The House of Dreams (12 page)

“I will. I'll make it safely back with Rudolf.”

“Attagirl.” Mary Jayne leaned in to her friend, nudging her gently. She hated the idea of Miriam leaving and realized at that moment how much she would miss her. She glanced at her, worried suddenly at the risk she was taking for the man she loved. “You will take care, won't you, Davenport?”

Miriam grinned. “You? You are telling me to be careful?” She lifted her arms as if she were dancing with a partner and waltzed away across the echoing room. “Imagine it. Christmas … music, dancing…”

“I don't know. It's too big,” Mary Jayne said again, catching Thumin's cunning expression at their excitement.
And yet, and yet,
she thought as Dr. Thumin pointed out the six-meter-long range in the kitchen and the château's only bath next door. “It's like the one Marat was murdered in,” she whispered to Miriam, and the girls stifled their laughter.

They followed Thumin upstairs, through suite after suite of rooms. “There are fifteen rooms up here,” he said. “Each bedroom has its own fireplace, so you won't be cold.”

“Want to bet,” Mary Jayne said under her breath. On the top floor, they gazed out of the windows across the lawns to the sea.

“Look!” Miriam said. “There's a marvelous palm shading the table out there, and acacias and magnolias. Can you imagine how beautiful it will be in the spring?”

“It's the worst kind of dubious, bourgeois elegance.” She raised her hand as Miriam began to speak. “Yes, I know. Varian will love it, but he's a snob.” Mary Jayne traced her fingertip in the years of dust on the sill. “How much?” she said abruptly, halting Dr. Thumin's monologue. He sucked his teeth.

“It is very expensive.”

“How expensive?” she said.

“Thirteen hundred francs.”

“A month?” Mary Jayne pursed her lips. “We'll have to think about it.” Miriam joined her, and they talked in low voices as Dr. Thumin pretended to check the shutters at the far side of the room.

Miriam did a quick calculation. “That's about thirteen dollars! The smallest hotel room costs fifteen francs a night. Listen, if we were to share this place…,” she whispered.

“Like some kind of commune?” Mary Jayne wrinkled her nose.

“It would be a blast, like at college. It would be more like a swank private hotel. We can invite some of my clients like the Bretons to share with us. Split a few ways, we could pay for a cook, and maid, and this place would still cost us less than the ratty hotels we're all staying in.” She squeezed Mary Jayne's hand. “Imagine it! Imagine the space, and the freedom…” They heard Dagobert's footsteps echoing down the staircase through the empty house.

“It would be wonderful to have somewhere for us to escape to,” Mary Jayne said. “And it would be so much better for the families like Danny's with children.” She frowned. “But who else? That's not enough to fill this place. We were only looking for somewhere big enough for us and Danny.”

“There's Var—” Miriam began to say.

“No,” Mary Jayne said firmly.

“I know he'd love it.”

“Then tough luck to him. As I'm bankrolling this whole jolly adventure, maybe he should have been more civil.” Mary Jayne stuck her chin out.

“What about Beamish?”

“No, if I know him, he'll want to stay in town.” Mary Jayne did a quick head count. “But I reckon we can swing it.” She nodded at Dr. Thumin. “We'll take it.” She could tell from the confusion on his face that he was expecting to negotiate and now wished he had asked a higher price. “When can we move in?”

 

FOURTEEN

F
LYING
P
OINT
, L
ONG
I
SLAND

2000

G
ABRIEL

I watch Sophie bend with the grace of a ballet dancer and scoop up a white oval stone from the shore. What I wouldn't give to be that lithe still. Sometimes when I'm pottering along the shoreline here, I imagine my younger self powering through the surf on my daily run. Day after day for years in all weathers until it suddenly became a chore, not so easy. When was that, 1980-something? Years and decades run into one another now. There was always a dog or two running at my heels. When our last old fella died, we didn't replace him. I won't be long for the happy hunting ground myself, and I didn't want to leave some young dog brokenhearted. It's easier that way, though I miss the clatter of paws on the deck, the sure weight of a dog on the bed at night.

