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April In Paris, 1921

Page 9

by Tessa Lunney


  ‘I prefer dignity to jazz, but unless one joins Action Française or some such group, there aren’t many other options for restoring our national pride.’

  ‘You’re a member?’ It seemed strange that I’d heard of this fierce nationalist group twice in two days.

  ‘Oh no, they’re not my type.’ He sniffed. ‘They’re in trade.’

  His snobbery knew no bounds, but he still hadn’t introduced himself. Thank goodness my profession let me barge past this politeness.

  ‘I’m Kiki Button. I write little columns on these parties for a newspaper back in London.’

  ‘Oh.’ The champagne was clearly more interesting.

  ‘I’d love to put you in my column, but I need your name.’

  ‘I am Antoine Armand Victoire Pierre Guillaume de Tallifer, heir to the Duc d’Orange d’Orléans,’ he said, but we both got bored before he reached the end.

  I played on his snobbery and for my sins got a lot of tedious chat about French honour, family names, buying titles and the degrading need for American heiresses. The chat turned to Russia, its horror and scandal, and his distant relative by marriage, Olga Khokhlova Picasso. He’d been at Picasso’s home on Thursday night, but he paid no attention to Picasso’s work.

  ‘Olga and Pablo, they are . . . modern people’ – he threw so much disdain into that word ‘modern’ – ‘I won’t comment on the art, but Pablo can keep Olga in style, so I suppose someone thinks it has value.’

  ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘Those two.’ He waved a languid hand over the fierce-looking man and his black-clad friend. ‘I forget their names but they’re proper people.’

  Before I could ask who ‘proper people’ were, Margaret clapped her hands and cried, ‘Food, everyone! Please help yourselves.’

  ‘So American, this “buffet” style.’ But he sprang up to the recently laid table and heaped his plate with cold meats, asparagus spears, little savoury pastries and bread. He sat in a corner to eat as quickly as was polite. He gave me one furtive glance and looked away, pastry stuffed into his cheeks.

  That left only a spare seat between me and the fierce-looking man. He raised an eyebrow and handed me a deep-brown drink.

  ‘You look like you need something stronger than champagne,’ he said in a cut-glass English accent.

  I will with you, I thought. ‘You’re English.’

  ‘Born and bred,’ he said. ‘Bottoms up.’

  It was single-malt Scottish whisky and it tasted of comfort.

  ‘How did you know I needed whisky?’

  ‘After his nibs, every girl needs a stiff one.’

  I laughed. He held out his hand, unconcerned by its missing fingers. He was missing his ring finger on his left hand and his middle and ring fingers on his right.

  ‘Hugh Fernly-Whiting, but everyone calls me Ferny. Why don’t you come sit by me? It’s a little undignified to lean across this enormous divan.’ He patted the seat and revealed a brown bottle.

  ‘You brought the whisky with you.’

  ‘Had to. These American parties only have that sweet American stuff, if anything.’ He smiled and I saw a silver tooth. ‘But I have a Paris supplier that I set up in the war, so I haven’t had to suffer too much.’

  ‘Who needs five fingers when you can have two of Islay’s best?’

  ‘Well, quite. And I’ve always been light-fingered.’

  ‘You must be butter-fingered now.’

  ‘Only in the sense that I’m smooth and rich and go down easily.’

  ‘You’ll get five fingers of a different kind if you’re not careful.’

  He barked a laugh, open and friendly. His gaze unsettled me though, as did the scar on his cheek.

  ‘That looks like a duelling scar.’

  ‘I spent some time with my Prussian cousins, before they became my enemy,’ he said, ‘and they liked to play rough.’

  ‘It makes you look . . .’

  ‘Like a Hun.’ He grimaced. ‘I know, but as everyone’s cut up nowadays, I thought it’d be all right.’

  ‘No, it makes you look . . .’ I was going to say, like a spy, like a villain, like my boss. But he turned his gaze on me, brown eyes staring right into mine as though he wanted to unwind me and set me ticking to his own time. It made me feel slightly sick.

  ‘It makes me look how?’

  ‘Just like someone I used to know.’ I shrugged. ‘So who do you know here?’

  ‘Get out your notebook, this might take a while.’

