The Dress Thief (37 page)

She wrinkled her nose because champagne bubbles had whizzed up. She could
feel them in her forehead. Wind back the film. Verrian would get halfway across the floor to find Serge
in front of him –
Alix is mine now. I’ll take care of her
.

‘May I have this dance, Miss?’

She turned in surprise. A fresh-faced young man stood a couple of feet away. American by the sound of him. ‘No,’ she said, keeping it short because she would slur anything more complex.

He backed away.
‘Didn’t like seeing you on your own, Miss Muffet. Sorry I bothered.’

Miss Muffet. Sat on a tuffet. There came a big spider
 … Alix drank down her champagne. Today’s date was a very special one. Today was 11
^th
June. Today, she turned twenty-one.

She’d dropped hints about her birthday. Obviously not loudly enough. Serge was still with his black-market friends at the bar, not even looking her way.
The band began to play ‘C’est à Robinson’, a lilting tune that tore at her heart. Then the lights went out. Laughter and little screams greeted it, though this was such a regular gimmick, people must surely be used to it by now. When the lights came up again, balloons would fall from the ceiling … or petals, or feathers. Alix squirmed irritably. She heard squeaking wheels. Whispers. She saw a wavering
candle flame in the dark. Then another flame, then another. Men in white waiter’s jackets were coming towards her. Each carrying a candle …

They surrounded her. It felt pagan, those candles in the dark. And then, in harmony, they began to sing first in French ‘
Bon anniversaire, nos vœux les plus sincères –’
and then in hilariously bad
English –‘
Happy birthday to you
 …’

Applause rippled, the
lights came up and she saw that a platform had been wheeled into the middle of the dance floor. It supported an edifice of champagne goblets six tiers high. Serge was on a ladder, grinning as he trickled champagne into the topmost glass, which overflowed into the glasses below. And the glasses below … and below. Her own birthday champagne cascade. As he emptied each bottle, another was passed up.
He poured a seamless plume of champagne. People left their tables to cheer at the spectacle, making a path for Alix, who stood where she was, enthralled.

Finally Serge picked off the top glass and carried it down the ladder. He handed it to Alix, but before she could put the glass to her lips he pulled her to him, kissing her hard. Holding a glass full to its brim, she could do nothing but comply,
and then the band was playing ‘Rendez-vous sous la Pluie’ and people were cheering. As the fashionable crowd clustered around the fountain for their share, she and Serge danced. The band speeded up and, knowing Serge was about to whirl her around, she knocked her champagne back in one. She shouted, ‘Catch, Félix!’ to the head sommelier and tossed the glass over her shoulder. Félix made a perfect
save and a roar of approval greeted her wildness.

Serge began laughing and she caught his mood. They whirled and laughed through ‘Rendez-vous’, ‘St Louis Blues’ and ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’.

*

She was drunk by the time they reached his bedroom. So drunk the fancy four-poster bed had no straight lines. And what was that on the side table, next to the lamp? A blue glass bottle-thing with pipes attached
 … it looked awfully like the vaginal douche the nurse at Maison Javier had shown her during her pep talk on the perils of pregnancy. Only this one was terribly pretty. Was she supposed to use it later? Why did it have two pipes?

She heard Serge swear as he tripped over the threshold after her. He turned off the main light and switched on a silk-shaded lamp, turning the room into a rosy chamber.
She arched as he stood behind her, threading his arms round her, stroking her stomach, hips and breasts. Why’d she got so worked up about this moment? She was ready. She was … wasn’t she? Only she wished the room would stay still. One moment she was losing herself to caressing hands, to Serge’s lips, which found all the flesh her dress left bare. Next moment the floor sagged and everything started
spinning.

A ripping sound brought her back to her senses. Her dress was under attack. Shaking Serge off, she sat on the bed, kicked off her shoes and angled herself so Serge could undo her fastenings. ‘Extra, extra careful,’ she told him. ‘I like this dress.’

