The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

She sat down, feeling pure terror at what would take place in just a few hours. Fourteen models would whizz past like an express train and people would say they’d been sold short. If they came at all. But afterwards they would be served Alsace wine and canapés. Those who wished could mingle and see the girls walking about in the clothes. She, Alix, would be available to discuss her models woman to woman. It was more of an afternoon party than a collection, in the end. Violette, Alix’s upstairs receptionist, and Rosa would take orders – if anybody liked her designs enough to order them.

  By midday the air was so humid the windows beaded. Thank heavens there was none of the frantic bustle that had characterised Javier’s shows. Everything was ironed, hung, brushed, ready. The four mannequins sat in their robes, waiting for the signal to dress. Paying the florist gave Alix a brief diversion, and then it was back to that minute-before-the-curtain panic, in which it freshly dawned on her that she’d done everything wrong. Her clothes were a disaster and she was a failure. Rosa, catching her mood, said, ‘I’d forgotten how bloody awful stage fright is. Hour from now, you’ll be laughing.’

  They heard three long rings of the doorbell and stared at each other. Hubert’s ‘police raid’ warning signal. Rosa muttered, ‘You’d think he’d get it right today, silly sod.’

  Alix said, ‘If he’s gone to sleep on that damn chair …’ But then she heard footsteps down below, a door clunked and her heart did a cartwheel. People were arriving for her show. There were always those who’d come early to get a front-row seat.

  Rosa called, ‘Violette, stand by for action.’ She poked Alix. ‘You’d better get out of sight.’

  Alix slipped into the office that had been turned into a cabine. Every spare mirror and table had been brought in and lamps glowed, making the clothes shimmer in unexpected colours. Alix fanned herself and checked the window was open. It was.

  The mannequins, professional young women who had brought their own underpinnings and makeup, stared at her expectantly. ‘Do I hear an audience?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Might as well get into our first clothes,’ Alix answered, nodding at Marguerite who was acting as chef de cabine. Alix wished she could conjure up Mme Markova, though, mind you, Madame was too rotund for such a tiny space. She slipped off her robe and reached for a tailor-made of russet wool. ‘Oh, why do winter collections have to be in July and August?’

  Which was when she heard, ‘Now just one moment, hold your horses!’ and realised Rosa was speaking English and sounding rattled.

  Before Alix could react, three men were at the cabine door. The mannequins in their undergarments screamed. Alix pulled the russet skirt against herself. ‘What is this? Who are you?’

  ‘Mlle Lutzman?’

  ‘I’m Gower, Alix Gower.’

  ‘Is there a Mlle Lutzman?’ The speaker was a middle-aged man, smartly dressed. He had the decency to stare at the ceiling as he demanded to see the proprietress.

  ‘That’s me. I own Modes Lutzman.’

  He looked at her and they recognised each other at the same moment. A year ago this man had finished the Paris career of Mabel Godnosc. For a hideous moment, Alix thought her bowels were going to give way and she pulled every muscle tight.

  ‘Mademoiselle, we have a warrant to search these premises as we believe counterfeit items are produced here for sale.’

  ‘That’s rubbish. You can’t search!’ Two other men were eyeing the room eagerly and Alix heard her five-year-old self make a bid for clemency. ‘Please – I’m showing a collection in just a few minutes. People are coming. Don’t do this.’

  But they were already doing it. The girls scrambled into their robes as men began emptying the rails of Alix’s precious collection.

  The men in suits were the advance party. There were others behind, wearing bland laboratory coats that gave them the air of museum curators. Alix watched her collection being fed into wooden crates on wheels. Her collection, her future … She was in such shock she hardly heard when Rosa hissed in her ear, ‘I’m going to drop the keys to your own wardrobe into the lavatory cistern. If those buggers want to see your private stuff, they’ll have to get their arms wet.’

  Alix made no reply because a man was pulling Ma Fuite off its hanger. She pleaded, ‘It’s velvet, you’ll crush it.’

  A policeman asked her to stand aside. When she heard cupboards being opened elsewhere in the building, she knew they were raiding their way up to the ateliers. They’d find couture items, all her own legitimate property. No copies except … oh, God. They’d find the black Chanel evening gown she’d bought off Mabel Godnosc, and the caramel-coloured Lucien Lelong she’d borrowed from Una all those months ago, which Una had given her before going to England. And the almost-Schiaparelli coat with its embroidered collar. Would those three items constitute piracy? She was persuading herself not when she remembered the cranberry-red suit. A suit with a Chanel label sewn inside.