  He gave me detailed histories of the British aristocrats whom he’d known since childhood: ‘A baroness? Our host exaggerates. Minor titles and second sons only here.’ He tapped me on the knee as he did so, familiar and strange – Fox used to tap my knee, just so, as if to tease me, or to let me know that I was his.

  As Ferny outlined the rise and fall of family fortunes, he leant right in so that I could smell his breath, expensive whisky and Sobranie tobacco, just like Fox. Or rather, like Fox on his days off, as in the hospitals he smelt of mud, blood and disinfectant. The whisky I could understand but not the tobacco: he was smoking Woodbines as he sat on the couch.

  ‘So, you see, I know all the worthless people in Paris.’

  ‘And who do you know that’s worthwhile?’

  ‘Well, we met Picasso the other day, didn’t we, Violet?’ he appealed to the woman on the other side of him, as if he’d just remembered her. ‘That was quite a meeting.’

  ‘Hello,’ she said, extending her hand, ‘nice to meet you, Kiki – oh yes, I know who you are – yes, Picasso, what an extraordinary man! I think we must’ve caught him on a bad day, he barely said a word. Darling, I’m parched.’ She turned her dark eyes to Ferny.

  ‘Duty calls.’ He bowed, almost with a click, and picked up my glass as well. He walked off to the drinks table with a pronounced limp.

  ‘Has he been trying to charm you? He’s hopeless about blondes – it’d be a nuisance if we knew very many.’ She looked after his straight-backed figure. ‘I tried to dye my hair blonde once, but it went green. I had to pretend I’d gone to the country while I spent the next five days dying it back.’

  ‘Black suits you.’

  ‘Well, it has to.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Nice little job you have, going to parties and being paid for it.’

  ‘Very, but unfortunately it means I can’t refuse an invitation.’

  She smirked. ‘Yes, sometimes it’s too much, even if you have known the host forever. Perhaps especially when.’

  Ferny looked at us together. He smiled at me but his expression darkened when he looked at Violet. She seemed to stiffen. I almost didn’t want to intervene.

  ‘Tell me more about Picasso.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and looked at her hands, ‘we were at his party on Thursday night. His wife was lovely, although she only spoke French and Russian, and half the party was in Russian so it was a bit rough for the rest of us. She went on and on about how talented her husband is – as if we were there for any other reason. She made him give us a little tour of his studio. So many paintings! Some very, ah, modern, but others just perfect. Wouldn’t you say, darling?’ She’d perked up talking about Picasso, enough to appeal to her lover. She took the champagne from him.

  ‘Some that even philistines like us could understand? Yes, indeed.’ He poured me another whisky. ‘A particular one of his wife that captured her elegance just so.’

  ‘Oh yes, that one – the most extraordinary colours! For a portrait, anyway.’

  ‘She showed it off with great relish—’

  ‘Picasso seemed most embarrassed that she did so—’

  ‘Although I hear that she’s not in rue la Boétie to show it off now—’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘I have spies everywhere.’ He winked at me.

  Violet looked at Ferny with an odd mix of adoration and fear, but he had his relentless gaze on me, his eyes almost black, a beckoning abyss. I almost wanted to be sucked
in, just to see what was at the bottom. Was this Fox’s influence? Was I still fatally attracted to the bad boy, the dangerous job, the wild risk? I thought I’d moved away from running into the bullets and flirting with the enemy and all that destructive behaviour. That’s why I was here, in this city of light, to move away from the darkness inside men. But that darkness was here, in the pretty pink parlour of a rich American on a Monday evening.

  ‘Well, that might be the first time I’ve heard of a great man being embarrassed by praise.’

  Ferny smirked and Violet giggled. I felt that Pablo’s dismissal of them was justified.

  ‘You know, the best person to speak to is that Russian fellow,’ said Violet. ‘What do they call him, one of those long Russian names . . .’

  Ferny shrugged.

  ‘Oh yes, you remember darling, you remember everything . . . Lazarus . . . no, Lazarev, that’s right, but Olga called him something else—’

  ‘His Christian name and patronymic, most likely.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Like in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment—’

  ‘Oh, darling, you know I don’t read that type of thing—’

  ‘Raskolnikov is called Rodion Romanovich—’

  ‘This isn’t fiction, even if it is Russian—’

  ‘So Olga would refer to him as that, Something Somethingavich—’

  ‘Oh yes! She did too . . . Arcade, no, Arkady . . . Nikolaievitch?’

