The Dress Thief (2 page)

Mathilda’s daughter emerged from the Continental Telephone Exchange wearing an ivy-green suit, the severity of which contrasted with her youth.

A tilted trilby and shoes of black glacé leather suggested a young lady of means, as did silk stockings accentuating slim calves and ankles. She carried a black handbag and wore matching gloves.
As she went down Rue du Louvre at a fast clip, admiring looks met her – and more than one smile of invitation.

Alix Gower forced herself not to react. Eighteen months in this city had taught her that ‘style never smiles back’. Ice-cool
Parisiennes
take admiration as their due. She was learning how to emulate such women, to avoid the gaffes that reveal too much of a person’s roots. Hers were in
London, where she’d lived for the first eighteen years of her life.

Her father had been a Londoner too, a working-class man who’d survived a war only to lose to tuberculosis. Her mother
had been Alsatian Jewish. Fought over for centuries by France and Germany, Alsace bred fatalistic people. It bred refugees. Though she’d never known her mother, Alix had inherited the fugitive’s cunning. Right
now, she was escaping a shift at the telephone-company switchboard. She was on an errand that could get her arrested, but was doing it with the panache of a debutante on her way to the Ritz bar.

*

On Rue St-Honoré, her pace slowed. She loved the exclusive 1st arrondissement and though it was already quarter to five and she had a distance to go, she stared into every window she passed. It wasn’t
just the clothes that drew her. She loved the hotel fronts with their uniformed doormen, the trees in pots, the flower displays. The patisseries with their glistening platters. She’d arrived in Paris eighteen months ago and it had set her senses ablaze.

There was one shop on St-Honoré she never could resist. Zollinger’s was a heaven of handmade chocolates, pyramids of them topped with gold leaf
and crystallised flowers. Her favourites were the violet creams, which had been her mother’s favourite and that alone made them desirable.

Everything Alix knew of her mother had come second-hand and she hoarded details, not really caring if they were true or not. She
knew
that Mathilda had settled in London aged nine and left school at fourteen to work in a department store, because she had her
mother’s school attendance and leaving certificates. And
she
knew
Mathilda had served as a nurse during the war. There was a photograph and a Nurses’ Catechism to prove it. She
believed
Mathilda had possessed an eighteen-inch waist, because she’d inherited a fragile petticoat whose drawstring was knotted in that impossible circumference. The notes and faded flower labels Alix’s grandmother kept
in a box proved that dozens of people had attended Mathilda’s funeral in 1916. And she had her parents’ wedding photograph, a snapshot of frozen hope. The rest Alix invented. Her grandmother, who might have put flesh on the bones of the story, chose not to.

Counting the francs in her purse, Alix went into Zollinger’s, coming out an absurdly long time later with a tiny package. She checked her
watch. Five past five. St-Honoré was long and she had to get to the yet more exclusive Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré. An object of rare worth was on display there, and if she didn’t hurry, it might be taken away. Or sold.

She’d paid dearly for this afternoon’s freedom. ‘Mémé – I mean, my grandmother – has sprained her ankle and has to go to the doctor’s,’ she’d told Mademoiselle Boussac, her supervisor.
‘May I have leave of absence to take her?’ Behind her back, tense fingers betrayed the lie but the supervisor saw only a modest, dark-haired girl with her eyes cast down. A girl who seemed younger than her twenty years, but who dressed like a model girl in a fashion house and did her work well. Who had a command of English the telephone company needed.

‘I will understand if you say no …’ Alix
lifted sable eyes
that must have contained true desperation because Mlle Boussac sighed and said, ‘Very well’ – Alix could leave her shift early, but she would not be paid for the time missed and such absence must not become a regular occurrence. ‘The company cannot accommodate every family illness. If you become unreliable, your seat here can easily be filled.’

That sounded like a dream to Alix,
to turn up for work and find her seat filled. Today’s errand was part of a plan. A step towards a future which included a flat in a tree-lined boulevard and free expression of her ambitions. Those ambitions had flown ahead of her. They were waiting at No. 24, Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré.

*

‘Oh, no!’ Alix stamped her foot. She was at No. 24. At Hermès, the leather and silk craftsmen. The object
for which she’d lied and forfeited precious wages was where she’d hoped it would be – in the window – but it was twisted through the straps of a handbag which in turn leaned against an exquisitely stitched saddle. She needed to see it flat.

