by Karen Swan
‘She wants nine pieces shipped out by the end of next week.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘It’s completely unreasonable.’
‘It is.’
She took a final suck on the cigarette before grinding it out in the saucer. ‘He thinks I can drop everything at the drop of a hat, just like that. Like I don’t have other things in my life.’
Cassie paused for a moment. ‘He?’
‘What?’
‘You said, “He thinks I can drop everything” . . .’
Anouk looked at her. ‘Did I?’ She stared back down at the ash in the saucer. ‘I meant “she”. I meant Katrina.’
Cassie sighed and put a hand over her friend’s. ‘Wanna talk about it?’
‘I told you, there’s nothing to talk about.’ She pulled her hand away.
Cassie sat back and watched her. ‘Okay. If you say so.’ They fell into silence and Cassie ruminated on how different it was living with Anouk. In New York, Kelly had practically merged them into one person – same job, same clothes, same bedroom, same lives. But Anouk was different – very independent, and she compartmentalized her life. She had found Cassie a job, but with someone else, as she preferred to work alone. And although things were clearly intense between her and Pierre, she only ever met up with him on a rigidly observed timetable. She never saw him after eight in the evening, and aside from that one dinner party, he never came to the flat, much less stayed over.
In lots of ways, as their days criss-crossed over each other, Cassie felt she was closer to Anouk than anyone – her favourite thing was cooking for the two of them in the evenings while Anouk sat on the worktop pouring the wine and the city lights twinkled in through the windows – but there was a definite boundary that seemed impossible to cross. Conversation rarely moved beyond gossip or work, and activity was confined to shared beauty rituals – the hammam, manicures, endermologie or hair appointments. She had been in Paris for six weeks now, and she could scarcely quite believe it, for she had long held up Anouk as the epitome of glamour, but life was beginning to feel quite . . . narrow.
‘Well, why don’t you get him over tonight, then?’ Cassie suggested. Maybe it was time for them to break out of their boxes a bit. ‘I’d like to get to know him better and I could cook for you both. I’d rather like to test out what I’ve learnt at Claude’s, anyway. You could be my guinea pigs.’
Anouk looked away. ‘He’s away this week. Not back until tomorrow.’
‘What about tomorrow night then?’
‘He’ll be tired from the journey.’
‘Right.’ Cassie nodded, getting the message loud and clear. Anouk didn’t want the status quo to change. She might be miserable and tense, but everything had to stay just the way it was.
Bas could be seen from a mile off, like a giraffe in a herd of hippos, like a miner in the snow. Cassie rushed forwards and flung her arms around him as he dropped his bags to the floor and hugged her back equally hard. She’d missed him more than she’d realized, especially when he immediately began turning her around and appraising ‘the hair situation’. On Cassie’s instructions, Kelly had debriefed him before he’d left (putting the blame squarely on Anouk’s shoulders), hoping to soften the blow.
‘Good cut; condition’s better,’ he said solemnly as travellers rushed past them, desperate to get to the taxi rank. ‘And it’s got high shine. You just cannot get that kind of lustre on blonde. And it does make you look very classy.’ He took a step back and regarded her from a distance. ‘But it’s not you.’
‘Are you saying I’m not classy?’ Cassie teased in mock outrage as he picked up his bag and they started walking, arm in arm, towards the airport exit.
‘Classiest girl I ever knew,’ he said, slapping her hand playfully. ‘But it’s just not my sweet, ditzy, how-do-I-get-dressed-again? girl.’
Cassie giggled.
He stared down at her fondly. ‘You look all European and mature. Like you know how to seduce a man just by the way you untie your scarf.’