  She tried to sit down, missed the chair. One of the girls ran to help her and put a robe around her. She saw their shock, their pity. Nice girls, but this humiliation would garnish every tea plate in Paris. They wouldn’t be able to stop themselves. ‘You’ll never guess …’

  It got worse. At 1 p.m. she heard the raiding party retreating down the stairs, colliding with the fashion cognoscenti coming up. A seasoned torturer couldn’t have designed it better. Who had she to thank for this? Whoever it was, many in the fashion world would agree that Alix Gower was reaping her just reward.

  A pair of arms. She needed a pair of arms around her. The flesh-and-blood reality was Rosa, who let her cry on her bosom, then set her aside so she could announce, in her poshest voice, the regrettable cancellation of today’s show.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Rosa watched her maid pour tea and, as it was nudging four o’clock, she broke the waxed seal over the contents of a tartan tin. ‘All the way from Edinburgh, Scotland. Go on, Toinette, take one. Lucky for me the franc’s so low. My annuity with the Prudential buys more shortbread here than it would in London. Only way I can afford you, dear.’

  A knock at the door. Rosa said, ‘Answer it, but I’m not in unless he’s tall, dark and handsome.’

  With the maid’s departure, her cheerful expression faded. Losing her job with Alix back in August still hurt. She’d stayed with Alix for seven days and nights following the police raid. Then Alix, who was inconsolable and, Rosa suspected, a little deranged from shock, had asked her to go. She needed to be alone to think. Rosa had waited for a word, for the invitation to return to work. Not a squeak. Now it was the last Sunday in October and Rosa had no more illusions. She’d lost a job and a friend.

  She didn’t blame Alix. After the raid, it had been panic. Half the sewing girls had walked out and any number of customers had rung, cancelling their orders. The police hadn’t arrested Alix in the end. The lawyer she’d been forced to hire reckoned there were insufficient grounds for a prosecution. But Alix had lost so much money, she’d only have kept her business going by cutting staff to a skeleton and doing fifty jobs herself.

  ‘Bloody world,’ Rosa sighed, biting into her biscuit. ‘Knocks us down, watches us stagger up, knocks us down again.’ Hearing voices in the hall, she swore pithily. She didn’t want visitors. ‘What happened to tall, dark and handsome?’ she demanded as Toinette opened the door and stepped aside. ‘Blimey O’Riley,’ she exclaimed as she saw who stood there. ‘Where’ve you been and what the hell happened?

  *

  He’d only come for information, but there was something about Rosa that got you talking. Within an hour he’d unveiled more than he knew he was hiding. The war – that part played by the International Brigades – was over, he told her. They were disbanded. Well, obviously, or he wouldn’t be here. They were all, officially, Heroes of Democracy.

  After parading through Barcelona, three or four hundred Britons had embarked for home, but he’d crossed into France instead. He told Rosa that nothing in his life as a reporter had prepared him for t
he reality of infantry warfare. ‘You become a machine. It’s the only way to survive.’

  Rosa had Toinette fill the biggest teapot. She told him she’d had four brothers who’d fought in the last rotten war, so nothing shocked her. So he told her about the women and children driven out of their villages by the Fascists and used as shields. ‘Mown down. Boys called up to fight for the government side, and shot for running away. That’s when it struck me – soldiers have to fight for something. I don’t mean politics. What every soldier needs is salvation. His girl.’

  Rosa pushed the tartan tin at him, followed by the sugar bowl, though she knew he didn’t take sugar. ‘I hope you’ve got one in reserve.’

  ‘Do I need a reserve, Rosa?’ He looked around for signs of Alix, but saw only Rosa’s possessions.

  She topped up his cup. ‘So – when you disappeared so suddenly, it was to fight the Fascists? Why d’you have to fight other buggers’ wars?’

  ‘Blood payment.’ The tea was stewed but Verrian didn’t mind. He doubted he’d ever quench his thirst. ‘I caused the deaths of two people in Spain. Of my wife, Maria-Pilar, and a friend, Miguel. I don’t expect you to understand, but I couldn’t rest until I offered my blood in return for theirs.’

