The Dress Thief Page 15

  ‘I’m glad I put my mark on you, Mlle Gower.’

  ‘Mark, Madame?’

  ‘Oh, shoot, she hasn’t guessed. Put her in the picture, Mme Frankel.’ The American raised her teacup to her lips.

  ‘Mme Kilpin goes by a different name occasionally, to amuse herself. Not so?’ Pauline Frankel threw the visitor a quizzical look.

  ‘Sure. I give myself a laugh three times a day.’

  ‘She calls herself sometimes … Mme Shone.’

  ‘Shone – oh.’ Blood hammered into Alix’s cheeks. It was ‘Mme Shone’ who worked with Paul. Who wanted Javier’s collection dropped in her lap. Not the same ‘Shone’, please no.

  ‘Before her marriage, Mme Kilpin designed clothes in New York. She had her own business.’ Mme Frankel’s smile was so bland it was impossible to tell what her opinion might be.

  ‘Pretty successful, tell her that. I called myself “Shone” as in Schön, German for “beautiful”– “Fashion Modes by Mme Beautiful”. I always say, if you don’t clang your own bell, nobody’s going to do it for you.’

  ‘No, Madame,’ Alix muttered.

  Mme Frankel frowned. ‘Alix, Mme Kilpin is not only a leader in fashion, she is respected for her knowledge of couture. When she approached me in March, asking me to interview a young protégée who wished to work here, I agreed immediately. Why do you think, when I was detained, that you were interviewed by Javier? D’you think every girl who walks in here is treated with such distinction?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ was the best Alix could offer. From the sound of it, Mme Kilpin had as good as placed her here. She must really want something in return.

  ‘I do love tea.’ The American drained her cup. ‘I’m not the greatest Anglophile – and I know you’re half Brit, Alix, so pardon me – but I admire them for their tea. I used only to – oh, I nearly forgot –’ She turned to the première. ‘My vendeuse–’ she pronounced it ‘ven-doose’ – ‘mentioned that Javier has created a Scottish tartan for his autumn–winter season and some of it is in my colour? Would you fetch me a sample, dear Mme Frankel? Mr Kilpin is taking me to Scotland in the fall and I want some sporty little suits. Alix will entertain me while you’re gone, won’t you, dear?’

  ‘If you wish, Madame.’

  The moment Pauline Frankel was out of the room, Mme Kilpin leaned forward, saying in English, ‘We’ve got five minutes. Let’s get this hog roped and tied.’

  ‘Hog, Madame?’

  ‘Don’t piffle with me, Alix. I know you and you know me. Here –’ She dug into a suede handbag and a moment later was flourishing silk at Alix. ‘Take it. As a gift.’

  It was the Hermès scarf. The genuine article. Alix shook her head.

  ‘Sure you can.’

  Alix sat back, her whole body saying no.

  Mme Kilpin sighed. ‘Pride rarely earns a buck, but all right. I’m going to say a few things very fast. One, Paul le Gal is a doll. He’s worth ten of any man you are likely to meet in the next decade and if you don’t know that … oh, look at your face. Your funeral, but the boy’s in love with you. Two, the boat he lives on is a floating disgrace.’

  Alix nodded. That she could not refute.

  ‘Those dear little girls. What’ll get them first, dysentery or the nuns? Three, he needs money, I need money –’ a knowing glance at Alix’s brown stockings and shoes, ‘I guess we all need money.’

  ‘You need money, Madame? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, believe it. Four –’ her voice fell soft as snowflakes – ‘you’re unable to steal Javier’s spring–summer line. Paul’s explanation involved raspberry desserts and an angry head chef, from which I gather you couldn’t get enough detail to make proper sketches. I hate waving goodbye to money, but I accept that you were finding your feet. I want the mid-season stuff that’s coming out next month. I’ll want Javier’s autumn–winter collection, which he’ll show end of July, start of August. And he’s sending a dress to the Expo—’

  ‘Expo?’

  ‘The World’s Fair, the Exposition of Arts and Technology that’s to open at the end of next month, if they finish building the pavilions in time. I want that dress.’

  Alix shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Honey, you can because thousands already do. You think your little seamstress friends don’t copy the muslin toiles they sew? Think they don’t drop the odd one out the window so a friend can catch it? You imagine the fitters and cutters don’t sketch on the sly? Think the saleswomen aren’t on the take? Think the mannequins go home and forget about the clothes they’ve worn all day?’