  ‘I didn’t pay attention,’ he murmured into a Woodbine.

  ‘Rubbish. You always pay attention, I don’t know why you’re claiming ignorance now. Anyway, it was something like that. He’s Olga’s cousin.’

  ‘A connoisseur of modern art.’ Ferny raised his eyebrows. Somehow he managed to address his remarks just to me.

  ‘Bored us all to tears, exclaiming and declaiming in the most ornate French you’ve ever heard – and that’s saying something! He just couldn’t get over Picasso’s work, kept kissing Picasso’s hand. If one’s behaviour is too affectionate for the Spanish, well – I mean!’ Violet snorted in derision.

  I suspected that her British snobbery would remain untouched by her stay in Paris. The same could not be said for the host’s stock of champagne, or for Joey’s virtue, which I valiantly assailed for the rest of the night to great success.

  9

  Shuffle Along

  I WOKE TO A KNOCKING at my door.

  ‘Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!’ The telegram boy had run up the four flights of stairs and stood, chest heaving, in the doorway. His eyes boggled as I stood only in my bedsheet, Joey having left just moments before. Thank goodness he had or the telegram boy might never have stopped staring.

  ON 4.25 FROM CALAIS BE AT GARE 7.30 TOM-TOM NEEDS TO DRUM UP WINE WINKS WHISPERS FROM A PARIS BUTTON SO BE THERE OR I WILL COME AND FIND YOU STOP

  Tom would be here tonight! When had he sent this telegram? He must be just down the coast, or perhaps he went to London first – my pulse beat in my ears. Tom-Tom, my oldest, dearest, most beautiful friend. We’d be in Paris, together, again. I wore a grin I couldn’t ungrin, I felt light and flighty. This might have suggested to me that Tom was more than a friend, but I wasn’t about to listen to those kinds of suggestions. Otherwise, tiredness might suggest that I needed to sleep, or the pangs in my stomach that I should forgo cocktails for food. I’d learnt long ago to ignore my body’s chatter. The war taught me to pay attention only when the chatter became a screaming tantrum and I had mere moments to save myself before I fell down in a faint. There was no party tonight that I couldn’t miss, but I knew that I’d miss every party before I missed Tom-Tom’s arrival at Gare du Nord.

  The birds tra-la-la’d and ooh-la-la’d and hopped a jazzy two-step on my windowsill. The mist over the city rose like a bridal veil. Even my hangover was suddenly sunny and fine. Perfect for swapping notes with Bertie in a Ritz bathtub.

  ‘KIKI! DARLING!’ BERTIE HOOKED HIS ARM around my waist and kissed me flamboyantly. ‘Is it my mind or my body that you missed the most?’

  ‘Bertie, your taste – have you opened the champagne already? Nine o’clock is early, even for you.’

  ‘Is my breath like the fumes of hell?’

  ‘Like trenchfoot and fear.’

  ‘How ghastly!’ He ran into the bathroom, his robe flailing behind him. His room looked as though it had been shelled, with every surface covered with clothes, shoes, papers, dirty glasses, empty bottles and cigarette stubs. Beautiful objects, all of them – Saville Row suits, fluted champagne bottles, papers with the crests of various newspapers and government departments on them – but none of them as beautiful as the boy’s head that rose from the pillows. Big-eyed and smooth-skinned, he nodded and murmured ‘Bonjour’ before putting on his trousers and slipping out the door.

  ‘Bertie?’

  He grunted in reply to me.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Has he gone?’ Bertie poked his head out of the door. ‘Just a diversion. He’s on the hotel staff. I’m sure he can be diverted again.’

  ‘And was he diverting?’

  ‘Quite. But the mission was never in danger. Now, you’re here for the laundry, correct?’

  ‘And a bath.’

  ‘And food, no doubt. I’ll order and we can exchange information.’

  Hearing him speak French made me smile. It was stilted and clipped, just like the British soldier he used to be, but it could at least rustle up croissants and coffee. I cleared the bathroom of the remains of his rendezvous – it certainly wasn’t beneath me to get rid of dirty socks and hair, not in order to have a proper, pampering soak. I opened the little window to let in the chill air and cobblestone chatter of Paris. The bubbles rose as my clothes fell to the floor and I slipped under the water with a sigh.

