Paris Kiss (24 page)

I clutched at the quilt.

Georges rubbed his eyes. ‘If Jessie will have me, we can live together in my studio, working as equals. Damn the money.'

‘Really?' Rosa said. ‘In that squalid little studio with your crazy Russian friend? And what will you live on?'

‘Art and love.'

Rosa laughed. ‘Oh that's a good one. I haven't laughed so much in years. Art and love! I can see it now – Jessie freezing in the winter in that hovel of a studio. How long before her looks fade with poverty and pregnancies and you go looking for excitement? And no talk of marrying her, I see. Art and love! Pah!' She spat into the fire and the coals sizzled.

Georges stood up and put his hands in his pockets. He looked like a sulky schoolboy being told off by the head beak. ‘Suzanne Valadon is not married,' he said. ‘She's a free spirit, a modern woman with a child out of wedlock, and she has survived.'

‘Her mother looks after the boy,' Rosa said. ‘And La Valadon comes from the streets, she knows how to survive. Jessie isn't like that, she'd be ruined and eventually you'd leave her. Is that what you want for her?'

The Mynah bird called out: ‘
Crétin! Crétin! Va t'en!
'

Georges jumped and when he saw the bird behind his shoulder, laughed for the first time. The familiar curl of his mouth sent a shaft of pain through me.

‘Even your animals conspire against me,' he said. ‘You're right, of course. I'm being selfish about Jessie.'

Rosa stood up to poke more life into the fire. ‘Yes you are. You are a handsome, amusing, selfish bastard, and Jessie will get over you, but only if you leave her alone.' She sighed. ‘You and Camille have behaved very badly towards her.'

‘You have spoken to Camille – since the girls quarrelled?'

She nodded and I wriggled nearer the screen and knocked my knee against it. Georges turned his head sharply towards me and I held my breath.

‘What was that?' he said.

‘Rimbaud or Zola. They are always playing hide and seek together in that corner.'

‘Why you cannot keep poodles like any other Parisian
grande dame
, I will never know.'

‘Where would be the fun in that?'

Georges put his hands in his pockets. ‘Won't you give me a drink, Rosa?'

When she'd poured them both a brandy, Rosa said, ‘Camille wouldn't listen to me, of course, when I told her she was a fool to turn her back on Jessie, that she needed a friend like her. I pointed out the whole of Paris was gossiping about her and Rodin, but she started screaming like a fishwife and ranting about a conspiracy. It would appear we are all in this conspiracy together, most of all Jessie, whom she calls
a viper she nurtured in her bosom
,
and some other, choicer names I don't care to repeat.
Enfin
, she believes that Jessie wants to take over the running of her studio and is turning the models against her, complains that she's been teaching her own students.'

It's true I had been tutoring young English girls to stretch out my allowance after Papa had been forced to reduce it, but where was the harm in that? If I had hoped to find out why Camille had turned against me, I was none the wiser. Her accusations still didn't make sense.

Georges echoed my thoughts. ‘Why shouldn't Jessie take in students? I do it myself when I'm hard up – if they're pretty enough. And what does Camille mean by a conspiracy?'

‘I have no idea,
c'est complètement fou
. It's all in her mind, of course. The important thing is that Camille believes Jessie is her enemy and won't be persuaded otherwise. There's nothing more I can do.'

Georges stood up. ‘And, I suppose there is nothing more that I can do. About Jessie I mean.'

‘No, there isn't.'

‘Will you give her my love?'

‘It would be kinder not to.'

And he was gone.

I sank back on the pillows and tried to make sense of what I'd learned. I had lost William because of Georges, but now that Georges wanted to be with me, money or no money, I didn't want him. He had shown his true colours when I needed him most and taken what he should not have. William would never have behaved like that, and I had thrown the chance of a life with him away because my head had been turned. There was nothing left for me in Paris, not without Camille, or Georges. And professionally I was wasting my time. Without Rodin as a mentor, without even a studio, what was I doing here? My chest hurt as if I were lying under a boulder. If only William were here – he alone had the power to lift this burden from me. But it was too late, I had lost him. I buried my face in the pillow and began to cry again.

