by Karen Swan
‘Tonight, of course, is about celebrating the very essence of Paris – good food, good wine and good company – and we hope that by the time you leave here, you will have eaten well, drunk well and made new friends.’
A cheer rose up from the crowd – and not just from the ones seated in white. The spectators watching from the pavements were several deep now.
‘But just before we go any further, I would like to take a minute of your time. As you know, we prefer to keep our identities secret, but a recent sudden event means that we have decided to break with that tradition, to honour the memory of one of our founding members – Claude Bouchard . . .’
Cassie’s head snapped up. What?
She looked at Katrina, almost as though she expected this to be less of a surprise to her, but Katrina looked as distracted as Cassie felt. She had pushed her chair back slightly and was dabbing her neck with a moistened napkin. Cassie noticed her hands were shaking.
‘Although you may never have heard it linked with this organization, many of you will already know his name. Claude was a pioneering spirit in the restaurant world, one of the greatest chefs in all Paris. He made food that could bring tears to your eyes and heaven to your mouth. He believed that beautiful cuisine was an assault on the senses that no other art form could match. Some of you may have heard that—’
A sudden wail charged up the street, accompanied by whirling blue lights. The man shrugged nonchalantly and patted the air calmly to keep everyone in their seats.
‘Just the annual police drive-by letting us know that they know we’re here,’ he said, toasting them with his glass. A wave of laughter swept down the crowd as the police cars rolled slowly past and everyone raised their glasses in a toast.
‘Uh, where was I? Oh yes . . . Well, some of you may have heard that shortly before his death, Claude was developing a new business venture. Indeed, his business partner is present here today . . .’ A murmur went through the crowd at the suggestion, everyone searching vainly for the anonymous businessman ‘. . . and I have their assurance that C.A.C., the new restaurant, is still going to open as planned next month in the cinquième. Claude had drawn up the menus, hired all the staff and developed every minute aesthetic detail with the architects, so that C.A.C. – even though it will open posthumously – is truly his flagship, the standard bearer of his vision, and it will be his lasting legacy. He will never be forgotten.’
A cheer went up through the crowd, and the speaker took a sip of his drink, but Cassie sat as still as a stone. Was this why she was here?
‘I have no doubt C.A.C. will open to accolades and acclaim, and will win the coveted honours that always graced Claude’s enterprises, but you know that Claude himself did not care for the glory of a Michelin star. He simply wanted great cooking and exciting new flavours to be available to everyone. In recent years he had stepped back from the professional kitchens to teach a few willing students his trade secrets. It is why he set up this underground picnicking society years ago, so that people from every walk of life would be brought together by food and its close companions, wine and conversation!’
Another cheer rippled through the diners.
‘To those who knew him in recent years, he was a soul in anguish, but let us remember him for the zest and passion with which he pursued his art – for he always believed, even in the darkest days, that a love for food is a love for life. And so, before we continue our celebrations tonight, I would ask you all to take a minute’s silence as tribute to our dear and great friend, Claude Bouchard.’
The man bowed his head and an extraordinary hush fell upon the crowd. Even the cars stopped hooting their horns as the drivers realized that the guests were all sitting as still and as silent as statues. Cassie looked round in awe. She had thought she’d been alone here tonight, the only person present mourning a dear friend, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. In amongst the strangers everywhere were people who had known him longer, better, loved him harder; people who hadn’t let him down the way she had.
This wasn’t a party; it was a memorial. She looked up gratefully at the silent crowd, wondering who around her had known him. She looked at Katrina, alarm gripping her as she saw the beads of sweat rolling down her brow.
‘Katrina, are you all right?’ she asked quietly, leaning forwards. ‘Your colour’s bad.’
‘Actually, I’m not . . . I don’t . . . feel so g—’ She clapped a hand across her mouth suddenly, her eyes wide with panic, as her body began to heave. Cassie looked round in horror. Oh God! Where was the butler? She looked for the limo but it was nowhere to be seen; the police must have moved it on from its illegal parking spot when they’d driven by a few moments before.
