‘It really is, Liv. I wouldn’t have left you for anything else. This is the thing I’ve been working towards for months. Years. If I can pull it off, the partnership is made. My reputation is made.’
‘I know. Look, don’t cancel dinner. We’ll go. I’ll feel better after my bath. And we can plan our day tomorrow.’
His fingers close around hers. Because of the soapsuds it’s hard for hers not to slip away.
‘Well … here’s the thing. They want me to meet their project manager tomorrow.’
Liv goes very still. ‘What?’
‘They’re flying him over specially. They want me to meet them at their suite in the Royal Monceaux. I thought maybe you could go to the spa there while I was with them. It’s meant to be amazing.’
She looks up at him. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I am. I heard it was voted French
Vogue
’s best –’
‘I’m not talking about the bloody spa.’
‘Liv – this means they’re actually keen. I have to capitalize on it.’
Her voice, when it emerges, is strangely strangulated. ‘Five days. Our honeymoon is all of five days, David. Not even a week. You’re telling me they couldn’t wait to have a meeting for another seventy-two hours?’
‘This is the Goldsteins, Liv. This is how billionaires do things. You have to fit around their timetable.’
She stares at her feet, at the pedicure she had booked at great expense, and remembers how she and the beautician had laughed when she’d said that her feet looked good enough to eat.
‘Please go away, David.’
‘Liv. I –’
‘Just leave me alone.’
She doesn’t look at him as he rises from the lavatory. When he closes the bathroom door behind him, Liv shuts her eyes and slides under the hot water until she can hear nothing at all.
Paris, 1912
‘Not the Bar Tripoli.’
‘Yes, the Bar Tripoli.’
For a big man, Édouard Lefèvre could bear an uncanny resemblance to a small boy informed of some imminent punishment. He looked down at me, his expression pained, and blew out his cheeks. ‘Ah – let’s not do this tonight, Sophie. Let’s go and eat somewhere. Let’s have an evening free of financial concerns. We’re only just married! It’s still our
lune de miel
!’ He waved dismissively at the bar.
I reached into my coat pocket for the handful of IOUs I had folded in there. ‘My beloved husband, we cannot have an evening free of financial concerns for we have no money to eat. Not a
centime
.’
‘But the money from the Galerie Duchamps –’
‘Gone on rent. You were behind from the summer, remember.’
‘The savings in the pot?’
‘Spent two days ago when you were minded to treat everyone in Ma Bourgogne to breakfast.’
‘It was a wedding breakfast! I felt the need to mark the occasion of our return to Paris somehow.’ He thought for a moment. ‘The money in my blue
pantalons
?’
‘Last night.’
He patted his pockets, coming up only with his tobacco pouch. He looked so downcast I almost laughed.
‘
Courage
, Édouard. It won’t be so bad. If you prefer I’ll go in and ask your friends nicely to settle their debts. You need have nothing to do with it. They will find it harder to refuse a woman.’
‘And then we will leave?’
‘And then we will leave.’ I reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘And we will go and get some food.’
‘I’m not sure I’ll wish to eat,’ he grumbled. ‘Discussing money gives me indigestion.’
‘You will wish to eat, Édouard.’
‘I don’t see why we have to do this now. Our
lune de miel
is meant to last a month. A month of nothing but love! I asked one of my society patrons and she knows all about such things. I’m sure there is money somewhere in my … Oh, hang on, here’s Laure. Laure! Come and meet my wife!’
In the three weeks that I had been Madame Édouard Lefèvre, and, in truth, for some months beforehand, I had discovered that the number of my new husband’s creditors was even greater than his skills as a painter. Édouard was the most generous of men – but with little, financially, to support such generosity. He sold his paintings with an ease that must have been the envy of his friends at the Académie Matisse, but rarely bothered to demand anything as unpleasant as cash for them, settling instead for a steadily growing pile of tattered IOUs. Hence Messieurs Duchamp, Bercy and Stiegler could afford both his exquisite artistry on their walls and food in their bellies, while Édouard lived for weeks on on bread, cheese and
rillettes
.