He was hauling it over her head, giving her no option but to stick her arms in the air. She mumbled a complaint as it hit the floor. He
didn’t hear; his breathing was harsh, his hands raking her. This was not the Serge who had laughed them upstairs. The new Serge was pushing her into the middle of the bed, where
she had a lapse of consciousness. She came round to find her knickers being pulled off. All she was wearing now was her slip, a waist girdle and stockings and she felt suddenly conscious of her nakedness. ‘Careful,’ she
slurred, meaning, ‘Be careful with me.’ Shuddery conversations in school locker rooms had warned of this first time, and Alix had also overheard young female shop assistants at Arding & Hobbs whispering about ‘giving in’ to their admirers, ‘going all the way’, and the need for special caution. She tried to articulate this, but Serge was on top of her, his mouth covering hers. He was pulling at his
trouser buttons, his breath hot against her face. She’d have liked to put her arms around him and to hear words of reassurance, but she couldn’t get her arms free from her sides. It was like being trussed.

Panic took her. Last time she’d felt like this, she’d been on the floor at St-Sulpice, a slimy rag in her mouth. She struggled as Serge pushed her legs apart, alternately kissing her and murmuring
indistinct words into her neck. Something hard struck between her legs … A moment of stunned realisation was followed by the sharpest pain she’d ever felt in her life. She’d have yowled if she’d been able to open her mouth. Every muscle tensed in defence, but he was already inside her, pushing, and his movements became powerfully rhythmic. The pain grew almost unbearable and tears welled up,
her fingers closing into fists. She was going to die.

And then, thank God, he shuddered, grinding and roaring incoherent passion into her hair. A second later he collapsed,
spent.

Alix lay in shock. Raw pain between her legs, bruised breasts, burning where his chin had rubbed. Worse, a sense of loss. That something had been taken but not valued. This was lovemaking? Weren’t you supposed to fly
into the outer realms of physical rapture? Be caressed and told you were beautiful? Obviously not. That must be a big lie to make women agree to do it.

Perhaps Serge realised he’d been rough, because he rolled off her. Reaching for her hand, he said, ‘First time’s always bad, best to get it over with fast. You’ll learn what to do, so don’t worry and, anyway, it’s your fault.’

‘Mine?’

He leaned
over her and nibbled the tip of her nose. ‘That sexy body of yours … I couldn’t hold back. First time Serge Martel’s ever come first, so consider yourself special.’

The mattress creaked as he got up and she heard him removing the rest of his clothes. A double clunk told her he was only just taking his shoes off …

Tears still rolling down her cheeks, she told herself he’d been frantic because
she’d denied him too long. He got into bed and lifted up the covers so she could get underneath with him. She wanted to go to the bathroom, not liking the sticky sensation between her legs. She’d like to gargle away the taste of the night’s champagne. And was she supposed to use that douche-thing?

But Serge was asleep, his arm slung across her stomach, and she was afraid to wake him.

It was done, the civil ceremony, the church ceremony and the party that had lasted two days. Christine was the Duchesse de Brioude and had gone away with her husband to honeymoon by Lake Geneva. That was his gift. Rhona had wanted the newly-weds to go to London. The dowager duchesse wanted them at her château in Haute-Loire. Jean-Yves’s intervention
had offended both ladies, but Christine’s gratitude made it worthwhile.

And she was safe. Whatever was pursuing him would not touch his family.

‘Papa, wait. I want to come with you.’

Ninette was scrambling to catch him up. He was on the path that led through the castle’s outer wall to the river. It was a steep incline, constructed from centuries of broken masonry. He had intended to follow
the riverside walk into Kirchwiller town and hadn’t imagined anyone might join him. The ladies of his family took their strolls on boulevards and were not known for their solid footwear.

‘My dear, you’ll turn your ankle. If you want to take the air, have Pépin drive you to the public park. I’m sure your mother would enjoy it. Ferryman will squire you.’

Ninette swayed from side to side like a
child. ‘Papa, what happened to Grandmother’s pearls? Why didn’t Christine wear them for her wedding?’

