Grace opened her mouth to speak but didn’t know where to begin, the words sticking in her throat. ‘You… I don’t understand…’
‘Please, darling.’ He got up. ‘Forgive me. You’ve married a fool. But I’m your fool, I promise.’ Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her close.
He was so tall, she slipped in easily, just under his chin. She could feel his heart beating, smell the familiar soapy aftershave he wore. She stood very still, her cheek against his chest, until he took a step back.
He was smiling, handsome, relieved.
‘God, I’m shattered! What a journey.’
Tucking his cigarette into the corner of his mouth, he lifted his case up, setting it on the luggage rack. He unsnapped the locks and took out his shaving kit.
She watched as he untied his shoelaces, slipped off his shoes, hung up his suit jacket. ‘Is that the loo?’
She nodded.
Roger padded past her into the bathroom and locked the door. She could hear the water running.
Grace sat down on the side of the bed.
He was back. All the way from London.
And Vanessa… apparently little more than a misunderstanding. If she believed him.
It had taken all of five minutes. He’d come in, made his apology and now he was in the bathroom – her bathroom.
So why didn’t she feel anything?
Running her hand over her forehead, Grace pressed her fingers deep into her skin. Yes, she could feel them. But why was she so numb inside?
After a while, Roger came out again.
Without saying anything, Grace turned off the light and he finished undressing in the dark. She stretched out along the far side of the bed with her back to him and he crawled in next to her.
It had been such a long time since he’d been this close; her heart pounded so loudly in her head she thought he might hear it.
But when he reached across to touch her, she moved away.
‘No.’
When Grace woke up the next morning, Roger was already fully dressed, sitting at the writing desk. He was looking over some papers, his reading glasses low on his nose.
Still groggy, Grace propped herself up on her elbows. ‘What time is it?’
He didn’t bother to look over. ‘I’m not sure.’ He turned the page. ‘There’s a time difference, isn’t there?’
Grace rubbed her eyes. ‘What are you doing?’
Taking off the glasses, he turned, holding up the papers. ‘Do you have any idea what a valuable share portfolio this is?’
Grace sat up, fully awake now. ‘Those papers belong to me, Roger!’
‘You’re my wife, Grace. They belong to both of us now.’
‘Why were you even looking at them?’ She swung her legs out. ‘Who gave you permission?’
He looked at her, his upper lip curling slightly, as if she were mad. ‘They were here on the desk, for anyone to see. Besides, Mallory told me you were having difficulty with some business matters. I know how to read contracts, Grace. I do it all day long. You should have shown them to me as soon as they came in the door.’
‘Mallory?’ They’d been discussing her behind her back? ‘What has she got to do with anything?’
‘Nothing. My God, you’re touchy!’ He turned round in his chair to face her. ‘I rang her, all right? I wanted to know that you were safe.’
‘Then why didn’t you ring me?’
‘Because,’ he stood up, ‘you weren’t listening to me! Were accusing me of having an affair. What is wrong with you this morning?’
Grace turned her back on him. It felt as though her head was going to explode. He was too big, too loud; took up all the space in the room. No sooner had he arrived than he was going through her papers, telling her what to do, ringing her friends. Grabbing a dress from the wardrobe, she marched into the bathroom.
When she came out, Roger was going through the documents she’d signed with Monsieur Tissot. ‘We absolutely need to have these translated properly. And I’m going to ring this Edouard Tissot and get him to meet me here this afternoon. I’m telling you, this is negligence,’ he insisted, shaking his head. ‘I cannot believe that you would sign anything without consulting me first, Grace. This could be a serious mistake. Have you any idea what the going rate of property is in this area? You’re lucky I found them in time.’
Grace picked up her handbag and coat. Put on her hat.
Roger took off his glasses. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I need some fresh air.’
‘You can’t leave now, Grace. You need to tell me exactly what you’ve done here. We have to go through these. Don’t you understand? This affects both of us. Who is this Eva d’Orsey, anyway?’