Rosa folded back the screen. She whispered, ‘Jessie, are you awake?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then, you heard everything?'

I sat up and wiped my eyes. ‘Yes, I heard.'

She sat beside me and I leaned against her. She patted my shoulder and kissed my forehead. ‘I am going away for a few days. But Nathalie will look after you while I'm gone.'

The blossom dusting the trees in the Tuileries looked so like candy floss that I wanted to put out my tongue and taste it. Nathalie had bullied me in her gentle way to get out of bed that morning. She had bathed me like a child with a sea sponge in a copper bath in front of the fire. I had not wanted to eat but she tempted me with hot chocolate and a brioche in a little café in the park. We sat in the spring sun and watched some children ride past on hired ponies. One tubby little boy kept pulling at the reins until his mount bucked. He slipped from the saddle, grabbed its mane and dangled there while the pony bent to chew some grass. There was a great scolding and fussing from his nanny and I found myself laughing. The heaviness in my chest shifted and I thought: I could be happy again in Paris, on a day like today. That's when I saw Camille.

She was with Rodin and they were coming from the Louvre. They were talking, her face animated as he laughed at something she said. I watched them approach and resolved I would speak to her. As they drew near, Camille must have sensed she was being watched because she turned her head towards me. I lifted my hand in greeting, but her expression froze and she looked away too quickly, as if she had not seen me. But of course, she had. How could she not? She pulled at Rodin's sleeve and I saw her lips move:
Let's go
. Rodin looked over at me from under the brim of his hat. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say
What can I do?
Camille dragged on his arm and they turned round and walked back towards the Louvre. Camille was moving fast, as if she could not get away from me soon enough. Did she imagine I might make a scene? Shout at her or claw at her face like a drunken streetwalker? It was as if I had been slapped. I sat there enraged, helpless. Perhaps she was right to hurry away: I had an urge to run after her, pull her around to face me and shake her by the shoulders. Had it come to this – that she could not bring herself to exchange a few civil words in a public park? I clenched my fists. She
would
speak to me. I stood up as if to follow them, but Nathalie put her hand on my arm. I sat down and craned my neck to see if Camille would look back at me. She didn't. I watched her walk out of my life. I didn't know then, but it was the last time I would see her for more than forty years.

On the walk back, I was gripped first by fury then by a sort of empty despair. There was nothing for me left in Paris but I could not go home to Peterborough where I would be reminded daily of William. He would meet someone else, no doubt, and I would have to smile when his sisters broke the news of an engagement. I had been a fool, such a fool. I was too busy imagining my bleak future to look where I was going and a cab nearly ran me over as I crossed the road to Rosa's apartment. The horse shied clear of me just in time but I slipped, catching my heel, and fell with a sickening jar. Shaken, I felt a man's hand pull me to my feet. I brushed the dust and horse dung from my dress and turned to thank the Good Samaritan.

‘Hello, Jess.'

It was William. He looked thinner and there were dark shadows under his eyes. But it was William, my William.

‘I've come to bring you home, darling. Oh, Jessie, I've been such a fool. Can you forgive me?'

I sagged at the knees and he caught me in his arms and kissed me.

I had been saved and it was Rosa I had to thank. She had gone to England and found William.

‘It wasn't difficult,' she told me later. ‘I have contacts. I told him I had a confession to make, that it was I who had drawn that portrait of you and written that note. That I had plied you with drink one night at my studio and tried to seduce you, as I do with all my pretty young artist friends. But you turned me down in the most gracious way, that we remained friends and that you kept the portrait as a mark of our friendship.'

I turned the emerald ring around on my finger. ‘And he believed you?'

‘Of course. He loves you, Jessie.'

‘I don't know how to thank you Rosa.'

‘There is a way. You must promise me something.'

‘Anything.'

‘You will never tell him the truth about Georges. You owe him that. Do you promise?'