  ‘Perhaps—’

  Mme Kilpin ploughed on. ‘You imagine customers don’t “lend” the models they buy, so that copyists can make more of the same, cheaper? Hell, honey, some women rent their new clothes to counterfeiters. Just long enough for patterns to be cut, fabric to be sampled, embroidery to be copied. It’s dog-eat-dog-eat-cat out there. I have the contacts, but I’ve always needed a smart girl right inside a couture house. That girl is you, and if you hold your nerve, we’ll make a tidy living. You, me, Paul – we’ll be the Three Musketeers, all for one and one for …’ She’d taken off a crochet glove to drink her tea and withdrew a card from inside it. ‘Call me.’

  Alix took the card reluctantly.

  ‘Ring first, speak to my maid. She’ll tell you when to come and see me.’

  Mme Frankel returned, sample in hand. She said to their visitor, ‘I’m afraid I cannot let this cloth leave the room. It is a special commission.’

  Mme Kilpin held the tartan to the light. ‘Very pretty. Based upon Black Watch. Undercheck of … sand, auburn, saffron, auburn, sand. You listening, Alix? Auburn tramlines run single, double, single, double-double, single, which makes it look complicated. Yet it’s woven from just three colours.’

  ‘I am amazed,’ Pauline Frankel said.

  ‘That I can read a tartan? My husband’s a Scotsman – thought it would be a blast for us to spend our honeymoon in a weaving shed. He’s a Campbell on his mother’s side and I was a Miss McBride, so he had a plaid designed for us. I watched the threads being counted on to the loom.’ Mme Kilpin frowned, patting the back of her head. ‘What did that wind outside do to my hair?’ She took a mirror from her handbag, then unpinned her hat. ‘Mme Frankel, I hate to ask, but would you tidy me at the back? I have a comb, here.’

  Alix smothered a gasp. As Mme Frankel obligingly combed the blonde locks, the American used her hatpin to separate threads in the tartan cloth. With a deftness that suggested regular practice, she liberated a strand of each colour, dropping them into her bag. All without the première suspecting a thing. ‘All done?’ The smile turned on Pauline Frankel held no shame. ‘Was I hideous?’

  ‘Not at all, Madame.’

  ‘Well now, I’m away to be bullied by my vendeuse. Do allow the young lady to finish her tea.’ Mme Kilpin smiled at Alix as she re-pinned her hat. ‘She needs to keep her strength up.’

  *

  The day after that meeting, Alix was leaving through the side door at Javier. It was twelve o’clock lunchtime, midi, the hour that gave ‘midinettes’ their name, because that was when they could be found bolting down their lunch in cheap cafés. Alix heard a shout.

  ‘You – wait!’

  She turned, thinking, What now? But it was Solange Antonin, the swan-necked mannequin Mme Albert had spoken of, hobbling towards her in a tight skirt. Alix and Solange had spent the morning together. Javier was creating the dress he intended to show in the Pavillon d’Elégance at the forthcoming Paris Expo. Now that Alix understood what the fair entailed, she could appreciate the excitement and secrecy around the project. Thousands of visitors would come to the fair and there was global interest in the gowns the top Paris couturiers would create. Javier was making his exhibit directly on to Solange, and Alix – freshly gilded by Mme Kilpin’s praise – had been called from her workroom to sew the toile as he draped it. He was on his third attempt. All morning he’d torn lengt
h after length of muslin cloth, cotton sparks flying from his fingers as he struggled to translate the design in his head into reality. Mme Frankel was working alongside, advising on the fabric’s strengths and limitations, and the atmosphere had run hot. Solange had borne it without emotion and her expression was no warmer now as she thrust a stiff white card towards Alix.

  Alix took it and read:

  The proprietors of the Rose Noire cabaret request the pleasure of

  MLLE GOWER and ESCORT

  at our gala opening on 29th April 1937. Dress formal.

  Frazer Hoskins and his Smooth Envoys will play.

  Lenice Leflore to sing.

  ‘What’s the Rose Noire?’ Alix asked.

  ‘It’s my boyfriend’s club and he said you were to come.’

