother is not so steady on her legs any more. She spends most of her days in her bedroom now.’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m pleased you will join us,’ he smiled, turning to leave. ‘But I should warn you, my mother is from a different generation, rather formal. We tend to dress up for
dinner.’

‘Oh, yes. Right. No problem,’ she nodded. ‘Sh-should I wear anything in particular?’

‘With that face?’ he smiled, tapping the door frame with one hand. ‘Just a pretty dress.’

Flora stood by the cottage door and stared up at the house, feeling weak with nerves. It looked almost more imposing in the dark, its vast shadow pooling over the lawn, the pin
lights on the balconies at every window throwing up plumes of light like an opera stage set. She had heard the car doors slamming earlier as everyone had come home in staggered arrivals –
Lilian first, her high voice carrying as she was greeted by two small pugs on the drive, then Xavier (she guessed) silent apart from his heavy tread on the gravel. Finally Natascha, on her phone
and laughing as she almost fell from the car, lurching precariously across the gravel in heels.

Flora had slipped away from the flower room, and the main house, at 6 p.m. when the ground floor had fallen silent, taking her opportunity to race barefoot across the lawn, back to the relative
safety of the pool cottage when everyone was upstairs.

But now, now she had to go back up there. She had to meet Magda, Jacques’ formidable mother – his word, even scarier in a French accent – and she had to endure Natascha’s
stares, Xavier’s silences. It would be the first time she’d seen them since she’d put a bomb under their family’s history.

With trepidation, she walked up the lawn, past the spotlit cypress and eucalyptus trees, her shoes in her hand again. All she had to do was listen to Jacques’ announcement, a drink in her
hand, and then she could go again. She wasn’t staying for dinner. She could be back in the cottage in half an hour with any luck.

She walked onto the terrace and through a set of open French doors which gave onto the wide hallway decked with marble statues. No one was around. Every door leading off it was shut and she had
no idea which one was the kitchen, the drawing room, even the front door.

Remembering that her shoes were still in her hand, she balanced herself against the door frame, and put them on. She was fiddling with the ankle strap when a door halfway down opened and
Natascha walked out.

Natascha didn’t notice her. She was walking in the opposite direction towards the stairs but Flora froze at the sight of her nonetheless, not least because Natascha was not in what anyone
would call formal dress. In fact, she was wearing a white onesie.

Flora looked down at her own outfit in horror – a black- and-white gingham dress with a low, square neck and cinched waist. Alone it was just a sundress, but she had taken it up several
notches by pairing it with her red suede heels and red lipstick for some old-school Bardot glamour. It wasn’t a grand look by any means but then she hadn’t packed for grand. She’d
packed for work, and hopefully some downtime in the sun.

She looked down the length of the lawn . . . She could still race back to the cottage and change again. There was still time. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt. She could blame the traffic.
Ha!

No.

Oh God. What cou—?

‘
Ah! Elle est ici, monsieur
,’ Genevieve said, stepping out of the same room and catching sight of Flora frozen in the French doors. She smiled and beckoned for her to come
forward.

Flora listened to the sound of her own footsteps echoing on the black-and-white marble floor as she walked. Her entrance may as well have been announced with a trumpet fanfare. Naturally,
everyone was looking straight at her as she rounded the door.

Jacques was standing by a fireplace in a cream dinner jacket, Lilian and a tiny but very stout woman sitting opposite each other in blue silk occasional chairs, a small dog in the older
woman’s lap, another at her feet. Both women were wearing tights and had had their hair done. Flora, with her bare legs and girlish gingham, felt almost beachy by comparison.

Where was Xavier? Still upstairs? Her eyes searched for him but he was nowhere that she could see as she walked into the room under the fearsome appraisal of Magda Vermeil (or rather, Von
Taschelt).

‘Flora, I would like you to meet my mother, Magda,’ Jacques said, walking forwards and pressing his cheek to hers, once on each side. Could he feel her trembling, she wondered?

‘
Enchantée, madame
,’ Flora said, having to resist the urge to curtsey. This woman might have been married to a Nazi – or at the very least, a Nazi sympathizer
– but she had an air about her that was almost regal. Jacques had been right – formidable was the word. She was old but not weak, not diminished and Flora knew she was being intensely
scrutinized.

There was a sudden commotion behind her and Flora turned to see Natascha flouncing back in, wearing a Saint Laurent smoking and heels, no shirt underneath – little wonder she’d
changed so quickly. She stopped dead at the sight of Flora, before pointedly looking over at her father. ‘Better?’

‘Barely,’ he murmured with a tut.

It was then that Flora noticed Xavier standing at the back of the room. He was pouring himself a drink from a bar in the recess – no wonder she hadn’t seen him. He was dressed fairly
similarly to his sister in a black dinner suit, although he
had
remembered his shirt, which a tiny voice in her head somewhere, treacherously, thought was a shame. He made no move to suggest
he was aware of her presence, or if he was, that he much cared. She looked away again, her attention back on his sister.

‘Well, Granny, I see you’ve met Flora,’ Natascha said, managing to place a stress on Flora’s name that conveyed her feelings perfectly, as she sauntered into the room and
perched on the arm of her grandmother’s chair.

‘We were just about to become acquainted,’ Magda replied, her small black eyes – like currants in a doughy face – never leaving Flora.

‘We are very fortunate to have someone of Flora’s calibre working on the collection for us,’ Lilian said, addressing her comment to Magda as though she was slightly deaf.
‘And Flora’s father was the chief auctioneer at Christie’s London – he brought the hammer down on the
Sunflowers
, didn’t he?’

‘That’s right,’ Flora smiled, grateful as Jacques placed a glass of champagne in her hand.

‘So art is your family business,’ Magda said in a chilly voice. ‘Like ours.’

Flora stared at her, knowing what she was doing. Magda wanted Flora to call her out – to say no, her family were
nothing
like theirs. She wanted to see the judgement in
Flora’s eyes, to finally encounter the contempt that she knew was her due.