She opened the door. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. And these are my affairs, Roger. They do not concern you.’
The first place she went was to Mallory’s room but there was no answer.
After scanning the dining room and terrace, Grace eventually found her sitting in one of the corner sofas in the drawing room, writing postcards.
Mallory smiled. ‘Hello, stranger. Feeling better?’
Grace threw herself into one of the armchairs across from her. ‘Roger is here.’
‘He’s here?’ Mallory looked up, shocked. ‘In Paris?’
Grace leaned in close. ‘Why did you tell him about the inheritance?’
Mallory put down her pen. ‘You mean you haven’t?’
Grace ran her fingers over her eyes. It was as if the walls were closing in around her. Paris, where she’d felt so autonomous and free, had overnight become as suffocating as London. ‘He’s into all my papers now, Mal. He’s ringing the lawyer, he’s going to have the contracts translated.’
‘Well,’ she said, frowning, ‘isn’t that rather a good thing?’
‘No, Mallory. It isn’t.’
‘You don’t think he might be useful?’
‘This is my affair,’ Grace insisted. It had never struck her before how crucial it was that she figure out these questions on her own; how deeply her autonomy mattered to her.
Mallory’s brow furrowed; she bit her lower lip. ‘I’m sorry, Grace. I thought you were, well, out of your depth. When he rang the other night, he sounded genuinely concerned. He told me he just wanted to know that you were all right. I had no idea you hadn’t told him. And I certainly didn’t know that he was going to turn up. Honestly, darling,’ she put her hand over Grace’s, ‘I just wanted to do what was best for you.’
Grace stood up. ‘This isn’t it.’
‘How can you be sure?’
Grace looked at her. ‘I… I don’t know,’ she floundered, taken aback. Mallory had hit a nerve; Grace was normally the confused one, the one floating aimlessly, stumbling in the dark.
‘Well,’ Mallory sighed, ‘what is best then?’
Grace pulled her coat on. Even Mallory doubted her. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Where are you going?’ Mallory got up too.
‘I need to be alone.’
‘Wait!’ Mallory took her arm. ‘Did Roger apologize? Tell me, what did he say?’
Mallory’s face was so intent.
Grace stared at her, trying to yank her mind back into focus. But it wouldn’t go. For some reason the whole question of Roger, of what he said or did, didn’t matter as much as something else – something she couldn’t quite define. It hovered just out of reach of her awareness, like a shadow.
Mallory was waiting. Grace’s brain spun. She could hardly remember the details of last night’s conversation; only that Roger had arrived, swallowed up all the air, taken up all the space. And after months of wishing he would touch her, now she was the one pushing him away.
In contrast, the guilty memory of Edouard Tissot’s mouth on hers ricocheted through her entire body.
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure… I suppose so.’ Her voice was flat, lifeless. ‘He said everything I wanted to hear. Told me it was all… all a lie. Only, now I don’t
want to hear it any more.’
She was sitting in the park across the street, with her back to the playground, looking out across the river. Her dog, the ageing terrier with his watery eyes and moulting fur, was crouched in a neat little ball underneath the bench, hiding from the screaming children.
It was easy to spot her – the long black coat, the wool felt turban-style hat. Even from behind, her stiff bearing gave her an imperious air.
Grace didn’t want to be here; with all her heart she didn’t want to speak to Madame Zed ever again. But here she was, just the same.
When she first left the hotel, she’d gone to the Louvre. It was so enormous; her plan was to lose herself in the miles of galleries. Spend the whole day or at least until her head quietened down. But no sooner had she gone inside than the sheer scale of the palace overwhelmed her. The pale marble walls and high columns echoed with voices chattering in half a dozen languages; the incredible opulence of the gilded walls and ceiling of the Apollo Gallery dazzled too brightly; all around her on the canvases, bodies writhed, wars raged, heroic actions prevailed. The grandeur jarred rather than soothed.
So she left; wandered the streets, bought a coffee she didn’t drink. Walking into a bookshop, she stood, staring, unseeing, at the titles on the shelves.
