The Dress Thief Read online

  ‘Have M. Norbert fetch it and some records. Romantic ones. Do you have anything by Hildegarde or Lucienne Boyer?’ She turned to Norbert. ‘Would you bring them?’

  ‘I will not, cheeky little article.’

  Javier formalised the instruction and Norbert strutted away.

  ‘I know what you’re about, petite, and I am indulging you. Make a fool of me, I might throw you and the gramophone out of the window.’

  ‘All the mannequins are here by two o’clock? With your permission, I’ll have Mlle Lilliane send them up. They should be prepared to wear one gown each. I’d like a taxi to fetch a friend of mine. And I’d like to send a matcher to my home.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘May I tell you later?’

  *

  She drew curtains, had candles brought and, with Marcy’s help, moved the furniture to the wall. Javier watched, going along with it all because he was in a hole and as a man in a hole will accept the hand of a passing madman, he was accepting hers. Each time the door opened, Alix looked for the one person she wanted to see. But it was usually somebody sent up by Mlle Lilliane to enquire if the design studio was ‘still intent on wrecking the smooth schedule of the afternoon’.

  Alix wound the gramophone and chose a disc. The first of the mannequins arrived, asking, ‘Are we having a special showing? Who’s coming?’ Followed by two more who laughed like children given a break from lessons. A couple more sauntered in, blankly incurious. Each girl carried shoes and evening gloves and was followed by a dresser carrying a calico bag like a gigantic puffball.

  ‘The salon showing starts promptly at three and the girls will have to get downstairs and change.’ Javier consulted his pocket watch. ‘Ten past two. Alix, tell us what we’re to do.’

  The matcher came back and gave Alix a package, along with a message: ‘Your grandmother says, this was weeks of work when her fingers were nimble and she still feels the pain each morning when she wakes.’

  Thank you, Mémé, Alix transmitted silently.

  Nearly ready to begin, Alix reflected that she had gambled on one other person, and it looked as if she’d overstretched her luck … until Marcy rushed into the studio followed by a man. Alix ran forward. ‘Paul, you came. Oh …’ He was wearing an old shirt and building-site trousers. ‘Didn’t you get my message? Black-tie evening suit. Like last night.’

  ‘You know it wasn’t my suit.’ Paul looked about in resentful wonder. One of the mannequins giggled and his mouth turned stubborn. ‘You had me woken, Alix. What do you want?’

  ‘Your services, for an hour. But you have to be properly dressed.’ She looked at Javier who raised an eyebrow.

  ‘No good asking me. My evening clothes would not fit him. We are wide in completely different places.’

  She turned to Norbert, silently begging. He pretended not to notice, then finally huffed and told her, ‘I don’t keep evening clothes here.’

  ‘You do, M. Norbert,’ Marcy said. ‘You always keep a suit in your room. You’ve asked me to sponge your jacket and press your shirt on numerous occasions. Shall I fetch it?’

  ‘As you please.’ Norbert didn’t quite stamp a foot, but still raised it and put it down with a decided snap.

  *

  The suit was very ‘just’ on Paul. A belt had to be found, and the jacket was so tight he looked like a scarecrow with a broom handle through both sleeves. The mannequins, who had changed into their gowns, tried to help. Laughter bubbled up all around, but it was not malicious.

  ‘I can’t wear this jacket,’ Paul told Alix, ‘so stop trying to shove me into it. I’ll dance in shirt and waistcoat.’

  That brought an appreciative ‘Ooh’ from the girls. Only Solange remained untouched by the fun. She sat at a remove, her eyes rarely leaving Alix.

  The waistcoat buttoned over a white ruffled shirt and – with the addition of a sash and some breathing in – the effect was as Javier said, ‘The “morillo”,’ which, he explained, was a term for the neck and shoulder muscles of a fighting bull. He took out his pocket watch and swung it in front of Alix. ‘Time, he ticks.’

  ‘Heloïse?’ Alix beckoned a Titian-haired girl whose luminous beauty had inspired a gown of ivory velvet with an overskirt of chiffon, ‘here is your dance partner. Paul, the watchword is smooth, fluid and romantic.’

  ‘That’s three words.’

  ‘Just dance.’ She set the gramophone going and Lucienne Boyer’s ‘Parlez-moi d’amour’ spilled into the room.

