The Dress Thief (16 page)

Alix wanted to cry, but she drew on her ability to ride out the humiliation and said in a voice pitched between meek and defiant, ‘I’ll start again and stay until I’ve done the work correctly.’

‘Indeed you will,’ the supervisor snapped. ‘In fact, everyone will
work an extra hour because, thanks to you, this has been
one of the least productive days I can remember. And, Alix, when you have finished sewing, you will sweep the floors.’

*

She sewed as the building emptied, as dusk fell and the floors creaked with the outflow of feet. She sewed until the skirt was ready for its first pressing. Keening with exhaustion, she draped it in tissue paper and hung
it in the storeroom. Then she swept the floor. Her knuckles were swollen, her neck muscles burning.
Mémé’s right
, she confessed to herself,
it’s hard
. When she was finished, she headed to the door. And found it locked.

*

In the building opposite, Verrian Haviland sat on the corner of his desk, telephone receiver in hand. An hour ago he’d received a wire from his brother with further news of Miguel
and now he was about to say words he’d never imagined would pass his lips. ‘Thank you from my heart, Jack.’

‘Good God. Well, thanks accepted.’

‘Which South American country is he on his way to?’

‘Venezuela to begin with. After that, it’s up to him. Reports say he and his family are F&D.’

‘F&D’ was Jack’s shorthand for ‘fine and dandy.’ Verrian doubted Miguel could be either, considering his
maiming and subsequent handling, but the important thing was that he was out of Spain. Jack had actually delivered.

Jack said, ‘On your chum’s behalf I took a stratospherically dull Foreign Office fellow out to dinner and stood him a round
of golf. You are truly in my debt and it’s time to start showing it. Paris desk says you pop in and out at whim. When I ask your hotel to pass on a message,
I get some halfwit who laughs at me.’

‘That’ll be Laurentin. He finds the English side-splitting. Actually I’ve moved. To Montmartre, a house without a telephone.’

His brother swore. ‘I told you to check into a proper hotel. I wasn’t suggesting the Ritz, but you’re not too bloody proletarian for the Polonaise?’

Verrian released a slow breath. Jack might be the elder by two years, but he often
pushed the privilege. ‘I can’t face duck down and silk wallpaper. I’m sorry, Jack, I know I’m going back on my word, I’ll never be able to explain what Spain means to me …’ What it had cost. ‘I’m going back.’

‘Not on our ticket!’ Jack exploded. ‘The Foreign Office says the Spanish police will arrest you if you put so much as a foot over the border. Damn it, you pushed one of their officers down
some steps.’

‘He was trying to put handcuffs on me.’

‘I daresay he thought it was his job. We’re sending another chap to Madrid, somebody a little less emotionally embroiled.’

‘I’ll go as a freelancer then, with the Agence Espagne.’

‘No passport, remember? No accreditation. Thanks to that mix-up with the censors, you’re on every blacklist going. Now listen –’ Jack’s tone warmed – ‘guess who’s
coming to Paris? Mother and Lucy. Father wants you to squire them about.’

‘I’m not in good shape for family. Why are they coming?’

‘Why does any woman go to Paris? To shop, dear boy. It’ll be your sister’s first visit to the City of Light, so of course you’ll want to show her the sights. I’ll wire you their time of arrival.’

*

Alix rattled the door. Banged, shouted until her voice cracked.
Had the caretaker locked her in by accident? Or was it deliberate? Surely her colleagues wouldn’t imprison her all night? She stood on the sewing table and bumped the broom handle against the ceiling. Flakes of paint sprinkled her but nobody thumped a reply. It was after nine on a Friday night. Everyone had somewhere else to be – family suppers, dinner with friends, parties. Mme Frankel would be at
home in the upmarket suburb of Bois de Boulogne. Javier was probably changing into evening dress in his suite overlooking Parc Monceau.

Mémé would panic as the night progressed, would set out to look for her. Alix opened a window and leaned out into the dark. It was still raining, the street below as glossy as a sea lion. She needed one sympathetic person. A policeman, if necessary.

Only the
police hardly ever patrolled this smart district and it was hard to make eye contact with anybody, staring down over the tops of umbrellas and rain hats. Everyone was hurrying. ‘Excuse me!’ she called at a man and woman crossing the road directly in front of her. ‘Will you help?’ They looked side to side in confusion. ‘I’m up here!’