  ‘Are you sunken?’ Bertie called from the door.

  ‘My treasure’s at the bottom.’

  ‘Your treasure is your bottom,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bath. ‘The food will be here soon. Now, tell me what happened yesterday and I’ll tell you what I’ve heard from the rich and ribald.’

  As I recounted the last few days, he clapped his hands in delight.

  ‘Picasso gave you this job in between modelling sessions?’

  ‘Of course. He’s sure the painting is with some rich society people who were at his place last week. So as well as Fox’s mission, I have this too. The society party I attended last night was full of lost fortunes and improbable heirs, but I did get a couple of names. Do you know a Hugh Fernly-Whiting? Violet Trelawney-Wells?’

  ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘You’re not posh enough.’

  ‘Or rich enough. I’ve had my ear to the ground for tidbits of gossip about Berlin and Romantic poetry. No one speaks of Goethe and Werther, mists and mellow fruitfulness, but they do talk of the Weimar Republic. Specifically, the most recent uprisings.’

  ‘I read in the papers that they were more like rebellions.’

  ‘In Silesia, yes; in Saxony, less so. My dinner parties are full of the sorts of people who can’t help but talk shop. They talk of Germany, mainly. Then they get sick of talking about Germany, so we talk of France and then wind up, via borders and refugees and inflation, to Germany again.’

  The bubbles whispered as I swirled them around the water.

  ‘Those Irving Berlin songs,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Those song titles and the rumbles from across the border,’ he said, ‘it can’t be a coincidence.’

  I sank down until the water came up to my chin. The street-hawker cries rose through the window, including one that sounded familiar.

  ‘You know, Kiki, those titles were all patriotic songs written—’

  ‘Yes, I remember—’

  ‘So this does go back to the war.’ Bertie raised his eyebrows. ‘Fox knows the mole from then.’

  ‘The mole has to have been one of his protégés – the clues practically scream it. Not least because, why else choose
me? It has to be because of what I alone know.’ Alone and unknown by all but Fox. ‘Oh – He cannot see what flowers are at his feet – it’s because I can remain unseen. Because only Fox can see me.’

  Bertie was the opposite of Fox – open and warm, slender and graceful – and therefore a relief. I reached out and gave his hand a bubbly squeeze. But it was Fox who ambushed my mind. The steam opened my thoughts and conjured him up, his strong body, his sharp glance, his cruel smile. His reliance on me, trust that was mixed with the threat of punishment. He knew I wouldn’t let him down, even if it killed me; except, of course, that my being killed would be the greatest disappointment of all—

  ‘He’ll never let you go, will he, Kiki?’ Bertie smoothed the wet hair from my face. His sad smile caught at my throat.

  I shook my head and sighed. ‘Have I told you that he proposed?’

  ‘What? Your spying surgeon!’

  ‘More than once. The first few times were in the field. He’d say, “And we’ll marry in the morning” at the end of his mission, or book us into a hotel as Mr and Mrs Fox. One time he even instructed me to go to the registry office in Chelsea for a marriage licence. But they were just tests. His real proposal was my farewell.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I left for Australia.’ I swirled the water, willing it to warm the chill memories of that night.

  ‘Well? You can’t leave it there, Kiki. You’re a gossip columnist, for Pete’s sake!’

  I had a new life now, in a new place, with better friends than ever – his exasperation gave me strength.

  ‘It was at the end of the war. You know how we all were. I could hardly tell night from day.’ Or heat from cold, or love from cruelty. ‘He picked me up in his sleek silver Vauxhall. The drive to his country house in Kent was long and wintry, each tree a skeleton in the barren fields. All I saw were crows. I must have been chilled to the bone because when we got to his mansion every room felt like a dream – so warm, they smelt of woodsmoke and old leather, the aroma of freshly baked bread floated over the carpets in the hall. He even had a cuckoo clock, with a man and woman who came out at the hour and danced. He sat me down, handed me the most vibrant, soft, wonderful whisky I’ve ever tasted, and proceeded to charm me. I actually laughed – I don’t think I’d even smiled for him during the entire war.’

 

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