She looked back at Katrina, who now had both hands over her mouth. It was clear she was going to throw up, right here, in front of everyone. Without thinking, Cassie grabbed her bag – the beautiful, much-loved green Maddy Foxton bag that Kelly had given her on her first day in New York – and opened it. She passed it over the table and Katrina – as discreetly as she could – vomited violently into it.
No one noticed. At that exact moment, the minute’s silence was ended by the sound of the speaker clapping, and within seconds the noise had gathered crescendo until everyone was on their feet clapping their hands above their heads.
Cassie saw the limo come back down the street looking for another convenient illegal place to park, and quickly raised her arm to get the driver’s attention. She helped Katrina up and, with one arm round her bird-like shoulder, guided her to the car.
She dumped the newly filled bag into a dustbin as they passed, trying not to think about the three-thousand-dollar price tag as the driver opened the passenger door and Katrina almost fell in, grateful for the blacked-out privacy of the tinted windows.
‘She’s eaten a dodgy oyster, I think,’ Cassie said to the driver. ‘She might need to see the doctor.’
The driver nodded. ‘Thanks.’
Cassie watched the car roll away as the butler came out of a café with a freshly replenished ice bucket. She shook her head at him and gave a small shrug, but that seemed to tell him all he needed to know and he started packing the table away again, even though only a fraction of the food had been touched.
She stood with the passers-by watching the diners tucking into their meals again, and saw she was no longer one of them. She was a spectator now, not a guest at her friend’s picnic – and she had been, she realized, ever since his death. In losing Claude, she’d lost part of herself too – the part that had found confidence in her passion; the part that had found pride in her talent. He was gone, and he’d taken her dreams with him. She had a sense that Paris had nothing more to offer her.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Cassie was rummaging through the bags like a bear in the bins. She was sure she’d seen one of the scarves in the blue-ribboned bags, and she’d expressly told Marina that they only went in the pink. ‘You can’t let a captain of industry go home with a woman’s scarf . . .’ she muttered.
‘How is everything going here?’ a voice asked behind her.
Cassie turned round. Florence was smiling at her, looking a vision in a red and white column-dress appliquéd all over with chiffon flowers which she had borrowed from the atelier’s archives. One of the assistants had had to go through the accounts to make sure that none of the guests who’d RSVP’d ‘yes’ had ordered it. It wouldn’t do to have another Holland–Bruni fiasco.
Florence’s beatific face revealed none of the stresses which had accompanied the run-up to tonight, unlike Cassie’s, which had hard grooves of shock and grief worn into it. Her skin was thin and papery, her lips pale, her hair lank and her eyes almost opaque from the tears. She had done her best for tonight: whilst Anouk had made a beeline for the hammam, she’d tried to draw herself a happier face with her now extensive make-up range, but when she looked in the mirror, she thought she just looked clownish. Even the four-thousand-euro dress – hers was borrowed from the pret-à-porter collect
ion: cranberry chiffon with a crossover neckline and feather fringing – made her feel like a little girl in her mother’s clothes.
Florence peered into the bags. They were huge, bulging with gifts that money literally could not buy – a copy of a book, which had a print-run of only one hundred; a cashmere scarf produced in the specially reissued skull-print, of which, again, only one hundred had been made; for the ladies a bespoke ‘bounty’ necklace by Anouk with tiny gold bones and dubloons threaded on to leather, with a hammered gold locket filled with solid perfume, a ‘private’ scent that Monsieur Westley had developed especially and only for the anniversary party. For the men, Anouk had made gold cufflinks shaped like tibias, skulls and ribs.
She nodded at the small but exclusive cache. ‘All of these were your ideas, Cassie,’ she smiled. ‘As was this.’ She held her hands up at the crypt, flickering with Diptyque candles. The bones in the tunnels here were actually arranged decoratively – the femurs laid out end first, so that the ‘knuckles’ created the wall’s dimpled surface, and the skulls interspersed among them at regular intervals, some tracing crosses, others hearts.