  *

  Whatever he was by day, on the dance floor Paul was a fish returned to water, and Heloïse began to dance like a woman in love. Her dress shaped to her, the skirt flicking, the overskirt fanning, making sense of the dress’s Spanish name: Seguidilla – That Which Follows. Shadow-work appliqué – Mémé’s work, Alix was sure – winked in the light. They danced again, and then it was Marie-Josèphe’s turn, then Arlette’s, then Claudette’s, then Nelly’s, then Zinaida’s. Alix hoped Javier was seeing what she was seeing, that his designs gorged on light and came to life with movement.

  *

  The clock said five minutes to three. The dresses were snatched away, the mannequins sent downstairs. All the gowns had been danced – except one.

  ‘Solange?’ Javier clapped his hands. ‘You aren’t ready.’ Solange had taken off Lune de Minuit and donned a robe. She said, ‘I have a bad head. I can’t dance.’

  ‘Then you must take a taxi home. Why did you not say?’ A little hardness crept into Javier’s tone. Solange walked out.

  ‘Where is Minuit?’ Javier demanded. ‘Zinaida,’ Javier beckoned at the slender Greek girl. ‘I must see Lune de Minuit dancing.’

  ‘I’m too short,’ Zinaida protested. ‘I’ll put my foot in the hem.’

  ‘Mais oui, I keep forgetting you are petite, ma petite. Who is as tall as Solange? Bah, such a temperamental girl. I am the temperamental one and there is not room for two. Send Nelly back.’ A dresser went, but returned to say that Nelly was dressing for the afternoon show, already in her tailor-made and having her hat pinned on.

  Alix was whispering with Paul when she felt a hand grip her arm. ‘You,’ said Javier. ‘Put on the dress. Can you dance?’

  Paul answered for her, ‘I taught her. Of course she can.’ Before she could invent an excuse, Alix was whisked away behind a screen by a dresser. The girl chivvied her out of her top clothes, saying, ‘If Minuit isn’t ready to show in the salon in fifteen minutes, Mlle Lilliane will cut off your ears.’

  Alix shivered. Not from the cold, but because she’d witnessed the mousseline glory of the mannequins’ lingerie and was now exposed in her work-a-day brassière and knickers. The dresser held the gown open and Alix stepped into it.

  ‘Marcy, do up the hooks. Heaven bless me,’ the dresser tutted, ‘You’re wearing tennis shoes – and you should be wearing a strapless brassière.’

  ‘Alix wears tennis shoes because she runs all day,’ Marcy said. ‘And I’ll push the brassière straps under the shoulders. Look … gone. She can borrow my shoes.’ Marcy stepped out of her low-heeled court shoes.

  ‘Sockettes de fille!’ the dresser exclaimed in disbelief at Alix’s ankle socks.

  ‘Slip them off, Alix,’ Marcy ordered. ‘Bare legs won’t matter under the dress.’ She patted Alix on the hip. ‘You have a smaller waist than Solange.’

  ‘Don’t say that too loudly,’ the dresser muttered. ‘That cow takes everything as an insult. She’s always getting us into trouble. Right, Alix, go and dance. Damage that dress and I’ll have your hide for a handbag.’ As she melted into Paul’s arms, it occurred to Alix that in the last two hours she’d been threatened with being thrown out of a window, ear-loss and flaying. If her audacity fell flat, at the very least she’d have to resign. Which might be no bad thing, though how she’d break the news to Paul …

  ‘Loosen up,’ Paul muttered. ‘It’s like dancing with a suitcase. I suppose this is all to show off the dress? So let the dress show. Close your eyes and let m
e lead.’

  Lucienne Boyer sang ‘Si petite’ and Alix tried to imagine she was at Sylvie le Gal’s school of modern dancing and they were exhibiting to an audience of rapt younger pupils. ‘Did you notice I left the Rose Noire early?’ she whispered.

  ‘Did I notice? When he found you’d gone, Serge Martel stood under the heaps of red rose petals and slowly turned the same colour.’

  ‘That’s not making me relax.’

  ‘In the end, he laughed it off. Came over and treated us to champagne, introduced me to Solange’s friends because they wanted to dance with me.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dance with me. Why didn’t you ask me?’

  A pause. ‘I think I waited long enough for you, Alix.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It was the only thing she could think to say. ‘This is Javier’s favourite dress, so please help me not to dance like a suitcase.’