A gentleman in glasses approached. ‘Comment puis-je vous aider?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Comment puis-je vous aider?’ he repeated slowly.
It took Grace a moment to realize she was staring at a row of anatomy journals; this was an academic bookshop.
‘Non. Non, merci.’
Soon it became clear that no place would offer the refuge she sought. Her mind stumbled and careered, tripping and falling again and again into the same unanswerable voids. One moment the taste, feel and smell of Edoaurd Tissot seemed to have taken over her body and then, equally as intense, the horrendous truth blinded her – that she could no longer trust herself; that everything she thought she was, was a lie.
Now she was back, on the Left Bank. Searching for the person who had cracked her life open like an egg.
Grace stopped in front of the bench. Hands in her pockets, she gripped her father’s old lighter, holding it tightly in the palm of her hand. ‘You must really hate me.’
Madame Zed looked up at her, surprised. Then, taking in Grace’s expression and demeanour, she shook her head. ‘No, I don’t hate you. I don’t even know you.’ Her lips hardened into a thin, taut line. ‘But I loathed her.’
Grace stared at her in shock. ‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ she shot back, her black eyes fierce. ‘He was mine. I discovered him, I trained him! My money bought him the business. He was my whole world – the child I never bore, the husband I never married, the companion I never found. And then she arrived, out of nowhere!’ She leaned forward. ‘Do you know what was so devastating about her? She truly had a unique talent. She knew how to catch the flavour of the times, how to distil it into the perfect atmosphere. She was good at it. And more than anyone else, she knew how to make him listen.’ She gripped the terrier’s lead tightly, winding it round her boney hand. ‘When I spoke, my voice disappeared like the wind. Eva knew how to bring out the best in him. When she made a suggestion, he took note. It was obviously right. Do you realize how galling that was? I was reduced to an onlooker – an antiquity from another age.’ She stared out across the choppy grey water for some time. When she spoke again, she sounded empty, hollow. ‘Even when she left, he’d become so cocksure, so independent, he didn’t need me any more.’
Grace shook her head. ‘That’s not even true! What about the correspondence I found? The letter with those strange accords you were creating with him – wet wool, hair and so on?’
Madame wound the lead even tighter. ‘That wasn’t Valmont.’
‘Then who was it?’ she demanded. ‘Who else would want your help to create a perfume?’
‘Who indeed.’ She turned, locking Grace in with her unfathomable black gaze. ‘She only made one formula. I cannot believe it, even to this day. To have such success with one’s first real attempt.’ She shook her head, laughing bitterly. ‘Unheard of!’
Grace sat down on the edge of the bench. ‘What are talking about?’
‘The formula she sold Hiver – Eva created it.’
‘But you told me she’d betrayed Valmont! That it was his!’
‘It had his name on it. But no. She’d been working on it for a while, on her own. It was a private obsession.’
‘How could you do that?’ She stared at her in dismay. ‘Did you lie about anything else?’
‘Some day you will have a nemesis,’ Madame warned bitterly. ‘It’s not easy, you know. Someone who has the ability to do everything you wish you could, but with greater ease, style, success.’
Grace folded her arms across her chest. ‘I already have a nemesis, thank you.’
‘You’re too young to understand what it’s like to be dismissed from someone’s life – someone you love.’
Grace glowered at her. ‘I could write a book about it.’
They sat a while.
Then Madame Zed spoke again. ‘I’ve known her so many years, hated her for so long, she’s like a part of me. A limb. When you told me she had died, I actually felt bereft. Sometimes I wonder if we don’t hold our hatreds closer than our loves. Then you, of all people, came to me for answers.’
‘And you saw the chance to get your own back.’
‘No, that wasn’t my intention at all.’ She turned on Grace, suddenly indignant. ‘Do you think I want to be petty? That I’m not repulsed by my own jealousy and resentment? I wanted to be fair.’
‘But you weren’t.’
‘No, no I wasn’t,’ she agreed. For a while, she sat very still. ‘I lost my ability,’ she said at last.