I had been horrified when I uncovered the state of his finances. Not because of his lack of funds – I had known when Édouard and I met that he could not be wealthy – but because of the casual disregard with which these so-called friends seemed to treat him. They promised him money, which never came. They accepted his drinks, his hospitality, and gave little back. Édouard would be the man suggesting drinks for all, food for the ladies, good times for everyone, and when the bills came, he would somehow find himself the last soul in the bar.
‘Friendship matters more to me than money,’ he had said, when I went through his accounts.
‘That is a perfectly admirable sentiment, my love. Unfortunately friendship will not put bread on our table.’
‘I have married a businesswoman!’ he exclaimed proudly. In those days after our wedding, I could have announced I was a lancer of boils, and he would have still been proud of me.
I had been peering through the window of the Bar Tripoli, trying to make out who was inside. When I turned back, Édouard was talking to this Madame Laure. This was not unusual: my husband knew everyone in the fifth and sixth
arrondissements
. It was impossible to walk a hundred yards without him exchanging greetings, cigarettes, good wishes. ‘Sophie!’ he said. ‘Come here! I want you to meet Laure Le Comte.’
I hesitated for only a second: it was clear from her rouged cheeks, her evening slippers, that Laure Le Comte was a
fille de rue
. He had told me when we’d first met that he often used them as models; they were ideal, he said, being so unselfconscious about their bodies. Perhaps I should have been shocked that he wished to introduce me, his wife, to one, but I had quickly learned that Édouard cared little for conventional etiquette. I knew he liked them, respected them, even, and I did not want him to think less of me.
‘A pleasure to meet you, Mademoiselle,’ I said. I held out my hand, and used the formal
vous
to convey my respects. Her fingers were so ridiculously soft that I had to check I was actually holding them.
‘Laure has modelled for me on many occasions. You remember the painting with the woman on the blue chair? The one you’re particularly fond of? That was Laure. She’s an excellent model.’
‘You’re too kind, Monsieur,’ she said.
I smiled warmly. ‘I do know the painting. It’s a beautiful image.’
The woman’s eyebrow lifted just a fraction. I realized afterwards that it was unlikely she was often complimented by another woman. ‘I always think it an oddly regal work.’
‘Regal. Sophie is quite right. That is exactly how you appear in it,’ Édouard said.
Laure’s gaze flickered between us, as if she was trying to work out whether I was mocking her.
‘The first time my husband painted me I looked like the most awful old maid,’ I said quickly, wanting to put her at ease. ‘So severe and forbidding. I think Édouard said I looked like a stick.’
‘I’d never say such a thing.’
‘But you thought it.’
‘It was a terrible painting,’ Édouard agreed. ‘But the fault was entirely mine.’ He looked at me. ‘And now I find it impossible to paint a bad picture of you.’
It was still hard not to meet his gaze without blushing a little. There was a brief silence. And I looked away.
‘My congratulations on your wedding, Madame Lefèvre. You are a very lucky woman. But, perhaps, not as lucky as your husband.’
She nodded to me, and then to Édouard, as she lifted her skirts slightly from the wet pavement and walked away.
‘Don’t look at me like that in public,’ I scolded him, as we watched her go.
‘I like it,’ he said, lighting a cigarette and looking ridiculously pleased with himself. ‘You go such an endearing colour.’
Édouard saw a man he wanted to speak to over in the
tabac
, so I let him go, walked into the Bar Tripoli and stood at the counter for a few minutes, watching Monsieur Dinan at his usual spot in the corner. I asked for a glass of water, and drank it, exchanging a few words with the barman. Then I walked over and greeted Monsieur Dinan, removing my hat.
It took him a few seconds to register who I was. I suspected it was only my hair that gave me away. ‘Ah. Mademoiselle. And how are you? It’s a chill evening, is it not? Is Édouard well?’
‘He is perfectly fine, Monsieur, thank you. But I wonder if I might have two minutes to discuss a private matter.’
He glanced around the table. The woman to his right gave him a hard look. The man opposite was too busy talking to his companion to notice. ‘I do not believe I have any private matters to discuss with you Mademoiselle.’ He looked at his female companion as he spoke.
‘As you wish, Monsieur. Then we shall discuss it here. It is a simple matter of payment for a painting. Édouard sold you a particularly fine work in oil pastels –
The Market at Grenouille
– for which you promised him …’ I checked my paper ‘… five francs? He would be much obliged if you could settle the sum now.’