“It sounds like
Casablanca,
” Sophie says.

I glance over at her. “Sorry?”

“I was saying, it sounds like
Casablanca
.”

She's smart, this girl. “That's what some people say, ‘the real
Casablanca,
' or that Varian was the artists' Schindler.” I want to say:
Life was already over for me when I met him. Then along came this American—tall, kind, talking with quiet confidence like some actor in a gangster B movie: “Don't worry. We have ways to get you out of this mess.”

“What was he like as a person?”

“Varian? Have you ever heard something's like a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma? That was Varian. None of us could figure him out. But he was an extraordinary man. Courageous, tenacious, and permanently good-humored. He was kind, too, so kind.” My eyes prick now, just thinking of it. “After everything I went through, when I landed at his desk and he said he'd help, I cried hot, stupid tears. I couldn't help myself. He handed me a clean red-and-white handkerchief from his breast pocket, and clapped me on the back. I guess he saw scenes like that every day. When people made it as far as Marseille, there was a sense of relief—that you were home free. Then the reality set in—going door-to-door with the hotel concierges all saying,
‘Nous sommes complets,'
discovering that thousands of other souls had had exactly the same bright idea as you.” When I think of Marseille, I remember the smell of wine, and pissoirs, and fish, and ink from the newspaper stalls, and the sea, always, the sea. The place was bedlam. People wandered the streets with all their worldly goods piled up on handcarts. You couldn't get a room anywhere. Then the realization that you were trapped here dawned—that Marseille was like a holding pen, really. You had got this far, but could go no further without your papers being
en règle
. That's what Varian realized, and calmly set about overcoming it all. What is it they say? Tears may be the path to grace, a way for women to become angels. What of men? “Fry was like an angel of deliverance to us. A regular miracle.”

“Well, that's all fascinating, but can we backtrack a bit? I don't want to waste your time when you could be with your family.” She smiles, cocks her head, all charm. I'm on my guard now, missy. “Tell me about the first time you saw Vita.”

Vita. I have to think for a moment, scroll back through the years like the pages of a photograph album. There she is. I check I have the right page, the right line of the story. There are many ways to tell the same tale. “Yes, now, let me think…,” I say, buying some time. The light is dazzling on the white sand, and I shield my eyes, rubbing at my brow.

Sophie butts in, impatient. “The official story is that Gabriel Lambert, enfant terrible of the art deco crowd, met a young British art student, Vita, at a party in Montmartre in 1938. Lambert was quite the catch—rich, talented, and brave. He'd fought with the Republicans in Spain, and entertained his friends by firing off satirical sketches of Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini. He was, in other words, sexy and dangerous and catnip to a girl like Vita.”

“Thank you. Go on,” I say.

“Most people never knew if she had a second name—she was always only Vita, decades before Madonna or Cher thought of it. It was love at first sight. You were thirty-three, she was younger, closer to twenty, though she never let on her real age. She could have been seventeen or twenty-seven, you never knew with Vita.”

“If you know all this, what are you bothering me for?”

“I'm trying to track down her history between leaving England and arriving in Paris, but it's like my great-aunt appeared there out of nowhere. I don't get how someone's history can disappear.”

“People disappear all the time, particularly when there's a war on.” Or if they don't want to be found.

“Tell me what she was like.”

“She was…” I search for the right word to describe her. Passionate. Crazy. A messed-up, beautiful kid. “She was dazzling.”

Sophie smiles, reassured. “And her work? Was that
dazzling,
too?” She labors the word, mimics my drawling pronunciation.

I stop dead. “You want to know the truth? Vita had more of a talent for living than she did for painting.”

Her eyes damn near pop out of her head. “How can you say that?”

“Have you even seen her work?”

She flounders. “No, of course I haven't. I mean, a few early sketches attributed to her, but you know that none of her later work survives, only these photos of her studio.” She taps her bag. Oh God, the photos. Clever girl, slipping in a reminder that she's just warming up for the knockout blow. I wonder if she's been smart enough to make copies?