They walked outside and straight into the cab Cassie had kept running on meter. The taxi sped through the back streets, pulling up at the Crillon, where Bas was staying for the week – the fashion circus had finally rolled into town on the last stage of its New York/London/Milan/Paris tour – and they checked him in. Not into a suite or anything fabulous like that, but still, a deluxe room with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
He had been booked by Valentino, Chanel, Sonia Rykiel, Isabel Marant, Balenciaga, Chloé and Vanessa Bruno, which meant he could afford to splash out a little, but it also meant he didn’t have a single free day. Cassie wondered exactly how much time she’d actually get to spend with him. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d be around every evening for dinner. If he wasn’t actually at a show – which would invariably be running an hour and forty-five minutes behind schedule – he’d be at the ateliers until the small hours, working through briefs with the designers until they agreed on the looks. She’d be lucky to get him for coffee.
Cassie had just about managed to pin him down to dinner for Anouk’s birthday on Friday, five days from now, and he’d promised faithfully to try to keep that evening free for her – not just so that they could spend some time together, but also to stop Anouk inviting Guillaume as Cassie’s ‘date’.
They went up to the room, and Bas ordered a pot of boiling water from room service.
‘Don’t tell me you’re fasting,’ Cassie scolded, going into the bathroom and coming out a minute later in one of the fluffy bathrobes. ‘You need to put weight on, not take it off.’
‘Not quite.’ He winked at her as he hauled his bag on to the luggage rack and began rummaging inside, triumphantly pulling out a small but perfectly formed box of PG Tips.
‘From our favourite little shop in the Village,’ he said, as she jumped up and down with excitement.
She brewed up a perfect pot, and they drank it happily, stretched out on the bed and watching the lights flicker on the Eiffel Tower.
‘So, you happy, Teabag?’ Bas asked her.
‘I am now,’ she sighed, before slurping her tea noisily.
‘Really, though.’ Bas was looking at her with concerned eyes.
Cassie took a little breath. ‘Well, getting happier . . . I’m more solitary here than in New York. Back there, you and Kelly just completely adopted me and I scarcely had a moment to register my sadness, I was so busy. And then when I got together with Luke, that was . . . a big milestone for me in so many ways. But coming over here meant leaving all you guys. I don’t know, I think in some ways I arrived in Paris even sadder than when I arrived in New York. I wanted to stay with you, whereas I came to New York because I wanted to get away from Gil.’
‘And now?’
‘Well, I think I’ve grown up some more. I can get dressed on my own and walk better in heels – though they still hurt like hell.’ She waggled her feet as if they were hands. ‘I do a lot of cycling around the city on bikes and sitting alone in cafés reading my newspaper. It’s the hair, you see – it lets me blend in more.’
‘You got a European version of me here?’
‘Don’t be silly, I could only ever have the original,’ she grinned, resting her head on his arm.
‘Glad to hear it,’ he replied, looking visibly relieved. ‘For my part, I’ve not met any other girls asking for yellowish hair and wearing numbered clothes either.’
Cassie burst out laughing. ‘My God, I was a disaster, wasn’t I?’
‘You were, but I loved you for it. You’re an original, Cassie Fraser.’
‘I’ll tell you what else I’ve got that’s original,’ she said, looking at him slyly.
‘What?’
‘A really grumpy Frenchman who looks like a bear.’
Bas grimaced. ‘He’s your French Luke? Honey, you could do a lot worse than go back to that man. God knows, I wouldn’t have left him.’
‘No, no, nothing like that.’ She looked over at him, disconcerted by
the unexpected mention of Luke’s name. ‘Have you seen him at all, since I . . . you know?’
‘What? Didn’t stay?’ He shook his head at the memory of the disastrous Stay Party. ‘No. No. He’s been keeping clear of all of us. Kelly and Brett haven’t seen him once. I expect he’s been travelling a lot, though – there’s been the couture, campaigns . . . you know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she murmured. ‘Is he seeing anyone?
‘Not that I know of, but like I say – I haven’t seen him.’
Cassie twitched her mouth anxiously. She hadn’t mentioned his name once since he’d changed his number. It had been an abrupt and very clear message that he was moving on, but she couldn’t help wondering – when she was in the bath, on the bike, scouting locations for the party or standing in the bread queue at Poilâne – whether he actually had. She’d resolved not to mope, but that didn’t mean he’d quit his lodgings in her head.