‘It’ was a square of silk, the first scarf to come out of Hermès’s new factory in Lyon. Well, from what she could see, it was predominantly white, the edges
oversewn by hand. It had small trees printed on it, or perhaps they were bushes, and wheels and horses’ heads and what seemed to be a man in a wig. She glanced down at herself. Did she dare go in, ask to see it?

Her suit was notches above anything her work colleagues
owned, but it was not Faubourg St-Honoré standard. What if the staff took one look at her and turned her out? Or guessed her mission?

They wouldn’t, she persuaded herself. It was no crime, wanting to see something new and beautiful.
Marie Claire
magazine, brand new on the stands this month, insisted that ‘confidence begins inside’.’ But then, so did self-doubt and indigestion.

The purr of a car made her turn. A Rolls-Royce was pulling up, sand-gold panels gleaming. A chauffeur stepped out, straightening his leather gloves before
opening the rear passenger door.

A woman decanted herself with the grace of a ballerina. Definitely not French, Alix judged. She was learning the codes of French society and knew that rich Frenchwomen tamed their hair for daytime. This woman’s locks flowed in corn-yellow waves under a fox-fur hat. Her lips were crimson, her eyebrows pencil strokes. A film star? Whoever she was, the doors of Hermès
opened before she was halfway across the pavement.

The chauffeur put a cigarette to his mouth, flicked a lighter and winked at Alix. ‘Window shopping, sweetheart? You and me both.’

Alix returned a snooty look and followed the lady inside.

*

‘Mademoiselle?’ A young saleswoman, a vendeuse, blocked her path. Alix could feel the girl mentally pulling stitches out of her
jacket, assessing its cut.
Searching for the secret signs of wealth. Clearly she didn’t find them, because she repeated in a sharper tone, ‘Mademoiselle?’

‘Gloves,’ Alix replied wildly. ‘I – I’d like a pair of gloves. And a scarf.’ She glanced towards the window but didn’t dare move that way.

‘Gloves for the spring season?’

‘Er – yes. Brown?’

Brown for spring? Tut-tut. The vendeuse gestured to a seat well away from
the window. ‘Mademoiselle will please follow.’

The lady from the Rolls-Royce was being attended by an older vendeuse and Alix heard her exclaim in American-accented English, ‘Oh my! So this is Mr Hermès’s new baby? Won’t we all go wild for it! I suppose it has a name?’

Alix hesitated. They were talking about
that
scarf.

The vendeuse replied, ‘Monsieur Hermès has named it, “‘
Jeu des omnibus
et dames blanches
.”’

‘My blazing stars, you’re going to have to translate that for me.’

‘It refers, Madame, to the game of omnibus played in the eighteenth century and
dames blanches
, which are the horse-drawn carriages for the people in the towns, which are also called “‘omnibus”. It is a little joke.’

‘Well now, it’s a joke beyond my comprehension,’ said the lady, holding a square of silk
up to the light, ‘but I can’t wait
to have it around my neck. Am I allowed to own such a precious trifle?’

‘We at Hermès are always honoured to serve Madame Kilpin.’

Alix inched closer. ‘Madame Kilpin’ wasn’t a film star. Film stars always called themselves ‘Miss’. Nor a diplomat’s wife.
My blazing stars
. A flat box lay open on the counter and it struck Alix that there must be more of these
scarves in stock. Of course there would be. The minute news of them spread, there’d be a run on them. All the more reason to absorb the design, the colours. Black, burnt orange, blue …

The motif of a horse-drawn omnibus was repeated in a double circle. Alix counted the images, noting their direction. The centre was a cartouche of ladies and gentlemen of the late-eighteenth century playing a game
at a table. She counted the figures, noted their dress and hairstyles. A complex design.

‘And who are you, Miss Wide-eyes?’ The American twisted on her seat. ‘You are staring at me.’

Alix backed away. ‘I’m sorry, excuse me.’ She fled out on to the street, though not before she heard –

‘I dare say she’s a journalist and will sell a story about me to the newspapers. What a bore. Still, six out
of ten for effort.’