The convivial expression disappeared. ‘You are his debt collector?’
‘I believe that description is a little strong, Monsieur. I am merely tidying Édouard’s finances. And this particular bill is, I believe, some seven months old now.’
‘I am not going to discuss financial matters in front of my friends.’ He turned away from me in high dudgeon.
But I had half expected this. ‘Then I’m afraid, Monsieur, that I will be forced to stand here until you are ready to discuss it.’
All pairs of eyes around the little table had now landed on me, but I did not so much as colour. It was hard to embarrass me. I had grown up in a bar in St Peronne; I had helped my father throw out drunks from the age of twelve, had cleaned the gentlemen’s WC, had heard talk so bawdy it would have made a street girl blush. Monsieur Dinan’s theatrical disapproval held no terrors for me.
‘Well, you will be there all evening, then. For I do not have such a sum on me.’
‘Forgive me, Monsieur, but I was standing at the bar for some time before I came over. And I could not help but notice that your wallet was most generously stocked.’
At this his male companion began to laugh. ‘I think she has the measure of you, Dinan.’
This seemed only to enrage him.
‘Who are you? Who are you to embarrass me so? This is not Édouard’s doing. He understands the nature of a gentleman’s friendship. He would not come here so gauchely, demanding money and embarrassing a man in front of his friends.’ He squinted at me. ‘Hah! I remember now … You are the shop girl. Édouard’s little shop girl from La Femme Marché. How could you possibly understand the ways of Édouard’s circle? You are …’ he sneered ‘…
provincial
.’
He had known that would hurt. I felt the colour rising slowly from my chest. ‘I am indeed, Monsieur, if it is now a provincial concern to eat. And even a shop girl can see when Édouard’s friends have taken advantage of his generous nature.’
‘I’ve told him I will pay him.’
‘Seven months ago. You told him you would pay him seven months ago.’
‘Why should I answer to you? Since when did you become Édouard’s
chienne méchante
?’ He actually spat the words at me.
Briefly, I froze. And then I heard Édouard’s voice, behind me, reverberating from somewhere deep within his chest. ‘What did you call my wife?’
‘Your
wife
?’
I turned. I had never seen my husband’s expression so dark. ‘Are you deaf as well as charmless now, Dinan?’
‘You married her? That sour-faced shop girl?’
Édouard’s fist shot out so fast that I barely saw it. It came from somewhere behind my right ear and caught Dinan so hard on the chin that he actually lifted a little into the air as he flew backwards. He crashed down in a pile of chairs, the table overturning as his legs swung over his head. His female companions shrieked as the wine bottle broke, spraying Medoc over their clothes.
The bar fell quiet, the fiddler stopping mid-note. The air felt electrified. Dinan blinked, struggling to right himself.
‘Apologize to my wife. She is worth a dozen of you.’ Édouard’s voice was a growl.
Dinan spat something, possibly a tooth. He lifted his chin, a thin scarlet trickle bisecting it, and muttered, so quietly that I thought only I could have heard him: ‘
Putain.
’
With a roar, Édouard went for him. Dinan’s friend launched himself on Édouard, throwing punches at his shoulders, his head, his broad back. They bounced off my husband as if they were gnats. I could just make out Édouard’s voice: ‘How
dare
you insult my wife?’
‘
Fréjus
, you blackguard!’ I turned to see Michel Le Duc landing a punch on someone else.
‘
Arrêtez, Messieurs! Arrêtez vous!’
The bar erupted. Édouard pushed himself upright. He shook Dinan’s friend from his shoulders, as if he were shrugging off a coat, and swung a chair behind him. I felt, as much as heard, the wood crack on the man’s back. Bottles skimmed the air over our heads. Women shrieked, men swore, customers scrambled for the doors, while street boys ran in through them to join the mêlée. In the chaos, I saw my moment. I stooped, and pulled the groaning Dinan’s wallet from his jacket. I took a five-franc note from it and tucked a piece of handwritten paper in its place.
‘I have written you a receipt,’ I shouted at him, my mouth close to his ear. ‘You may need it if you ever choose to sell Édouard’s painting. Although, frankly, you would be a fool to do so.’ And then I straightened. ‘Édouard!’ I called, looking around for him. ‘Édouard!’ I was unsure whether he had heard me above the commotion.