‘So tell me about the bear man,’ Bas said quickly, taking in her sad expression and obviously regretting bringing Luke’s name into the conversation. Cassie smiled again. ‘Well, his name’s Claude and he’s appalling in every way. Rude, obnoxious, abrupt, always got to be right, arrogant, imperious . . .’
‘Wow, dream guy,’ Bas drawled sarcastically. ‘I can see why you like him.’
Cassie turned her head on the pillow and looked at him dreamily. ‘He’s utterly, utterly brilliant. He’s the one making me happy out here.’
Bas sat bolt upright at her limpid expression. ‘Don’t tell me you’re serious!’ he exclaimed. ‘He sounds like a walking disaster – the last thing you need.’
‘He’s a chef.’
‘I don’t care if he’s the freaking President,’ Bas cried. ‘He is no good for you.’
‘No, no – I mean, he’s a Michelin-starred chef. He’s teaching me to cook.’
Bas stared at her, trying to fathom how that could make her so happy.
‘So you’re not sleeping with him?’
‘God, no!’ Cassie chuckled. ‘I think he’s probably got hair growing behind his knees.’
Bas laughed, a little more relaxed now. ‘Well, that’s okay then. Because I know what you’re like. You’ve got no shit-o-meter. You’ll just go headlong into more heartbreak.’
Cassie put a hand on his and smiled. ‘You’re so protective. But there’s nothing to worry about. It is strictly pleasure.’
He sank back into the pillows. ‘Huh. Cooking. Who knew.’
‘Yup, we did a tart last time I saw him and we had to boil the butter mixture in the oven, can you believe it?’ she trilled.
Bas shook his head, completely baffled. ‘Not really.’
‘I see him on Saturdays. We go to the market on Boulevard Raspail together and shop. Buy everything really fresh, and just the very best, you know? He’s shown me all the best stalls – who to go to for truffles, who for olive oil . . . It’s like being part of a club. It would feel like treason now if I walked into a supermarket.’ She looked at him, utterly earnest. ‘Do you know, I don’t think I’ll ever walk into one again, for the rest of my life?’
‘The zeal of the converted,’ Bas muttered, pouring them each more tea. ‘So what you’re telling me is you like this hick town?’
‘Bas, how can you not like a city that has cooled sparkling water in the drinking fountains?’
He raised his eyebrows, impressed – as she’d known he would be – by that little nugget.
Cassie nodded.
‘Hmmm, well I guess that’s something in its favour.’ He looked at her. ‘But you’re going to come back, right? I’m not losing you to this place for good?’
Cassie stared out of the window, focusing harder on the night-lit Eiffel Tower which was beginning to blur from the condensation on the windows. ‘Do you know what I think,’ she mused. ‘I think that this city isn’t so much telling me about where I want to live, but how I want to live. Does that make sense?’
‘Not really.’
‘Well, I mean . . . I scarcely know anyone here, my job is basically paid tourism, there’s no man on the horizon . . . and yet the quality of life out here is making me happy even without those things. I always used to think happiness depended upon them, but cycling about, shopping at the markets, cooking with Claude, unwinding at the hammam . . .’
‘The what?’
‘There’s just an indolence here that makes my bones buzz.’
‘Well, now, I like the sound of that,’ he said, sliding further down the bed, his hands clasped behind his head. ‘But I guess I’m gonna have to meet your bear man and make sure he looks after you for me.’
‘He’ll just snarl at you,’ she warned.
‘No he won’t,’ he replied confidently. ‘I’ll know how to sweet-talk him. Everyone knows bears love honey.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cassie smiled brightly as she shook hands with the agent and started walking briskly away down the street towards the golden dome of Les Invalides. The strident pace and chic ensemble – navy beret and belted camel coat – helped hide her mounting panic. It was three in the afternoon, the last week in February, and there were only seven weeks to go till the party. The guest list was in the final edit stage as the powers-that-be ruthlessly whittled away the numbers to leave only the biggest spenders standing. The problem was, until they knew the venue, they couldn’t confirm final numbers – it wouldn’t do to have too many people crammed into a tiny space; and even worse, to have too few in a large space. Not to mention the fact that the printers needed a location to put on the copperplate.