*

The light was fading as Alix crossed the River Seine at the Pont Marie and descended to the Quai d’Anjou. This was on Ile St-Louis, the smaller of the two islands that formed the ancient hub of Paris. St-Louis was an enclave of graceful streets and mossy
wharfs and Alix had promised herself that, one day,
she’d
live in one of its crumbling mansions. She’d walked fast from
Hermès, fuelled by humiliation.
Six out of ten
 …

Her heels clicked on the cobbles as she came up alongside a rusty Dutch barge tied to an iron ring. The boat’s name was ‘
Katrijn
’, though from ‘r’ onward the name disappeared into the dent of some long-ago collision. It was home to her best friend. She called, ‘Paul? It’s me, Alix. Are you in?’

Identical fair heads poked through the wheelhouse
door, then two little girls in cotton frocks scampered on to the stern. One of the girls held a scaled-down violin in one hand and its bow in the other.

Alix hailed the girls. ‘Lala, Suzy, is your brother home? May I come aboard?’

Lala, the one with the violin, made a ‘hush’ motion of the lips. ‘He’s sleeping. He was at the market at four this morning.’

‘Were you at school today?’

‘Some of
it. I had my violin lesson and Suzy went to her talking-lady.’

‘You mean her speech therapist?’ Alix laughed. ‘Will you give me a glass of wine? I promise I won’t wake Paul.’ Her feet burned and she needed to sit down to record what was buzzing in her head. The girls threw down a gangplank – little more than a ridged board. Crossing it, Alix knew she shouldn’t look down, but could never stop
herself. Fate insisted that whenever she was halfway across, another vessel would chug past and the
wash would make
Katrijn
buck and sway. She could take her shoes off, but stockings cost half a week’s wages …

A chuckle made her look up. A broad hand was reaching down to help her, the arm above it tanned and bare. As was the torso beyond. ‘Paul, you’re naked!’ she said.

‘I can be,’ said Paul
le Gal, showing strong, uneven teeth. ‘Have you come to make love to me?’

‘Shush! The girls will hear.’

‘No they won’t. Listen.’

From the galley came a nightingale harmony – Suzy telling Lala to fetch a bottle of wine, Lala telling Suzy to find glasses. Though Suzy never spoke, she often sang. They’d lost their mother a year ago in harrowing circumstances and they reminded Alix of little ducklings,
bobbing along in the wake of the tragedy. Swimming and swimming because the alternative was to drown.

Paul helped her scramble over the gunwale, caught her in his arms and kissed her as she brushed rust off her skirt. ‘Don’t,’ she chided. ‘I’ve come to work – I’ve got a copy, scorching hot, but I have to get it on paper.’

‘I was asleep but heard you in my dream,’ Paul said against her mouth.
Twenty-two, he wasn’t much older than her, but he seemed so because his work as a porter in the fruit market kept him muscular and smoking roughened his voice. Alix let him kiss her, knowing it wasn’t fair to either of them. They were friends and business partners, and tonight was business.

She pushed him away firmly. ‘I have to sit down, or I’ll lose what’s in my head.’

A circular table with
four mismatched chairs filled the barge’s prow. Paul pulled up a seat, lit a lantern and watched Alix take a sketchbook and crayons from her bag. Stillness came over him, lending him beauty despite the scars on his face and the bump of a broken nose. ‘I’m always afraid you’ll find a rich man and forget about me.’

‘I saw a rich woman earlier,’ Alix said as Suzy wobbled towards them, wine glasses
and a carafe on a tin tray. ‘She was drizzled in furs the same colour as her car.’

Suzy poured wine with the solemnity of a head waiter while Lala set two glasses of milk on the table, which was actually a cable drum with ‘PTT’ stamped on the top. Paul, Lala and Suzy sat in silence as Alix sketched, discarding page after page as she tried to reproduce the Hermès scarf. It was sharp as a photograph
in her head, but her pencils wouldn’t understand. Dusk fell. Lights came on in the Hôtel Lambert above them, casting golden playing cards on to the quay. On the far bank, Port des Célestins threw flares over the water. Her audience was fidgeting, but Alix didn’t mind, because she knew they were rooting for her. They were all cut off the same cheese. All survivors. Lala protected Suzy and practised
her violin so one day she could put a hat down and play to tourists. Suzy chopped vegetables for each night’s supper, standing on a box, until she had a huge pile of equal-sized pieces. Paul worked all hours to feed
them and school them. Alix understood their sadness as she’d lost her mother at birth. Losing the one you’d had all your life must be even worse.

‘Nearly forgot –’ she dug into her
handbag for the Zollinger’s package. ‘One each, girls.’ Lala and Suzy stared at the chocolates until Alix, laughing, gave them permission to unwrap them.