I hung my head. ‘Yes, Rosa.' I locked away my shame and kept my promise.

Chapter 43

Paris

1929

Paul had agreed to meet me in Maxim's for dinner so I spent the day walking around Paris, and ended up in rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. There were now cars in the street and women's skirts and hairstyles were shorter, but otherwise nothing had changed. The noise of hammering still filtered from artists' studios and the smell of fresh bread wafted from the same
boulangerie
. A young concierge opened the double green doors of our old studio and banged a rug against the wall.

‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle,' I said.

She smiled and carried on with her work.

‘This used to be my studio, a long time ago, when I was your age.'

‘
Ah, oui
? I would let you come up and see it, Madame, but it's occupied by a notaire, a respectable man. The landlord refuses to rent to any more artists since the last tenants – a young couple who left the place in a terrible mess. They were Americans, with a little boy. She was of good class and the baby
un vrai bonbon
, but the husband –! A writer, what do you expect? Out all hours drinking ­– they left the little one with me,
Dieu merci
– and the fights! Bottles smashing, shouting and screaming until the police had to be called. Artists, they are nothing but trouble.'

‘
Oui, c'est vrai, ça
.' I said, with a smile.

Paul was late and full of apologies. He was balding and had grown heavy around the waist with a correspondingly ponderous air. His mouth was pinched under a pencil moustache. I'd never have recognised him if it were not for the strong resemblance to his father.

He rose to his feet and kissed my hand. ‘Jessie, how marvellous to see you again, you haven't changed at all. I recognised you at once.'

‘How kind you are, but I hope I didn't look this old in my twenties.'

‘Ah, we are all getting older. You left Paris – when was, it? I had finished
lycée
the year before.
Mon Dieu
, can it be so long? More than forty years ago. Where do the years go? I am sixty-one but in my heart I am still a youth.'

‘It's the same for me,' I said. ‘Yet we are not the same, everything has changed.'

‘
Oui, la Grande Guerre
.'

We were silent a moment, lost in our own memories. The War had shattered all our lives. I was one of the lucky ones. My prayers were answered and my three sons spared. During those terrible years I held my breath every time the postman came to the door. I hadn't wanted to imagine what my sons were going through in a France that had been turned into a muddy battlefield where young men barely out of school were slaughtered.

‘It's a different world now, although you wouldn't think so sometimes,' I nodded at the Art Nouveau fantasy with which we were
surrounded. Paris of the Belle Époque, with its gilt mirrors and floral curlicues, was alive and well in this restaurant, as if the War had never been.

Over the rich meal, Paul told me what had happened to Camille after I'd left Paris.

He picked up his knife and began working the spine free from his fish. ‘I had no idea why you left so suddenly. Camille wouldn't say when I asked her, only that you had to return to England. Next I heard you were married.'

‘Yes. I'm not sure whether you met William.'

‘No, I'm afraid I didn't have the pleasure, but he is a fortunate man to be married to you,
chère
Jessie. Now that we are older, I can confess that I had rather a crush on you, as the Americans say. You were so kind to me.'

I smiled, remembering Paul at seventeen, so serious, a sensitive boy with delicate features.

He folded and refolded his napkin. Then he told me what I wanted to know.

‘After you left, we hardly saw Camille at home. She slept in the studio – the one you shared – or so she said. Then one day, one of Maman's friends told her the gossip. Was she aware that her daughter was Rodin's mistress? That he'd set her up in a semi-ruined château? There were rumours of obscene sketches he'd made of her displayed openly at their wild parties.'

He brushed at some crumbs on the tablecloth and I had the urge to stab his hand with my fork.

‘Wild parties? Sounds wonderful,' I said.

Paul looked startled, and then he chuckled, as if he'd decided I must be joking. ‘So, you can imagine our mother's reaction.'

‘What did she do?'

‘Oh, there was a terrible scene,' he said. ‘Camille was summoned to the apartment where she admitted it all, without the smallest particle of remorse. If it had been up to Maman, Camille would have been exiled from the family, cut off without a
sou
. She was particularly offended because Camille had tricked her into inviting Rodin and Rose Beuret for lunch in Villeneuve.'

