She left Tanya sitting pale and alone. Her first impulse was to cry; first at the injustice and then because she suspected that sweet compliant Lila might be right.
Sylvie wanted to see the floods. Christian had told her about the unsuccessful trip to Rheims and the theft, when he arrived home in the early hours of the morning. After a few moments of stunned silence, she had burst into laughter and kissed him. She would never stop surprising him. It was the gods taking their cut of their good fortune, she said, and now that was done they had nothing left to fear. Now she was in festive mood and wished to be in the open air. He had been worried that in the days he had spent watching Henri work she would have grown bored and begun smoking the drug more than before, but she had not. Her will was iron when it suited her. She showed no sign of missing it and spent her days reading English novels and working on her sketches. Her English and her drawing had improved greatly under Maud’s tuition.
Today, Morel’s first thought was to collect more of the stones from their hiding-place and sell them in Paris. She dissuaded him. Paris was not herself at the moment, she said. There would be no fun buying or selling while the waters were boiling up through the streets. Much better to have a holiday here until the waters drained away and then they could make the sale and leave the country quickly and quietly as planned.
Morel allowed himself to be convinced. The couple left Rue de Seine after lunch well rested and wrapped in furs and overcoats to see the sight of Paris slowly drowning.
It happened first when they climbed the towers of Notre Dame. It was Sylvie’s idea and she was right – it was something to see, with the river swelling and racing under the bridges. The snow had settled on the gargoyles, who stared down on the city with horrified pleasure. It made Sylvie laugh. Occasionally the sky would suddenly, miraculously, clear – and a stream of sunlight would dance over the snow on the roofs, warm the sand-coloured stone and turn the yellow river green and gold. It was at such a moment that he looked down and saw the figure in the middle of the square. You could not pick anyone out at such a distance and name them, of course. The streets were full of people – workers whose factories had been shut down by the water, had brought their wives and children out to see it fighting through the city, but Morel was sure it was her, and that her attention was fixed on him.
He called Sylvie, putting out his hand to her and pulling her near to him as soon as her fingers brushed his. He looked down, ready to point her out, confess what he thought he had seen on the bridge the previous night . . . but she was gone. The crowd was one mass again, flowing through the square in waves like the river itself.
‘What is it, Christian?’
‘Nothing. Nothing, my darling.’
By the time they had reached the Quai de Passy and marvelled at the people punting themselves through the streets in little boats and rafts, he had almost forgotten. Sylvie bought photographs from a street-hawker and clung onto Morel’s arm watching the water and the men putting up the wooden walkways along the side of the street.
‘I can get through there!’ Morel turned around. An elderly man, made almost spherical in his greatcoat, was arguing in a good-natured way with one of the policemen on the road just where the waters were lapping up towards them. ‘Look, officer, you can see by the tree the water’s not more than three foot deep and the cart has a clearance of four – four and a half feet probably! My aunt’s just pulled everything she owns out of the basement on Rue des Eaux and I can’t leave it sitting on the street for the apaches to rifle through.’
‘But my friend, the ground is like porridge!’ the policeman protested. ‘Look, the lamp halfway along is already sinking.’
Morel looked where he was pointing. The street-lamps were still lit and glowing in the afternoon light. No one could get to them to shut off the gas. It did seem to be tilting. The cart-driver waved his hand. ‘Pah! I’ll trust my horse to know not to step in a sewer.’
A woman stepped out of the crowd, her cheeks pink with the cold and the same look of glee on her face that Sylvie had. ‘Give me a ride, Dad! I want to go through and my husband will help you with the stuff at the other end if you do.’ She pulled on the arm of a young man beside her and he touched his cap. If it was to the driver or the policeman wasn’t quite clear.
The policeman shrugged. ‘Be careful, that’s all I’m saying – and don’t blame me if you get a soaking.’ The mood seemed to have caught him too. He was smiling as he said it.
‘All right then,’ the carter said, and put his hand down to help the girl up beside him.