It wasn’t creepy. It was almost beautiful, a bit like a shell grotto. Extravagant profusions of blood-red – almost black – velvet roses had been placed around the walls, and the music echoed with eerie exaggeration into the black abyss beyond. Some of the tech guys who’d been setting up the sound systems earlier had been messing around and daring each other to go further into the ‘unroped’ areas of the tunnels, but their shouts had quickly lost bravado, and when they’d eventually found their way back, they were pale-faced and quiet.
For Cassie, this place was yet another reminder of Claude. He’d been the one who’d told her about it. It was as a result of their conversation that this party was happening here at all.
‘He should have been here,’ she thought, and the anger ricocheted around her again like a whip.
‘You know, Cassie,’ Florence said, looking at her pinched expression with concern, ‘if you felt like perhaps you didn’t want to leave after all –’ She looked down for a moment – ‘And no one could blame you for wanting to think twice, you know we would be delighted to keep you on the team.’ She held her hands up before Cassie could protest. ‘I know. I know it is not your great love . . . but still you are very good at it. I think maybe you do not realize how much you have helped us these past few months.’ She tipped her head to the side, the way Suzy always did when she was concerned. ‘I admire you, Cassie. And if tonight really is your last night with us, well then . . . tomorrow I shall miss you very much.’
Cassie looked at her and realized, for the first time, that perhaps she had missed a trick with Florence. She’d just gone through the motions the entire time she’d worked with her – she’d used her job here as rent money, nothing more – and it was only now that she saw it could have been so much more.
‘Thanks, Florence,’ she smiled, genuinely touched. ‘I’ll give it some thought. I have been . . . having doubts.’ She didn’t mention the nights spent staring up at the ceiling, bathed in sweat at the very prospect of heating a pan without Claude. She gave a little hopeless shrug. ‘I’m not ready without him. He was going to mentor me, and . . .’ She trailed off as the tears threatened.
Florence nodded. ‘You don’t need to decide tonight. Take some time off after this anyway. Rest a bit. We’ll still be here if you do decide you want to stay.’
‘Madame Lazartigue,’ a harried voice called behind her. It was one of the girls from the press office, looking flustered and brandishing a clipboard like a hand grenade.
‘Excuse me,’ she smiled, rolling her eyes and going off to deal with the next crisis.
Cassie watched her go. There were legitimate reasons to stay here, not least that she could afford a better flat with the salary Dior paid her. The thought of the dingy bedsit she’d lined up lying there empty, just waiting for her to move in, made her shiver.
She heard the music volume rise just a little – telling her that the first guests had arrived – and took a deep breath. She was going to be everyone’s first port of call. Initially, Florence had wanted her to take more of a leading role in the night’s events in recognition of her contribution, but in the wake of Claude’s death, Florence had agreed she could hide out here and man the cloakroom instead.
Space was tight, but still they had managed to create a glamorous cloakroom where the tunnel bellied out a little. Three tall walls had been erected to enfold hanging rails behind them, and a specialist team from De Gournay had been shipped in to create a specially commissioned historic cityscape of eighteenth-century Paris. It was a lavish and luxuriant commission for something that was only up for one night, but as the candlelight flickered on it, it brought back to life the Paris that had existed when the bones down here now had been its citizens.
The guests arrived quickly through the tunnels, their slightly pensive expressions softening into relief and then excitement as they descended the stairs from the pavement above and took in the moody lighting and murals and flowers. It had enough of what they knew – and needed – to make them feel secure, but the shock factor gave them an added thrill. The atmosphere switched on, and it rapidly grew louder and warmer.
Within half an hour, Cassie was rushed off her feet as wave after wave of fur coats was tossed towards her. She had a split second with each to find the owner’s face and name on her list and write it down on a labelled hanger – it was considered far too vulgar to hand out numbered tickets – and Cassie had been sure to swot up on the ‘who’s who’ list for this event.