I shook my head. How typical of Madame Claudel to be more concerned about being made to look a fool than by her daughter's affair with an older man. I would go to my grave unable to understand that woman.

Paul said, ‘Camille was saved only by Papa. He was pragmatic, said we should set her up in her own studio apartment and give her an allowance. At least that way she would not be seen to be living with Rodin.'

I had wondered how Camille had weathered the storm and marvelled at her ability to survive a social catastrophe that would have ruined a woman with a less indulgent father. I warmed again to Louis-Prosper. For all his sarcasm and affectations, he had protected his gifted daughter from destitution, if not social disgrace.

‘Good for him,' I said.

Paul's mouth fell open. ‘Do you think so, really? Come now, you yourself are a parent. If he had been a proper father, taken a stronger line, forbidden her to see Rodin again, and kept her at home, it may have saved her from further sin.'

I pushed my plate from me and a waiter took it away with a sorrowful look.

‘Why so harsh, Paul? Camille has always loved you. When I visited her in that, that place, she spoke so warmly about you. And you haven't even asked me how she was.'

Paul lowered his voice, as if to guard his family shame from the next table. ‘I know exactly how she is: mad, insane, out of her mind.' He threw down his napkin and glared at me. ‘You think me unforgiving, intolerant? Who are you to judge me – you don't know the full story, of the depths, the moral abyss, into which Camille sank.' He banged his fist on the table when he said ‘abyss' and the cutlery bounced on the tablecloth. The waiter came over but Paul waved him away. ‘Bring us coffee and then leave us alone.' He leaned towards me, his eyes blazing. ‘Despite being caught out in her sin, she continued to see that adulterer.'

‘Hardly an adulterer – Rodin wasn't married.'

‘He was in God's eyes. He and Rose Beuret, they had a son.'

I couldn't bear his preaching at me any more; he was like an overheated evangelist. ‘Camille was in love. There are worse crimes. For God's sake, Paul, can't you show her some pity?'

He sighed and his shoulders dropped. ‘You're right, I'm a hypocrite. In truth, I have come to look at their affair with less condemnation over the years. I myself am not without sin. In China I fell in love with a married woman. I couldn't stay away from her, even when she refused to leave her husband. So, you see, I know only too well the pull of love, and how it can make you behave.'

He looked so miserable and for a moment like the Paul I remembered. I touched him lightly on the back of his hand. ‘It's hard to draw away from temptation when you're in love. We've all made mistakes. But you did the right thing in the end – I know you did because you sent me photographs of a wife and children.'

He held my hand. ‘Yes, Reine is my salvation – and our five angels.' His face darkened. ‘But there's more, about Camille, that I find hard to accept, that I can't accept, as a Christian. You were right when you say there are worse things.' He passed his hand over his face and looked at me bleakly. ‘Like the murder of an innocent child. Ask yourself this: how could anyone live with such a crime upon their conscience?'

I pulled my hand away. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘One day I went to see Camille and she was sobbing. The studio was a mess, her
maquettes
all smashed. She was tearing her hair and screaming, beside herself. I wanted to fetch the doctor but she begged me not to. She was going to have a baby, Rodin's baby. But he would not leave Rose Beuret, even though he'd fathered a bastard child on my sister.'

I imagined Rodin's horror at the thought of his dream in stone growing heavy with child. He wouldn't be the first artist to shudder at the prospect of his muse turning into a tired, blowsy mother. When the waiter came back to the table, I asked for cigarettes. I hadn't smoked since I'd left Rosa's apartment all those years ago. The dining room was nearly empty and the waiters were putting new linen out and polishing glasses. Paul waited until my cigarette had been lit before he began again.