  ‘Then imagine you’re in love with me, that we’re under the stars, the moon a milky sickle. I’ve brought you away on my ocean-going yacht to … to …’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I can’t think. Whenever I think of water, I see the Seine or the St-Martin canal.’

  The music finished and somebody – perhaps Simon Norbert, hoping to catch her out – switched to a record of Carlos Gardel singing ‘Mi Buenos Aires Querido’. Alix and Paul veered into a tango. Alix forgot she was wearing thousands of francs’ worth of couture miracle and followed Paul in a sequence of sinuous turns, dips, kicks and flicks. She leaned backwards in his arms until she felt the velvet sheath pinch her waist. Rolled back up, spun, and heard the soft crack of fabric around her calves. Opening her eyes, she found Paul gazing down at her, such fire in his gaze that the snap of their heads away from each other was a relief. The song slowed. They ended with a dip, Alix’s head thrown back, yielding throat and bosom. Paul righted her, still locked in an embrace, and asked, ‘Do I get paid for this?’

  ‘Course you do. Oh, Paul, listen.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘The silence.’

  It was then that Simon Norbert chose to lift the gramophone arm with an unpleasant scrape. Marcy hustled Alix off behind the screen. ‘We need to get this dress off you five minutes ago.’

  *

  Paul was waiting for Alix in the studio, back in his baggy trousers and mariner’s jacket. ‘I’ve got a shift at the building site later, and if I don’t get some sleep first, I’ll die.’

  Telling him to wait in the corridor, she approached Javier, who stood at the window, so lost in thought it was half a minute before he noticed Alix or the package she was holding.

  He took it. ‘And this is … ?’

  ‘Horsehair lace, Monsieur. My grandmother made it. The ladies of Alsace used to decorate their heads with it. This morning I had to go back up to our apartment and I found my grandmother staring at a picture we have of a girl with lace butterfly wings on her head.’

  Javier drew the weave through his fingers. ‘This is sometimes used in ball gowns and in the theatre … you are thinking …’

  ‘Oro. Feel how light it is. Yet stiff enough to bear weight. A glimpse of it beneath Oro’s flounces would be beautiful.’

  ‘And where would I get forty metres? And at what cost?’

  Her heart dived. ‘From Alsace, I suppose.’ Then a thought raced in. ‘From Fabrication Textile Mulhouse in Rue du Sentier. M. le Comte de Charembourg is a director of the firm, and he comes from Alsace. He’ll understand what you need.’

  ‘Ah, the comtesse’s husband. Well, well. I will send four horsemen galloping to the Sentier. Meanwhile, your young man is hopping from foot to foot.’

  Alix hurried Paul out to the street where she said, ‘I’ll see Mme Frankel later about money. What d’you think? Were they impressed?’

  ‘Alix, I don’t know these people. The older man – is he Javier? – enjoyed himself, but the younger—’

  ‘Simon Norbert. He’s nobody.’

  ‘He certainly isn’t your friend.’

  ‘Who cares?’

  Paul put his hands on Alix’s arms. ‘You can’t afford enemies. Who took you home last night?’

  ‘Just a man I know. I wanted to go anyway.’

  Paul said, ‘Listen, about me and Una … it just happened. She called one night, all done up in her furs. She walked on to the Katrijn like a Russian queen, bringing one bottle of chilled gin and one of martini.’

  ‘Always helps.’

  ‘I’m her fun. A way of punishing her husband. But I like her,’ he said defensively. ‘And she’s lent me more money. She sold some jewels and it means I can keep the girls at Aunt Gilberte’s.’

  ‘So Una can call when she pleases. No kids cluttering the ship.’

  ‘That’s not fair. Una’s a good person and, like she said, you didn’t want me, so why should it matter to you? And soon we’ll all be making money. How’s the musketeering?’

  ‘Shush, not here. Go home and get some sleep.’

  As Paul strode away, a wine-red Peugeot pulled up. The driver got out, slamming his door in a yawning stretch. On cue, Solange emerged. Her hair hung loose and she was wearing one of the fitter’s smocks. Actually she did look unwell, pale and hollow-eyed. Alix didn’t want to be seen by her or by Serge. Not after the way she’d shown him up in his club. She was sidling towards the trade door when her name was shouted.

  It was Paul, sprinting back towards her. ‘I forgot to change my shirt,’ he gasped, indicating the frill at his neck.

  Alix groaned. ‘How could you not notice?’ Solange and Serge were staring in her direction. ‘Simon Norbert will yell at me again.’