Sylvie stepped forward. ‘Oh, us too please, my friend!’ Morel let himself be led to the cart’s side. The older man was looking down at her in the fine furs a little doubtfully. She pulled the butterfly brooch from her lapel. ‘I’ll give you this.’ Morel frowned briefly. It was the brooch she’d given Maud for Christmas and then reclaimed from her little store of possessions after she had gone into the river. Morel felt a creeping sense of cold on the back of his neck, but Sylvie was already scrambling onto the cart and making herself comfortable with the girl and her husband. Before Morel had even managed to take his seat beside her, she had found out he worked in one of the flooded factories in Bercy. She was bright and joking with the young couple. Sylvie always knew how to be with whomever she came across. Never needed a hint. It made him proud.
‘All secure?’ the carter called out, then urged his horse forward into the water. It was as if they were part of the river. The women linked arms and laughed, half-lifting themselves off the wooden bench-seats to see over the parapet and into the river. The Eiffel Tower stood high and lonely on the other bank. ‘It moved,’ the girl shrieked suddenly. ‘Did you not see it move! Ahh, it will fall at last and crush all the rich in Suffren.’ Her eyes were shining. The horse was moving slowly but steadily, and the water was deepening. It was up almost to its chest. The water splashed up and the women squealed. Morel looked back to see if the Tower was moving, monstrous thing. He couldn’t see any sign of a shift.
Their progress was being watched by the crowd they had left behind. They waved and whistled at each other. Then he saw her. Not ten yards away yet and veiled, the familiar thin shape standing on the very edge of the water. She put up her hands and lifted the black netting that hung in front of her eyes. Hell and all its devils!
Morel gave a shout and pushed past Sylvie and the girl, the motion of the cart making him stumble onto his knees. The young man tried to hold onto his arm, but Morel shook him off. He heard Sylvie call to him but looked instead into the crowd. She was still there. The dead woman staring at him. He clambered awkwardly off the back of the cart and fell into the water. The cold seized him as if it had claws and forced the air out of his lungs. The horse whinnied, protesting at the movement, and then surged forward away from him a few paces. The ground felt weak and soft under his feet and some current caught him before he had regained his balance. He fell forward on his hands and was choked by the filthy water. The confusion and sound of it, cold air and freezing water spluttering in his throat. He tried to push himself up but stumbled again. Above the noise of the water he could hear Sylvie shouting his name. An arm suddenly caught him and lifted him clear. Two men, one the policeman who had warned them to be careful and another, a labourer who had been working on the thin wooden walkways, half-dragged him up towards the crowd again. His coat was sodden and pulled him down. The dead woman in the crowd was gone, leaving only these amazed faces – disgusted, frightened or angry. ‘Are you mad? Are you mad?’ the policeman kept saying.
Morel slid out of their arms onto the cold cobbles. He looked up at them, not understanding what they wanted from him; there was a circle of sky showing between their faces, and the air filled with another of those sudden flurries of snow. Someone was pushing through the crowd. Sylvie. In those few moments she had run all the way back along the walkway. She helped him stand and guided him away from the curious stares. He shivered, and feeling his teeth rattle he clenched his jaw.
‘She’s coming for me, Sylvie,’ he said. ‘She hates me and I was kind to her.’ It seemed unjust suddenly. He had paid her, fed her and now her ghost felt only rage. He shivered again. The taste of the river was in his mouth, in his hair. If he had been able to use his skinned and stiffened hands properly he would have torn his clothes off right there on the street. He wanted to explain to Sylvie, make her understand – but when he tried to speak again, his throat closed and he retched.
Sylvie waved down a taxicab and after a fierce debate the driver agreed to take them all the way back to Rue de Seine – if he got the fare in advance, plus extra for the wet.