Grace shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘In India I contracted meningitis. I never fully recovered. Over time, it eroded my sense of smell.’
‘But what about the perfumes you showed me…’
‘They were recounted from memory. But I can no longer make anything. I became useless.’
Grace thought back to the spoiled milk, the burning supper.
‘It’s true that I should not have agreed to talk to you.’ Madame admitted. ‘But in the end, I think Eva and I had more in common than I realized. She lost what mattered most to her too.’
‘Lost!’ Grace shook her head in disbelief. ‘You make it sound as though I was misplaced.’
‘Don’t you want to know where you came from?’
‘Is that how you justify it to yourself? That you’re helping me? Explaining to me how my entire life is a fraud?’
Madame Zed kept her eyes trained on the ground between her feet. Deep creases cut across her brow. ‘No. I can’t justify my actions. I suppose I did want you to hate her,’ she said quietly.
‘Well, you’ve succeeded. And all it’s done is tear me to pieces.’ Against her will, there were tears. ‘Made me think less of the entire human race.’
‘Well, now. We can’t have that.’
Madame Zed rose, the little terrier scurrying to his feet too. The afternoon was clouding over, the wind gathering strength. Gusts battered against her thin frame, threatening to topple her. ‘Come with me.’
‘Why?’ Grace looked up at her. ‘Why would I ever come with you again?’
Even when she was wrong, Madame managed a superior tone. ‘Because I have one last perfume to show you.’
Madame Zed picked up the simple chemist’s vial with the peeling label. But before she opened it, she said, ‘Let me tell you what happened.’
‘You’ve already lied to me once. Why should I believe what you say?’
‘Why don’t you hear what I have to say first?’ she countered, evenly.
‘Fine.’
Madame Zed sat down and Grace took a seat opposite her.
‘When Eva was just a young girl, working as a maid in New Yor
k, she became pregnant,’ Madame began. ‘Charles Lambert, or Lamb as he was known, brought her with him to England. But it was agreed between them that Eva would pay for her fare and Lamb’s protection by working with him, after the baby was born, in the large gambling casinos of Europe. That’s what he was relying on and why he agreed to help her. She had a rare, extremely rare, gift for numbers.’
Grace was unimpressed. ‘You’ve already told me that.’
Madame Zed took her rudeness in her stride.
‘Eva was fifteen, maybe sixteen when you were born,’ she went on, ‘without friends or family, in a strange country. Lambert convinced her that he should take the child to live with his sister, Catherine. That she would be able to look after you better than anyone else. Catherine was married to a man named Maudley, a soldier who’d been badly injured in France. They never thought they would have children. So when Lambert came to them one day with the baby of an unmarried young girl, it seemed like a godsend.’
Grace’s heart speeded up. ‘You’re talking about my parents.’
Madame Zed nodded.
A memory flashed into Grace’s mind; her mother’s lips pressed to her forehead as she tucked her into to bed at night. ‘Goodnight, my darling girl.’
Instinctively she touched her fingers to her brow.
‘Eva didn’t want to let you go,’ Madame continued. ‘But Lambert insisted. He promised her that when she’d repaid her debt, he would write to his sister and arrange a meeting; that Eva would be able to have you back. Time passed. Eva did everything Lambert asked of her. But it was never enough. He was a raging alcoholic. Even her skill couldn’t prevent him from digging them deeper and deeper into debt.’
‘What was meant to be a temporary solution became a permanent one. Lambert kept his sister’s name and address from Eva. He said she would only ruin things if she tried to contact her on her own, but in truth it gave him power over Eva. However, the night he took his life, Lambert wrote to her, finally giving her the details. He also confessed that his attempts at negotiating the child away from his sister had failed – Catherine had become too attached to the little girl. She wasn’t prepared to give her up without a battle. You see, Lambert had given his sister not just the child but the birth certificate too. Eva had no proof that you were hers.’ Madame looked across at her. ‘But Eva refused to give up.’
The Perfume Collector Page 28