Anouk, Pierre, Guillaume and Jacques arrived together shortly after nine, once the party was gearing up to full swing. The initial VIP rush was over and Florence had arranged for Stephanie, an office junior, to relieve her from her post once everyone was in.
‘You look sensational,’ Cassie gushed at Anouk as she shrugged off a black taffeta belted trench coat to reveal a tight black satin dress with long sleeves and a lace spiral that started at her collarbone and spun all the way around her, narrowly missing strategic anatomical points, but making it clear nonetheless that she was wearing nothing underneath.
It wasn’t her usual style – much more provocative and outré than usual – and from the looks on the guys’ faces, they all thought so too, clearly wondering whether the spiral might snake up when Anouk walked.
The place was packed and people were leaning casually against the stacked bones as if they were library shelves. Across the crowd, Cassie could see Florence introducing her bosses to the distinguished guests. Cassie grabbed herself a drink, feeling assured that she could relax a little, and went to join her friends.
The champagne fizzed lightly on her tongue and she closed her eyes to savour the first hit of alcohol in her system for weeks. Since Claude’s death – and especially after the aborted Dîner en Blanc – she had stopped drinking wine in the evenings, preferring to sit alone in the dark in her room, suffering a punishing asceticism that seemed to satisfy her guilt at not having picked up . . .
But tonight she felt an overwhelming urge to let go – of her sobriety, her dreams, her inhibitions. Tomorrow was supposed to have been the first day of the rest of her life proper, the life she had chosen for herself: living in Paris, following her dream with Claude. It wasn’t going to happen now, at least, not the way she had dreamed it would, and in the morning she was going to have to start facing up to the options that remained open to her – walking into the kitchens without Claude’s protection and guidance, or staying on at Dior and trying to pursue a valid long-term career in marketing.
Neither one appealed – for different reasons – but she figured she’d probably make just as good a decision on a hangover as not, and she took another sip of her drink. She swayed softly to the music. It was ambient and indistinct, echoing in the subterranean caves, and she wondered what Gil would think if he was to see her here at this party she had organized – dressed in not-in-the-shops-yet Di
or, her body supple and gleaming with oils, her hair chopped and darkly glossy in the candlelight. Would he want her? And more to the point, would she want him? For all the self-assurance and genteel manners that had swept her off her twenty-one-year-old feet, had he really been such an unbeatable proposition? She had grown up more in the past six months than in the entire decade preceding them, and in lots of ways now she had slipped out of his league.
She felt an arm slide over her shoulders, and from the smell of jasmine in the air, knew that Anouk had come to dance with her. They swayed in time, eyes closed, Anouk humming gently in her ear, and Cassie was surprised to see the covetous glances bouncing their way when she looked around her a few minutes later. Jacques was watching intently, a barely disguised film of lust on his face; Pierre had moved away slightly and was talking to an older woman in another group.
Florence came over and joined them. Her cheeks were flushed – with champagne and success, for there was no doubt the party had really taken off. She looked radiant, and Jacques must have thought so too, for he snaked an arm around his wife’s slender waist and kissed her adoringly in the crook of her neck, making her giggle ticklishly.
‘Congratulations, ma chérie,’ he smiled.
‘You should be congratulating Cassie,’ Florence protested. ‘All this was her idea.’
‘Then my congratulations to you too,’ Jaques said, giving her a little bow. ‘It seems you have shown us all a new way to party in Paris.’
Guillaume and Anouk concurred, holding their glasses up to her in a toast.
‘Fresh eyes,’ Florence smiled. ‘Such a privilege.’
‘Well, I do believe it was my idea for you to bring Cassie on board in the first place,’ Anouk said, a tone of petulance hanging off the words. ‘A little gratitude might be thrown my way too.’ She planted an indignant hand on a narrow hip.
Florence’s smile froze slightly at the flash of tantrum, and Jacques and Guillaume nodded their heads obligingly. Pierre, having overheard, leaned in quickly and kissed her neck the way Jacques had just done to Florence.