  ‘How does the tab stand?’

  ‘I’m alive, so perhaps I’m forgiven. Rosa, is Alix still here?’

  ‘No. Went ages ago. I’ve let her room to a Polish chap.’

  What he’d feared. Call it survivor’s sensitivity, but he’d looked at the upstairs front window as he crossed the square and known there was no Alix behind it. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘Is Bonnet still next door? He’ll tell me.’

  ‘He’s gone too. Law unto himself, Bonnet. Word to the wise: things changed for Alix after you left.’

  The word ‘things’ felt like a drum roll, building to a climax he dreaded. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’ll be at work in her fashion house, cutting clothes or swanning around in them, or nagging her sewing girls. Those she’s got left.’

  ‘I see.’ Though he didn’t at all. ‘Is there a man … anyone I should know about?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Rosa gave an uneasy shrug. ‘She got mixed up with this fellow after you left. I warned her … bad lot. She left him in the end but I’m told she’s since gone back. She had a horrible upset, see, and sort of lost the will. She pruned off all her friends and let nobody near her. Except him. No – don’t ask.’

  ‘That’s rather a tall order.’

  Rosa peeled the knitted cosy off the teapot and peered inside. She muttered about ‘making fresh’ but Verrian stopped her from getting up.

  ‘Where can I find her?’ He kept his gaze on her until she broke.

  ‘All right. I’m fond of both of you and don’t see nothing but trouble. But all right … If she asks, I didn’t tell you.’

  And then she told him.

  *

  ‘Wake up, Miss Gower.’ Jolyan Ferryman pitched his voice over the mesh of laughter and scraping chairs. ‘Glaze over any more, somebody will call for a window cleaner.’

  Alix realised that everyone was getting up to dance. Serge had sacked Roistering Rex and secured a mellifluous six-piece from New Orleans with a lead trumpeter who, in his own words, could swing a cat just by looking at it. Dulcie L’Amour’s baby voice was so overwhelmed by a tight brass section, she was more stage decoration than singer. Nobody noticed. People came for the swing, they came for the chef Serge had tempted away from a top restaurant. They came because the Rose Noire was the place to be seen even on a damp Monday night.

  A waiter served champagne and she watched its mist climb her glass. Watched the warring bubbles, felt them enter her nose as a brut flow hit the back of her mouth.

  Jolyan spoke right into her ear. ‘Why did you come back to Serge, Miss Gower?’

  She answered without thinking. ‘I needed to look at something worse than failure.’

  ‘She didn’t cheer.’ Jolyan bucked his cigarette holder in the direction of Dulcie L’Amour, who was singing ‘Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken’. ‘Yours was the last face she wanted to see back again. God, she’ll lay an egg if she pushes any harder.’

  ‘Serge tells me he likes blondes, that I’m too dark and thin.’

  Jolyan snorted. ‘Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you. There’s a rumour flying around that you’re starving him of affection.’

  ‘Don’t listen to rumours.’

  ‘Actually he told me himself. He confides in me, you see. After you walked out on him, he picked me out as his new best friend. He would unburden himself – “himself” being his favourite subject – and because I don’t speak French fast enough to interrupt him, he had a silent audience. An unhappy Serge is rotten company, so any chance of loosening the screws – as he so charmingly puts it – tonight?’

  ‘No. Not until he confesses what he did to Solange. I need him to tell me he didn’t hurt her.’

  ‘Ah, feminine logic. Naturally, his silence cannot imply innocence, because you’ve already convicted him in your mind.’

  ‘I know he isn’t innocent.’

  ‘Then why wait all these weeks for an answer you have already?’ Jolyan rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. ‘Let me put you out of your misery. Men like Serge always hurt their women when they feel out of control. Of course he hurt what’s-her-name. He’ll go for you ’ere long.’

  She waited for a break in the music, then said harshly, ‘Why don’t you go and annoy Rhona de Charembourg? You’re in her pay, or her lover’s. Why should I be saddled with you?’

  ‘I’m Rhona’s social eyes and ears, not her companion. I ring ahead and reserve her the best tables. I check her furs into cloakrooms, ensure the same ones are given back. I order her taxis. That’s all.’