‘Rodin wanted her to get rid of the baby. I asked her if she was going to do it. Do you know what she said to me?
I have no choice.
I tried to reason with her, told her we always have a choice. God gave us free will to choose between good and evil and now he was calling on her to do the right thing. Do you know what she did? She laughed in my face.
Oh, mon petit Paul, you have cheered me up. What a ridiculous creature you are with your Church and your God.
'

‘What happened?' I knew what he was going to say next, and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it.

He shaded his eyes as if from a bright light, and sighed. ‘She'd do anything for Rodin, for art and love. Wasn't that your mantra, then? The two of you used to say it all the time:
Art and Love.
'

I ignored him and tried to imagine what Camille must have gone through: the searing pain, the fever and loss of blood afterwards. The models in Rodin's studio talked of sharp wires and bitter potions swallowed down or pushed up inside the poor girl who had fallen pregnant, the doctor who would ‘take care of it' for the right fee. Poor Camille.

‘It's hard to contemplate having a baby alone,' I said. ‘It must have been awful for her – a terribly difficult decision.'

‘What about the child she killed?' His voice had risen and the waiter hurried over. Paul waved him away, lifted his wine glass with a trembling hand. When he had finished his drink, he seemed more collected. ‘Camille was never the same after that. It unbalanced her mind. And in the end, it did her no good with Rodin. When she finally realised he was never going to leave Rose Beuret, Camille left him. It destroyed her career. He destroyed her career. She'd been having a degree of success, but suddenly commissions were cancelled and she blamed Rodin.'

‘Was it true? Surely he wouldn't be so vindictive.'

‘I wouldn't put it past a man like that to not only ruin my sister but steal her gifts, even though he always claimed he tried to help her and put in a good word for her whenever he could.'

‘But you didn't believe him?'

Paul shook his head. ‘He crushed her.'

I couldn't accept that Rodin would act in such a way towards Camille, even when their affair was at an end. He was not a cruel man and it was he who called her a genius,
une femme de génie.

Paul smoothed the tablecloth with his hands. ‘Camille started drinking heavily, spent her allowance on wine, and ate out of rubbish bins in the street. She'd go down to the Seine and invite the tramps back to her studio to drink with her. The neighbours complained to the police and Maman sent me to speak to her. She'd boarded up the windows, wedged the door shut. I had to prise it open with a chisel. Inside it stank of cats; there were strays everywhere. The only light was from the fire she was feeding with wax moulds of her work. When I asked her why she was burning them and why the windows were barred, she said
so that son of a whore Rodin won't steal my work.
Her voice was metallic, her body bloated with alcohol. My beautiful sister.' He put his hand on my wrist. ‘You have to understand, Jessie, I had to do it. When father died, it fell to me as head of the family to do the right thing.'

I loathed him now, for his hypocrisy, for betraying Camille, burying her alive.

‘Don't tell me,' I spat. ‘You had no choice.'

He didn't answer, wouldn't look at me. I waited for him to speak, to explain why he had done what he had done. When he spoke, his tone was flat.

‘They came for her in the middle of the night. Broke open the boarded-up shutters with crowbars and pulled her out of the window. She was screaming that Rodin and his
bande
were abducting her, that he'd been poisoning her food and stealing her work. They took her away, to a house for the insane.'

‘You had no right.'

Paul still would not meet my eyes. ‘It was the right thing to do. Camille would have ended up murdered, or worse. What else could I do? I was abroad most of the time, Louise was busy with her own family, and Maman was getting older and couldn't cope.'

‘Paul, look at me.'

When he looked up, his face was tormented.

‘You did a terrible thing to Camille, you abandoned her.' He flinched but I carried on. ‘There's still time to make it right. You have the power to make amends, to release her. I've seen her, she's harmless, a poor creature. If you won't care for Camille, then let me, I'll take her to England, make sure she wants for nothing.'

He looked at me for a long time, and I hoped. Then he dropped his eyes.

‘Go home to your family, Jessie, and forget about my sister. I will not sanction this foolish plan. There's nothing you can do for her.'

‘Paul, please.'

After he left, I put my head on my arms and started to cry. I had lost Camille all over again. Through bitter tears, I remembered the day I started the search for my old friend.