When the Morels arrived back at Rue de Seine, him with his head down and her not letting go of his arm and hurrying him in, Yvette was not sure if she should be proud of Maud or frightened for her. Something had happened – Morel’s dishevelled state and wretched stoop told as much – but where was Maud? Taken up by the gendarmes? Murdered? But the couple looked as if their problems were falling over them like the flood, rather than done with, so Yvette let herself hope. She paced back and forth on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, keeping a close eye on the crowds around her. It was not the sort of day when people noticed a girl such as her. The whole city felt strangely tense. She heard snatches of news from the people passing by; of pavements collapsing, more ragged holes appearing in the streets far away from the river. The water was climbing up through the sewers and underground tunnels: all those clever modern tricks of control of which the city was so proud were being turned against her by the river. The level of the water was still rising fast; so much debris collecting against the Pont de l’Alma that engineers were talking of blowing it up before it became a dam. The factories were shutting, the waste-works were closed.
She had been looking for Maud in the crowd for so long, that when she finally saw her, it came as a shock. Maud walked straight past without seeing her, her face a mask. Yvette ran a few paces to catch her up and touched her arm. In the first moment she glanced round, Maud looked irritated, ready to knock away a beggar or a man, then surprised.
‘Yvette.’ She looked up Rue de Seine towards the Palais du Luxembourg. ‘They are at home?’
Yvette was not sure what greeting she had expected, but one with a little more warmth than this. ‘Yup,’ she replied. ‘They rolled up an hour ago and nothing moving since. He looks as sick as a dog. What did you do?’
Maud smiled, cat-like, discreet – but there was such an animal pleasure in it Yvette was shocked. ‘I frightened him.’
Again Yvette wondered if Maud was still quite sane. She kept her own voice slow and even. ‘You will keep watching him?’
‘I shall, as long as I can.’
Yvette had used her time well. ‘If you must. There is a woman living in the house opposite with a room on the second floor. We may rent it by the hour if you wish it, though it will be expensive. I shall watch while you rest, if you can.’
Maud looked around her as if noticing for the first time that the sky was growing thick with darkness. ‘Good. Why is it darker than normal?’
‘Floodwater. In the electricity works, the basements. The lights have failed in places all over the city,’ Yvette said. Another scrap of information gathered from the crowds around her. ‘Take my arm.’
‘I was ready to do this alone,’ Maud said. ‘Why are you helping me?’
‘I don’t know – because something tells me I should? For God’s sake, the ground is going under our feet. Who knows what is right today?’
CHAPTER 18
Aunt Vera was in the drawing room but the lights had not been turned on and the afternoon gloom had silted the room with purple shadows. She did not move when Tanya let herself into the room and settled down beside her. Tanya did not try to touch her.
‘Aunty, I think the world is changing and I wish to change too. I love Paul and I think we can be happy together, but I shall have to manage on a great deal less money.’ She had her notebook with her. ‘I know you only want me to be happy, but I think there are more ways to be happy now for women like us, with an education and some talent, than there were. Don’t you think?’
Her aunt still did not move, but Tanya thought she was listening. ‘Mr Allardyce once told me he thought you were a remarkable woman. I think so too, and I need your help. With Papa, of course, but also with the other things. Life has been easy for me and I shall have to learn how to manage my money.’ Vera was certainly listening now. ‘We shall need to entertain, but only in a modest fashion, and I shall need an apartment with three bedchambers at least. Sasha will need one, and I wish to always have a room for you and Aunty Lila, always there when you wish it. Can you help me a little to work it all out?’
Vera sniffed and put out her hand. Tanya meekly handed over the book and heard her aunt beginning to turn the pages. After a few minutes she said, ‘You’ve forgotten you’ll need to pay to keep the place warm, Tanya. In these Paris winters . . . Do you wish to have an apartment with an American bath? He will want it, I suppose. Turn that light on so I can see what I am about.’ Tanya leaped up to do so, and her aunt stood and carried the notebook over to her writing-table. She carried on studying Tanya’s notes then looked round, a spark of interest in her faded blue eyes. ‘You think it is likely you will get five hundred for a portrait?’