The man tucked his hand under his companion’s arm and they sped
away.

‘I hope this happens to you one day,’ Alix yelled after them.

She caught the attention of a young man in an overcoat and cap. Desperation had set in and she shouted loud enough to stop him in his tracks. ‘I’m locked in. I need somebody to fetch a policeman or find the caretaker to let me out.’

‘Anything for you, darling,’ the young man grinned, wiping rain off his face. ‘You stay right
there.’

Her relief lasted half an hour, the time it took to realise that her white knight had given up or never intended to help. Maybe she’d have to jump. She leaned over the window ledge and was hit by a wave of nausea. Jump? ‘I hate this place,’ she bawled into the darkness. ‘I hate couture. I hate Paris.’

‘That’s a shame, Mademoiselle.’

Alix squinted through slanting rain lit by headlights.
A black car had pulled up below. A rear door was open and a man stood looking up at her. He was wearing a trench coat and hat and his arms were folded.

‘I made my taxi stop, Mademoiselle. I thought you were about fall out.’

‘I wasn’t.’ She knew him from the fedora hat and from the hint of Spanish in his French and she cringed. Did he always have to see her at her worst? ‘I was seeing how far
it is to the ground, but I’m afraid of heights and felt sick.’

He came directly beneath her. In the darkness, with a glare
behind him, he cut a jagged shape. ‘Pardon my curiosity, but are there no stairs? No lift? Just a question.’

‘Of course there are stairs!’ A day’s misery spurted up, finding expression in her tone. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that I’m locked in? Or did you imagine I like
jumping out of windows?’

‘You haven’t jumped,’ he pointed out. ‘And I think it’s too far actually. You’d break an ankle or land on someone and break his neck. Isn’t there a better way?’

‘Of course there is. Find the person who holds the keys to this damn building –’ Alix stopped, realising she was spitting fury at the one person available to help. She swallowed and said, ‘Would you kindly fetch
the caretaker?’

‘Of course. Tell me who he is and where he’s to be found.’

She sank to her knees, her head on the sill. All week, since she’d stepped over the threshold, she’d been drinking in facts about Maison Javier, but hadn’t thought to ask how the place was locked up at night or opened in the morning.

A cough from below. ‘I’m still willing to help, but I don’t want to stand here getting
soaked. I could try to find a ladder.’

‘No. I don’t mind being on a ladder, but I would never be able to climb out and step on to one. I can’t. It terrifies me.’

‘Right. Then it’ll have to be the fire brigade.’

‘No!’ Return on Monday as the girl who brought the
pompiers
to Maison Javier? Clanging bells and blazing lights? ‘I’ll climb over the sill and drop down. It’s not far. If you would stand
by and make sure I’m all right?’

‘Scrape you up if you crack your skull? Right.’ This sounded more decisive. ‘Stay there, Mademoiselle.’

He walked back to his taxi, and Alix expected him to get in and leave her, but he went to the driver’s window and indicated the man should wind down the glass. She thought it was odd that he hadn’t recognised her.

He returned. ‘Are you brave enough to drop
into my arms?’

‘What? I would kill you. I’m quite tall, you know.’

‘I don’t mean from the second floor. No man can actually catch a woman falling from that height, except in the movies. And besides –’ whatever he added was lost as the taxi driver lined up with the building, getting as close under her window as he could without damaging the bodywork. Was she supposed to drop on to the car roof
without leaving a dent? Parisian taxi drivers were not known for their forgiving temperaments.

Her rescuer took off his coat and spread it on top of the car. Then he stepped up on to the running board, wheel arch, bonnet, finally the roof. He was lithe for a big man, something cat-like in his movements. The coat, she realised, was to stop him slipping.

‘You must wriggle out backwards, then drop.
I’ll break your fall. Only a few feet between us, so remember to bend your knees. Aim for the car, not the gap.’

She moaned, ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Well, that’s fine. You’ll have to stay overnight. Is there anyone you’d like me to inform?’

Alix tried to imagine this man trying to stop Mémé wringing her hands long enough to explain that she should retire to bed, leaving Alix incarcerated in
the centre of Paris. ‘That’s not possible either. Oh, heavens.’

‘Quite so. By the way, we’re attracting a crowd. Soon somebody will call the police and then it will be the fire brigade.’

‘All right. I can do it.’