“So if this article is about me, why are you writing about her?”

“It's the story, Gabriel.” Sophie speaks slowly, as if she's talking to a sulking toddler. “The discourse…”

“Phooey.”

“Vita was just starting out when she was killed,” she says defensively. “She could have been great.”

“Could have been, might have been … who gives a damn about all the what-ifs? It's what you do in life that counts, not what you might have done.” I kick at the sand with my espadrille and walk on. “You're running up a blind alley, kid. The truth is, she never progressed.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Sweetheart, Vita told me herself. She reached a point with her painting, and couldn't get any further. Some people don't. She wasn't satisfied with being second-rate. When she died, she was thinking of going back to acting.”

“Acting?” Sophie's voice shoots up an octave.

“You didn't know that about her?” Good. If she didn't know that, hopefully she's missing a few other vital details. “Listen, Vita's life was her art, her best creation.”

Sophie is quiet for a moment, processing my revelation. “Let's go back. I'm trying to picture Lambert and Vita on the night they met. In all the biographies they say he—”

“I.”

“They say you insulted her dress—a revealing gold-beaded shift, by all accounts, and from what I can make out of the photographs. Apparently you said she hadn't got the figure to wear it. Anyway, she poured an entire bottle of champagne over you. The rest is history. Vita became your most celebrated muse—she had just the right liquid grace for those art deco girls, like a greyhound at full stretch or a chiffon scarf in the breeze.”

Vita was beautiful, for sure. She would have been a good actress, I think, her voice was wonderful, too—it poured out of her as naturally as a draft of cold water from a crystal jug. Half the faces are forgotten, but Vita stands out. She had some kind of mirrored band around her forehead, a plume of ostrich feathers. She looked like a queen. Dazzling.

“I've read about the costume party, of course,” Sophie says. “It was legendary. I've read how you all danced madly,” she says as we walk on, and I imagine the screeching horns of the jazz band.

“Like I say, it was a lifetime ago, I don't remember.” But I do. I remember it all.

The question is: How much can I tell her?

 

FIFTEEN

M
ARSEILLE

1940

M
ARY
J
AYNE

Mary Jayne lay on her narrow bed in the Continental Hotel, her feet resting against Dagobert's stomach. Pink blown roses on the faded wallpaper trailed up toward the ceiling from the brass bedstead, and her golden hair spilled around her on the white pillows. She wore men's blue-striped pajamas, with the legs rolled up around her slender ankles, and she hummed along to the swing tune drifting up from the bar below, tapping her foot to the beat as she read her book. An alarm clock on the nightstand ticked contentedly.

“Last night in this joint, Dago,” she said, tossing the book aside and stretching. He raised his head and laid it on her leg, gazing up at her. “You don't care, do you, dear dog?” She ruffled the springy fur on his crown. “You're just glad to be along for the ride.” Mary Jayne looked up as someone knocked on the door. “Who is it?” she called.

“It's me, Miriam.”

“Just a minute.” She swung her legs down and opened the door. “Hello, darling.”

“Aren't you packed yet?” Miriam laughed, gesturing at the clothes and lingerie hanging from every surface. “How much stuff did you have in those two suitcases of yours?”

“Oh, there's plenty of time for packing.”

“I'm so excited about moving into Air-Bel tomorrow, I'm sure I shan't sleep a wink. The fun we'll have out there! All the artists are coming out this weekend to welcome Breton.” Miriam hugged herself. “Danny signed all the papers this afternoon.”

“Did Thumin try and up the rent?”

“Don't be such a cynic.”

Mary Jayne closed the bedroom door and padded across to the nightstand. “Whiskey?”

“What a treat.” Miriam flung herself down in the armchair.

“I've been saving it for a special occasion. We may as well toast our new home.” She poured two fingers into each glass. “To new beginnings, and old friends.”

“I'll drink to that.” Miriam sipped her whiskey. “I thought you might be out with Raymond.”