  ‘Does the Comte de Charembourg know what you do?’

  ‘Naturally. He approves. These days he’s rarely away from his place of business. He’s taken over as Chairman of FTM, which involves travel to Alsace. He likes being busy. When he’s at home, he prefers to work or read in his study.’

  ‘Does he know you sit and chat with me?’

  Jolyan eyed her in amusement. ‘Do we chat? I sit here because it’s a good table for people-watching. Also, Mme de Charembourg likes me to keep an eye on you. We often have breakfast together, she and I, where I report everything I’ve heard you say … every gauche confession, every acid remark. She laps up your naiveties, but I doubt she bores her husband by repeating them.’

  ‘You are a fox. No, a polecat. Light me a cigarette.’

  ‘Hashish joint or ordinary?’ Jolyan asked, opening his cigarette case.

  ‘Ordinary. You do it so well.’

  He laughed. ‘Touché. I like you better since you got raided. It kicked your smug little rear.’

  ‘What do you know about that?’ Alix flashed back.

  ‘Not a lot and care less. Oh, look, Rhona and Maurice are dancing. Admit it – they are a superb couple. What colour would you call Madame’s dress?’

  ‘Mud,’ Alix grunted, though privately ‘coffee-cream’ came to mind. Hard to judge its precise colour under artificial light. It was slinky, made of synthetic fibre, judging from its sheen, and rimmed with silk fringe. As Rhona turned in Ralsberg’s arms, Alix got a full view of the back and her mouth dropped. It was her own failed No. 10. She staggered to her feet, yelping, ‘That’s my dress! The one I couldn’t … good God. How on earth—’

  Jolyan grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, let’s dance.’ A song, ‘Tipi Tipi Tin’, had burned like a brush fire all that summer and the band had just struck up the opening bars. Alix let herself be pulled on to the dance floor because she wanted a proper look at Rhona and the back of that dress.

  ‘Tipi Tipi Tin’ went like a train. No chance of manoeuvring Jolyan, who seemed to guess her motives and was steering her ever further from Rhona and Ralsberg, a sly smile on his lips. Then the band slewed into ‘Glad Rag Doll’. T
he tempo slowed, dancers moving like whipped cream. Damn – Rhona and her partner were leaving the floor, heading for their table in one of the club’s niches. Alix almost throttled Jolyan as she lunged sideways to get a last glimpse of Rhona. Frustratingly, Maurice Ralsberg placed his hand in the small of Rhona’s back, and Alix gave up. It could be No. 10. Or it could be somebody else’s creation entirely. As Javier had once pointed out, ‘Very little in this world is truly original.’

  And now she was stuck with Jolyan Ferryman, which felt like one of those dreams where you find yourself slow-dancing with your old chemistry teacher or a toad-faced bellboy. Jolyan obviously felt the same as he said, ‘Don’t loll. I don’t like breathing somebody else’s air.’

  ‘Maybe you’re not interested in girls, Jolyan.’

  ‘I’m not interested in girls, correct. I like women. Your milksop gropings for a sexual identity don’t hit the spot.’

  ‘I’ll ask you to sleep with me when I’m as old as Rhona de Charembourg. Is she going to divorce the comte, or is Ralsberg simply amusing himself while he’s in Paris?’

  She expected Ferryman to show some offence, but he replied placidly, ‘Ralsberg is head over heels. In love with love. Nobody falls harder than a mature man whose life is money, money and money. It’s like watching a native tribesman coming into contact with European smallpox. Straighten up.’ He tapped the exposed skin of Alix’s back with his knuckle. ‘I know it’s “Glad Rag Doll”, but don’t flop at the knees. Ah – the Relief of Mafeking, Serge is coming. He can prop you up.’

  Serge took Alix in his arms. ‘You’ll come upstairs with me tonight? I’m still waiting for you to sweep up that blue glass.’

  She stared deep into Serge’s eyes and thought, At least with Jolyan you feel there’s a personality inside, even if it’s horrid. Here I am, gazing into a void. Serge has no character. He’s a manufacture of my fantasies and his lies. ‘I don’t like stairs any more, Serge. Why did you tell me Solange lived on Corsica when she lives at Le Havre?’

  ‘I don’t know where she lives.’