  Alix looked at the card with new eyes. Solange’s boyfriend … the man who drove the wine-red Peugeot. Who waited in the rain.

  A few days ago, Alix had bumped into him again as she left work for the day. She’d dropped her bag and he’d picked it up, holding it above her reach, the way prefects used to do at school. ‘You can have it back if you come for a drink with me,’ he’d laughed.

  She’d reminded him that he was waiting for his girlfriend.

  ‘So I am.’ He’d handed her the bag, his eyes never leaving her. ‘Wave a wand and you might be the prettiest girl in Paris.’

  She hadn’t liked that, the implication that she needed a wand. She didn’t like him. Thickset, that pale hair combed back over a broad brow. His eyes were the lightest she’d ever seen, like gin on ice. Straw-coloured lashes completed an unnerving stare. Everything about him looked expensive – his suit, his watch, his car – but his shoulders were too padded, the jacket waist too waspy, for her taste. She put him down as a mobster or, more likely, a working-class boy swaggering the flash.

  She’d stalked away and his mocking laugh had followed her. She couldn’t imagine why he wanted her at his nightclub.

  Solange clearly thought the same. ‘It says “formal”, and that means formal. You won’t have anything to wear and you’d have to bring a man who’s presentable and he’d have to wear black tie and know which glass to drink from. You won’t know any men like that.’

  ‘I might,’ Alix flung back. She suddenly wanted very much to go to this gala opening. Rose Noire – Black Rose. It sounded edgy and exciting. A dive? A squeeze? And she’d never heard a top-flight American jazz band. She checked the date … the 29th was one week away. ‘Where is it, this club?’

  Solange bathed her in contempt. ‘If you have to ask, you shouldn’t be there.’

  *

  That evening Paul enlightened her. ‘It’s in Pigalle.’ He turned the invitation over. ‘Boulevard de Clichy, the worst end. “Rose Noire” – for God’s sake, sounds like the pox. It was closed down by the police for stolen liquor and I’ve heard bad stuff about the new owner.’

  ‘He’s obviously no cheapskate.’ Alix snatched the invitation back. ‘It’s hand-printed. It’s classy.’

  They’d met by arrangement at their usual café near the Jardin du Luxembourg. The one where the owner called them ‘love-birds’ and always brought them a brimming carafe. Paul said, ‘I’m glad you talked to Una.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mme Shone. Well, Kilpin.’ Paul drew on his cigarette. ‘She lets me call her by her first name when we’re alone.’

  ‘How well do you know her?’

  ‘No interrogation, not today.’ He’d been up all last night with Suzy on his lap to help her breathe, he told her. She was better today. Well enough for Francine to be trusted to look after her for an hour or two. So far Lala hadn’t succumbed to the croup. ‘We’ll get through this one, but next winter …’ Seeing Alix studying her invitation again, he added angrily, ‘Shall I tell you what I know about the Rose Noire’s owner?’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘When he gets into fights, he doesn’t use a knife.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘He uses his teeth. Anyway, who’ll take you? It says, “and escort”. You can’t go alone.’

  ‘You?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Not the best time, Alix. Are you sure they’re not shipping in free girls? You know, dollar-a-dance? You could spend all night being groped in exchange for a glass of bad champagne.’ When Alix pushed out her lip, he said, ‘Don’t try that. Anyway, I haven’t got a suit.’

  ‘But, Paul, wouldn’t you like to dance again on a proper floor. With me?’

  Sorrow seeped into his eyes. ‘Course. Till I drop. But when I hear music, I see my mother. She’d been dancing for money the night she killed herself. The official report called her a prostitute.’

  ‘Well, it was wrong.’

  ‘Maybe. Some bastard roughed her up and took her money. Maybe she thought a plunge off a bridge would wash it away.’

  Alix didn’t want to imagine Sylvie le Gal fished out of the river a week after she’d drowned. She let Paul light her a cigarette and blew a smoke ring. ‘Your mother was the first person in Paris to treat me as a friend. She didn’t mock me because I could only fumble a waltz. She’d hold my hands and let me follow her feet till I was perfect.’

  Paul blew his own ring that floated over hers. ‘She could teach an elephant to tango in ten lessons.’

  ‘Hey, I took eleven.’