‘Remember, flex on landing, and trust me.’

She only half heard, because having made up her mind to go, she couldn’t hesitate. She leaned over the sill, wriggling until her legs were
outside. There she balanced, aware of her stockings and the clear view upward should her rescuer be ungentlemanly enough to look. Then, crying, ‘Are you ready?’ and receiving an assurance, she dug her toes against the wall, pushed back, yowled in fright and plummeted.

About six feet. She landed with a thud and a scream. She heard the rip of fabric, felt arms close around her as her legs went
from under her. She coasted on her backside on the slick roof, thought she was going over the edge but came to a stop with her feet dangling. Relief brought hysterical laughter. Then she heard cheers and clapping and struggled to sit up.

‘Bravo, Monsieur,’ a woman shouted. ‘Will you do it for me if I jump?’

‘Stay still –’ this was spoken into her ear. ‘I’ll get down first.’ A moment later, he
was holding out his arms and Alix slithered
into them, her knees crumpling as she met solid ground. She leaned against him.

‘Come on, girl, aren’t you going to kiss him?’ demanded the same woman. ‘He’s saved your life and ruined a good coat!’ A straggle of cheers made Alix hide her face against the man’s waistcoat. The sky finally rescued her. Rain suddenly pelted down so hard the onlookers dashed
away. Alix was aware of being kept in a very wet embrace. Her rescuer wore no jacket. White cotton plastered itself to his arms, revealing a wiry strength. His face glinted under the sodden halo of his hat as he waited for her to speak – to thank him, which she should.

But she didn’t know what to say, conscious that her blouse was pasted to her body and her hair was running rivers. So she just
looked upward, noticing that his collar was torn – her fault – that his throat was muscular. And then, without really knowing how, they were kissing. A kiss that tasted of rain and which felt completely right. Her lips parted and the kiss caught fire. Hands knitting into her hair told her that her response had ignited something in him. Never mind that they were on a public street, a torrent of water
gurgling along the gutters beside them in search of a drain.

Four blasts of a car horn broke them apart.

‘How did you persuade the driver to let us use his car?’ she asked.

‘I promised to pay him and told him any damage would be
reimbursed. I doubt there was any. Your fall had the grace of thistledown.’

She bunched her lips. ‘That’s a polite lie.’

‘At least you didn’t go through the roof.’
He sounded different tonight. A bit impatient. ‘Mademoiselle … do you spend your life getting into tight spots?’

‘You recognise me from the other day?’

‘Course, but I thought I should get you down before mentioning it. Have you recovered from being attacked?’

‘Mostly.’

‘And tonight’s calamity?’

‘I got locked in.’

‘You should be more careful. It’s Javier, isn’t it, this place?’ He looked
up at the façade. ‘You told me you worked here. In the car, when I took you home. Are you one of his models?’

‘Me? No, I’m just … just a seamstress. A
midinette
.’ A skivvy. A table monkey.

‘You’re shivering. Come on.’ He opened the taxi door.

‘Your coat’s still on the roof.’

He laughed. ‘Wetter than I am. Get in.’ When she was inside he said, ‘Fancy dinner, or is it St-Sulpice?’

‘St-Sulpice,’
she answered with regret. Was he going to get in beside her?

He wasn’t. He leaned in at the window, saying, ‘We live on different sides of the river. I shall bid you goodnight and walk.’

Alix heard him giving the driver directions. She saw money
being handed over, large denomination notes and called out, ‘Monsieur, that’s too much!’

He came back to her window. ‘For allowing his cab to be used
as a trampoline? Cheap, I’d say.’

‘You’re sure your employer will reimburse you?’ She picked up the ghost of a smile and wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Her next try was even worse. ‘I’d better see you again …’

‘Yes?’

‘I mean, since we …’

‘Since we … ?’ He tilted his head.

‘I mean – since you helped me twice and I owe you two taxi fares.’

He passed her a white card. ‘My business number.
Call me next time you get locked in.’ He stepped back and gave the roof a couple of smacks. Alix sat back, recognising a classic brush-off.

Silence would be the most dignified state. But she’d suddenly realised where she’d first heard his voice. There was just time to slide across the seat and shout out the window, ‘Did that poor friend of yours survive or did he die in prison?’

As the taxi
pulled away she thought she heard, ‘Deux Magots, tomorrow teatime, and I’ll tell you!’