  ‘Nothing to what will happen to me if I go to a building site in a frilly shirt.’

  ‘Come on.’ They entered the trade entrance of Maison Javier. Serge tipped his hat as she went by. Nothing to hint that he was angry, but the length of his look suggested a game in its early stages. He wasn’t done with her.

  *

  Mme Frankel was searching for Alix, having given her the task of dismantling all of Oro’s flounces again so they could be lined with horsehair lace. Javier had telephoned FTM and been told of a supplier in Mulhouse. Within half an hour, an order had been placed which would be sent to Paris by train. ‘When you’ve unpicked,’ Mme Frankel said, ‘take the flounces to the pressing room with a fabric sample, so the women can test their irons first. And Alix?’

  ‘Madame?’

  ‘If you need a tablet for your monthly pains, go to the sanatorium. If anybody challenges your presence there, say you have my permission.’

  After an hour spent unpicking gold dupion, Alix took Mme Frankel’s advice. The sanatorium was off the salon, being as much for the benefit of clients as staff. It wasn’t unusual for ladies to faint after several hours’ fitting. The resident nurse insisted Alix sit on the edge of a bed while she checked her pulse and temperature and asked penetrating questions about boyfriends and ‘romance’. Alix realised the woman was probing to see if she was pregnant and answered that she was fine.

  ‘That’s good, dear,’ the nurse replied. ‘You’d be surprised how many girlies aren’t, and I’m often the first person they can tell.’ She watched Alix down a glass of fizzing analgesic then said, ‘Early to bed with a cup of hot milk, what I advise during ladies’ week.’

  Alix felt a giggle boiling up. She was still giggling as she came into the reception area where she’d waited with her basket the day of her interview. A man sat there alone. A newspaper shielded his face but he must have heard her, because he lowered the sheet when she came near. It was the Comte de Charembourg. He stood, held out his hand and raised an eyebrow at her brown smock. ‘Why do they make you dress like a penitent?’

  His palm felt dry and over-warm.

  ‘It protects the dresses …’ Then she threw politeness away. ‘Monsieur, you look ill.’

  ‘Old ailments.’ He touched his lapel, near his heart, then kissed her cheek. ‘You, on the other hand …’ He trailed off and it dawned on Alix th
at he was nervous. Some reserve was understandable, considering what had happened to her after their last happy lunch date back in March, but he seemed almost afraid of her. Clearly, signing her name ‘Mathilda’ had struck home.

  ‘Thank you for my scissors,’ she said abruptly. They were hanging around her neck on a ribbon.

  ‘I hope I chose right. I guessed what kind would be most useful. They’re not too delicate?’

  ‘These are perfect. Monsieur—’ She said it just as he blurted out, ‘Alix—’

  She indicated he should go first.

  ‘I’m so sorry you were frightened that awful day.’ He reached out to touch her hair. ‘It was a misunderstanding. A bill got lost—’

  ‘Monsieur, you were being blackmailed. The man told me.’

  ‘I see.’ He put his palm to his forehead, as if to quell a pain there. ‘Alix, I’m trying to protect you. It’s all I’ve ever tried to do, protect you and … and my daughters from harm. If I could tell you more, I would.’

  Would you? she wondered. ‘Did you pay up, Monsieur? Did you pay that disgusting man a million francs?’

  ‘Not that much, heavens, no.’ He cleared his throat and turned his neck uncomfortably. Alix held his gaze until he said, ‘I only paid half that. Whoever my blackmailer is, he has a practical streak. He believed me when I said I couldn’t raise one million, so we struck a deal. I can only pray that I’ve done enough. Now, forgive me, I must go and do my duty. Madame la Comtesse and my elder daughter are in there somewhere.’

  ‘In the salon?’

  ‘In a fitting room. Javier is making Christine’s wedding gown.’

  So Alix had heard. The comte’s wife had been a nightmare, reducing both the fitters and her daughter to tears. ‘Will your daughter welcome your opinion?’

  ‘Hmm. I think young ladies have a very particular use for their fathers. More to do with our wallets than our fashion sense. Don’t you think?’ Seeing her reaction, he made a quick gesture. ‘I’m sorry. That was supremely tactless.’

  She asked slowly, because she was suddenly afraid she would cry, ‘How could you of all people forget that I have no father?’

  ‘Alix, I meant … Forgive me.’