  He smiled, though sadly. ‘I used to walk up Boulevard de Clichy some nights, looking for her. So I know what goes on in places like the Rose Noire, the people who hang around, what they’re selling. They whisper into your ear, then bite it off.’ Paul then brought the conversation back to its usual sticking place – her promise to steal.

  Not a promise, she objected. ‘Your Mme Kilpin – “Mme Shone”, for pity’s sake – she’s got more nerve than a cat burglar. Taking samples under the première’s nose.’

  ‘She wanted to give you a shock,’ Paul said, ‘and remind you why we got you the job. You did promise. On Place du Tertre you said you’d get the collections so long as nobody asked you to pretend it was moral. Nobody is asking. But the money’s waiting and I need it. Stop holding out on me, Alix.’

  *

  The day after that conversation, Alix left Maison Javier thinking, This morning I was innocent. Now I’m a criminal.

  She’d arrived at work at first light to find Javier and Mme Frankel working on the dress for the World’s Fair. From their rumpled appearances, they must have been there all night. The day before Javier had said, ‘I cannot keep wasting muslin. How long – two weeks? – until I present this dress to the committee of the Pavillon d’Elégance? Mme Frankel, let us make our decision and lose no more time.’

  Walking into the vast studio, Alix stopped dead, her mouth round. A wooden mannequin was decked in a ball dress of gold dupion silk. More gold than Alix had ever seen in her life. A night shift must have been sewing while she slept. She walked slowly around the figurine, assessing the gown’s tight waist, the voluptuous skirt that fell in graded flounces. It had a neckline out of a Renaissance painting, which would leave the arms bare. Javier’s dream was that this dress ‘should move like waves of molten gold’.

  One look at Javier’s face this morning, Mme Frankel’s too, told Alix that the dream had got stuck.

  They’d tried underwiring the flounces, but that made the skirt stand out like a tent. Stiffening-cloth had allowed movement in one direction at a time, like a tolling bell. ‘So your job today, Alix, is to unpick all these flounces and line them with starched tulle. If that doesn’t work,’ the première said, ‘I’ll wrench out my hair and use that.’

  Javier said, ‘The dress is called “Gold” in Spanish: “Oro”.’

  ‘Burro,’ Mme Frankel said. ‘Mule.’

  Javier laughed and shouted for his personal maid. ‘Ana-Sofia, fresh coffee!’

  As Alix got to work, Javier, Mme Frankel and assistants turned their attention to other works-in-progress. Having scrapped all the evening wear in his spring–summer collection because ther
e’d been no time to complete it, the late-running mid-season line was to be just ball gowns. A break from tradition and a commercial risk because of the cost and labour involved. But Javier relished breaking rules. Tradition was for dowagers and courtiers, he said.

  Towards midday Mme Frankel straightened up and said, ‘Javier, I wish you’d plough your whims into your work, not into the schedules. Fourteen ball dresses will kill me.’

  Javier looked up from inspecting a bolt of cloth that had just been delivered. ‘Whims are the butterfly wings of creativity.’

  Pauline Frankel snorted. ‘Then somebody hand me the fly swat.’

  ‘Madame needs more coffee,’ Javier announced to the room. ‘Everyone, ten minutes rest, come back inspired.’

  This is it, Alix decided. The moment excuses run out. Smothering every qualm, she ran downstairs to the lavatories. Locking a door behind her, she took off her shoe and retrieved some folded paper from the toe. This morning, she’d rolled a pencil to the back of the cistern. It was still there. Sitting on the lavatory seat, she sketched the dress she’d watched Mme Frankel working on all morning. It was easy enough. She’d already seen the working drawings – the front and back views – and she’d handled the fabric. Later, if she got the chance, she’d snip off a sliver.

  Next she sketched Oro, ears straining for footsteps. Nobody would have questioned her swift exit. After all, she’d been working without a break for five hours. But that didn’t stop her imagining the word ‘thief’ flashing over the lavatory door. Only the memory of Paul’s distress, his fears for Suzy, made her carry on.

  When they broke for lunch at two – Javier’s days were always off kilter – Alix dashed to her usual café for her staple of onion soup and bread. She bought jetons for the telephone and rang the number on Mme Kilpin’s card. A woman answered, announcing herself as Mme Kilpin’s maid. Alix hesitantly explained her business. The maid said she’d been expecting her call.