Cassie had put various deluxe options in front of Florence – most of which were from Suzy’s list – but they’d all been rejected as too ‘straight’. It wasn’t that the venues Suzy had given her weren’t beautiful or spacious or historic, but none of them stood out – not at an international level anyway. This party was for people who spent half a million euros every six months just on their clothes. What did they care about a chateau? It was just a cottage in the country to them. The Eiffel Tower? A garden ornament, no doubt.
‘The thing is, Cassie,’ Florence had explained patiently, ‘this party is about what Monsieur Westley has brought to the company. It is not about the tradition and formality of the legacy he inherited. Monsieur Westley, he is a rebel. He used to be called the ‘bad boy of fashion’. And our customers love that. They like the frisson of excitement that comes with the renegade, with breaking the rules. For most of our customers, they are constrained by appearances, there is a level of decorum that must be maintained. But they like that Monsieur Westley can undercut the stiffness, take a bit of air out of the pomposity. He delivers a little bit of the punk into the couture – and we must do the same for his party.’
Cassie had nodded enthusiastically, as though that speech was going to somehow translate into a solution, but two weeks later she still had nothing suitable to show her. This building – a converted prison that was, ironically, too luxurious now – had been her last option and they were due to have a final-decision meeting tomorrow.
Cassie rounded a corner, and as soon as she was sure she was out of sight, slowed to a dejected shuffle, her shoulders slumping, hands now clasped behind her back, her bag swinging into her knees. She blew out through her cheeks and came to a stop in the Esplanade. She sat down on a bench, knees knocked together, stumped. In her heart, she knew there was nothing for it – she’d have to come clean. She’d asked Suzy, Anouk and even Bas, and had spent weeks cycling and walking all over the city taking photographs of interesting-looking buildings, but to no avail. She was all out of ideas.
Even on a day as bleak as this one – the sun had called in sick – rollerbladers raced past and elderly gentlemen convened for games of pétanque between the trees. At the steps of the Dome Church, noisy school groups in matching sweatshirts and baseball caps goofed about on the statues making bunny ears for each other’s photographs, and every twenty yards, street sellers heckled the passing pedestrians, try
ing to flog tacky snow globes of the Arc de Triomphe and mini replicas of Notre Dame.
She looked away, trying to avoid their gaze, and caught sight of a man sitting on the bench diametrically opposite. He was staring at the ground directly in front of his feet, utterly oblivious to all the noise and movement around him. He looked like he’d been cast in stone. He didn’t even seem to blink.
Cassie hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to intrude. She knew from bitter experience that he was graceless at the best of times, but something made her get up and walk over anyway.
‘Claude?’
He looked up at her slowly, as though disoriented by the sound of his own name.
‘Hi,’ she smiled as his eyes focused on her. ‘I was just passing . . .’
He looked back down again.
She knew she should probably go, that she’d regret it the second he opened his mouth. But it seemed so . . . extraordinary to run into him out here, so far from their usual meeting place in the quatrième district. Shopping and cooking with him had rapidly become the high point of her week, something she counted down towards like a child at Christmas, and she couldn’t bear to pass him by on this bonus encounter. He was never going to win any charm awards, but his manner had begun to approach a pale shade of cordial in recent weeks, and she sensed that deep, deep down, under all the hair and gruffness, he maybe even, perhaps, liked her – a little bit.
‘May I join you?’
He sighed heavily, as though waking from a deep sleep, flicking his index finger ever so lightly. She took it to mean ‘possibly’, and sat down.
‘Shitty weather,’ she muttered, instantly regretting it. He wasn’t a man for small talk at the best of times, much less when he looked like this. Hunched, frozen, desolate.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked instead.
Nothing.
She looked away, watching a group of pigeons fighting over some cake the schoolchildren had left in a wrapper on the wall. She ought to go back to the office, see if anyone else had any last-ditch off-beat ideas . . .