She’d asked the question at breakfast too and he’d ducked it. Well, no more ducking. ‘I sold them.’

Ninette looked so appalled he wondered if he should have kept up the diplomatic pretence that the jewellers had lost them. Staring down at the river foaming between iron-red boulders, he murmured
lines by the English poet Cowper: ‘He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.’ Then to Ninette he said, ‘The pearls had a fine orient, were well-matched and they paid for Christine’s wedding. Otherwise she’d have worn a second-hand dress and gone away on a bicycle. I hope when it’s your turn, we can dig out some other precious trinket.’

When Ninette cried, ‘They were an heirloom!’ he thought,
How like Rhona she’s become
. The Ninette who used to be my favourite would have laughed and said, ‘
Bien
, Papa, let’s sell the castle.’ In fact, he’d misled her. He’d sold the bulk of his remaining Banque d’Alsace shares to pay for the wedding, while the pearls had repaid the loan he’d taken out to satisfy his black-mailer’s most recent demand. If the pig came back for more … Well, there was no
more. He could sell a tranche of land here, but his steward had put paid to hopes of high returns.
Prices in the region had dropped – people were worried about the German build-up over the border. Local landowners were selling off property and stockpiling gold.

Advising Ninette to watch her footing on her way back to the garden – a polite way of dismissing her – Jean-Yves edged down the path
and followed the river to where it flowed beneath a medieval bridge. From there he climbed to Rue du Pont, Kirchwiller’s main street. A sustained uphill walk lay before him.

Thirty years ago Rue du Pont had been called Brückenstrasse – Bridge Street – but the cobbles were the same even if the name had changed. So were the timbered shops and houses, though the paintwork was faded. Every roof had
its customary stork’s nest, busy with hatchlings. Storks brought luck, it was supposed, which suggested Kirchwiller’s were not doing their job. One clear change was apparent though – at the dawn of the century his parents had owned the only motor vehicle in town. Now he saw a dozen parked alongside rustic carts.

*

Jean-Yves turned up Rue des Avocats and into the shadowy Rue des Ecrivains, stopping
at an impasse, a dead-end alley just wide enough for two men to walk abreast.

As he walked up it, his leg throbbed. A splinter of shrapnel in his femur made itself known whenever he stood for any length of time, as he had often these last days. He counted the right-hand doors and stopped at one with a rusty spyhole. Fitted a key into the lock.

In the empty attic that had been Alfred Lutzman’s
studio, he leaned against the stove to get his breath, then twitched violently. Right here, Lutzman had fallen.

The day Lutzman died, 21
^st
December 1903, Jean-Yves had come to collect a portrait he’d commissioned. He was late because heavy snow had fallen, and the chauffeur had been reluctant to let him take the Mercedes out. Jean-Yves had insisted, but it had been so cold that day, it took fifty
turns of the crank to get the engine started. Jean-Yves had come shivering up these stairs feeling intense sympathy for Lutzman. How could an artist work in this temperature? His paints must go stiff, and as for sitting for a portrait … intolerable. His own portrait had been sketched out at the castle, Jean-Yves posing before a blazing fire. Lutzman had brought it back here to finish.

People
said Lutzman was mad because he painted in wild, dancing colours. What you thought was flesh was not one colour, but minuscule flecks of scarlet, green and blue. Some people called it a form of trickery, sinful even, but what did the fat burghers of Kirchwiller know? If a painting didn’t look like something they saw in church or on top of a tin of chocolates, they thought it came from the Devil.

He’d commissioned Lutzman
because
of his radicalism. The picture had been intended as a surprise Christmas gift for his mother, his first truly independent act since he’d succeeded to the title of comte a year before. Célie Haupmann had done her best to spoil the surprise of course. She’d always got between
Jean-Yves and his mother, disturbing their quiet moments, telling tales. That afternoon
had been no different. As he’d waited in the great hall for the chauffeur to finish battling with the crank handle, she’d sidled up to him, smirking. ‘Off to pick up your secret picture? I think your mother knows already what her Christmas present is going to be.’