‘I think so. I have asked a few of your friends and they seem to agree it is a reasonable amount. I think I could complete one like that in a week’s painting. One needs the commissions, of course.’
Her aunt drew a fresh sheet of writing paper from the desk and put it down in front of her. ‘It seems to me you should work to get a portrait in the Salon next year. Something of the style you wish to make a living from.’
Tanya joined her at the writing-table and for a little while as the evening thickened around them they spoke about costs and careers, who they knew who might become a patron, whether Sasha would be willing to learn enough French to become a housekeeper to the young couple.
Vera was writing something down on her growing numbered list when she lifted her head and said: ‘Your father must modernise, Tanya. He is too stuck in the old ways of managing a family, his women. Your mother was a good person, but she never thought of anything other than looking pretty and reading novels. He must realise that we new women have our place too.’
‘Yes, Aunty.’
‘And tell your young man to call on us.’
‘He will be reporting on the flood, Aunty. He might not know when he can come, or have the chance to dress.’
‘We are not some stuffy household that insists on such things. Tell him to come when he can and covered in mud if need be.’
‘Yes, Aunty.’
Tanya excused herself for a few moments and sent a note to Paul’s lodgings, then spent another hour with Vera and the figures. It was a little after six when the footman came in to tell them a young girl named Odette wished to speak to Miss Koltsova.
Sylvie would not hear of him leaving the apartment. ‘You are still shivering, Christian. I will not let you.’ She did not seem to understand the importance of it – that she was coming and would creep up with the water into the cellar and snake her way around the diamonds and take them back into the river with her. He could not explain it to Sylvie. She would not believe him. She brought him foul-tasting teas and tried to get him to rest, telling him everything was well and that soon they would be sailing away to America, and that dirty lying Paris, which always looked so fine but was full of holes, torn-up pavements and gunfire, would be behind them. They would be in a country where there were no graves and tunnels.
Again he tried to get up, and again she pushed him down onto the pillows. ‘I will go and fetch them, Christian,’ she said at last. ‘In the morning I will go, but only if you promise to stay still and rest now.’ That gave him some measure of peace but when he slept he dreamed he was drowning.
Paul Allardyce arrived at Tanya’s house just before nine o’clock that evening and was shown at once i
nto the drawing room where Miss Koltsova was waiting for him alone. He was exhausted, having spent the whole day tracking the floods through the streets, gathering figures and trying to talk to officials whose faces were pale with worry. He had crossed the city half-a-dozen times, guessing the size of the sink-holes and attempting to find words for the strange softness of the ground. He tried to remember what he had heard of the catacombs and quarries, the sewers and underground tunnels, then wrote furiously for an hour before going to the telegraph office and sending his full report, at great expense, to New York. Tanya’s message found him at his lodgings where he had gone simply to change his shirt before travelling out once more to watch the river crawling higher and higher.
She was such a beautiful woman, and after the dirt and worry of the day, the poor who had lost everything, the widow of the man who had killed himself rather than leave his home, just looking at her was some sort of relief. She began by saying how glad she was her message had reached him now the petit bleu system had failed and half the telephones were not working, that she had been trying to contact her friends with no success . . . He lost track for a minute – she was speaking English but rather fast and low. It took him a few moments to realise the topic of conversation had changed. She was telling him that she had rejected the Russian millionaire and was proposing to marry him; that she was sure she would be able to make money painting, and if her estimate of his income was not wildly inaccurate they should be able to live in Paris quite comfortably and even save against future emergency. He must have been looking at her with a slightly foolish expression because after a minute or two her words trailed away. She stared at the ground in front of her and as ever Paul found himself fascinated by the furious darkness of her thick hair. He took a step forward and tried to find his voice.
‘Tanya, I have been awake since dawn. I can hardly think, but are you saying you wish to marry me? Is that what I am to understand?’
Headline Page 27