Authors: Karen Swan
‘Just say it, Angus.’
‘She’s insistent the painting goes into the Christie’s sale.’
‘Well, it can’t,’ Flora shrugged, nonplussed. ‘Not until we’ve sorted this out.’
‘That’s the problem – we’re out of time. The deadline was last night . . . and I’ve already done it.’
Flora’s expression changed. They’d only talked about it on Friday night. There had been no mention of the deadline being twenty-four hours later. ‘But . . .’ The penny
dropped. Suddenly she understood why he had booked her on the first flight to Vienna, rushing to get her out of Paris and keep her out of the way whilst he negotiated with the family over her head
to submit the painting. This hadn’t come from Lilian at all. Angus was thinking about one thing only – that overdraft.
‘It’s fine, Flora,’ he said, seeing her understand and holding up his hands. ‘It’s all going to be fine. But that’s why I need you to get a shift on with the
gallery, OK?’
Flora couldn’t believe what she was hearing. To save his sorry arse, he’d submitted the Renoir for sale in the splashiest and most important Impressionist auction of the year, in
spite of the fact that its high-profile Jewish-benefactor owners couldn’t prove their ownership, only their business dealings with the Third Reich? Did the family even know how this was
risking their reputation? She shook her head, knowing they couldn’t; there was no way they would have sanctioned it. No, Angus was flying solo on this, hoping everything would work out OK and
in time.
The man was mad! Or desperate.
‘We need it to sell, Flora,’ he said, reading her mind. ‘The bank’s getting shirty.’
‘Oh Jesus, Angus!’ she whispered.
‘Look, the answer’s in Saint-Paul, I know it is. It’s always in the most obvious place. Speak to them in the morning and then go to the house at four p.m. Now the
Renoir’s in the sale, Lilian’s requested a full update. She’ll be expecting to celebrate.’
Flora’s eyes widened. ‘But what if I
don’t
get anything out of the gallery? What am I supposed to tell them then? That their father did business with the
Nazis?’
‘Look, that’s not going to happen. Why would that happen? If the Getty Index says the records are in Saint-Paul, then they’re in Saint-Paul. It’s fine.’
‘And if they still haven’t located them for me by four p.m.?’ she pushed. ‘What then?’
‘
If
the gallery still can’t get its arse into gear, then . . . then think of something. Tell them his father bought those paintings from a little old lady who fed the birds in
winter and left her house to the city’s orphans . . . I don’t care! Tell them anything, anything
but
the story we’ve got right now. It’s the truth but not the whole
truth. There’s more to come, I can feel it.’
The night felt thick, stilled by the weight of the heat, the trees drooping as though nodding in sleep, and as she stepped outside the office, she felt thunder in the air. She
had a sense of worlds colliding, of there being just
too much
in the atmosphere – the very air she breathed overly full.
Traffic had thinned to a midnight trickle and though taxis drove past at regular intervals, she didn’t raise her arm for a quick ride home. She needed to clear her head and try to think
straight – so she walked. She walked past the parked cars and dark apartments, the shut boutiques with their bright windows, the cliques of students queuing to get into the clubs, the
tourists falling out of restaurants, the deserted streets where graffiti littered the walls.
She walked down streets she didn’t know, through areas she didn’t recognize, oblivious to the sound of her own feet on the pavements, the commentary of what she was going to tell the
Vermeils the next day running in a loop through her mind. Only when she heard the sound of glass breaking and a sudden shout coming from a narrow side street just ahead did she stop, suddenly aware
of her recklessness. She turned on her heel uncertainly.
‘Do you need a ride?’
Flora glanced over at the scooter dawdling beside her, wondering who could think she’d be enough of an idiot to get on a bike with a complete stranger.
Xavier Vermeil was looking back at her, sitting astride the bike. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t scowling either and for a moment – only one – she forgot that they
hated each other.
‘No,’ she said, suspiciously. What did
he
want? ‘I don’t need a ride.’
He looked down briefly, raised his black eyes to her again. ‘You sure? It can get pretty dangerous around here this late.’ He glanced towards the end of the street where the raised
voices – several of them now – were yelling, a scuffle breaking out.
She took in the sight of his gypsy-dark hair falling wild around his face, no helmet on, naturally. In the dim light, she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes – nothing new there
– but she could make out the defiant jut of his lips. It seemed odd that he should be offering her help and yet appearing so reluctant to do so in the same breath; he had the resentful look
of a toddler forced to share his sweets. ‘You seriously expect me to accept help from
you
?’ She was quite sure it would feel a lot more dangerous sitting on the back of that bike
with him, than it would walking down a dark street alone. ‘I’ll take my chances, thanks.’
She turned and began walking again.
She waited for the sound of the engine to ignite, the throttle to flare up, the inevitable roar of the tiny engine as he accelerated away from her – but it didn’t come.
For several minutes, she didn’t dare look back – she didn’t want him to see her wondering about him – but curiosity finally won out and when she turned, she was
astonished to see him ‘straddle-walking’ the bike a few metres behind her.
She stopped and stared, waiting for him to explain himself, but he simply stared back with that inscrutable, diffident expression that managed to be both defiant and louche at once.
‘What are you doing? What are you doing
here
?’ she cried, throwing her arms in the air, exasperated and uncertain whether his trailing her like this meant he was friend or
foe. Was he trying to intimidate her, was that it?
‘I’m on my way home. And you shouldn’t be here on your own. You’re crazy to be out here like this. This is a bad area at night.’
She blinked, dumbfounded that she was supposed to believe he supposedly, suddenly, cared whether or not she was safe in the dark. ‘What do you care?’
But he made no effort to reply this time and after a minute in which neither of them spoke – as Paris slept and the sky thickened – she turned away and resumed walking. To hell with
him, then. If he wouldn’t speak, neither would she.
She walked faster, feeling the sweat prickle her skin but swinging her arms more defiantly nonetheless. She tried to concentrate on other things besides him – speaking to the gallery
tomorrow, getting hold of Freddie to apologize for upsetting him on Saturday – but the knowledge that Xavier was kerb-crawling behind her buzzed in her brain like an angry bee, his eyes
burning into her back, daring her to turn round again, to check whether he was still there. Occasionally she could glimpse his reflection in a shop window if there was a street light shining
outside but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of appearing to search. Whatever game he had going on here, she wouldn’t play.
As she turned onto the next street, a flash suddenly opened up the sky and she jumped to a halt, whimpering before she could stop herself – she’d never liked being out in the
lightning. Her body tensed, looking for somewhere to hide, fearing another break of the heavens. Instinctively she turned to him – the only other person around; he stared back at her, one
eyebrow arched ever so slightly, as though mocking her refusal of his help, as if to say, ‘See?’
Moments later, the thunder rolled across the sky like a bowling ball down an alley, bursting the overloaded storm clouds that had been building into wobbly towers and sending their floods down
in a torrent. The rain fell as hard as hail, stinging her skin and soaking her clothes in moments. Her hair clung to her cheeks and she gasped as she tried to dodge the moon-silvered barbs.
Xavier laughed. At her.
He was drenched too but he appeared not to care in the least, his grey T-shirt as wet as if he’d swum in it.
‘Are you sure you don’t need a ride?’ he drawled.
Flora glared at him hatefully, quite convinced he’d speed off if she did move to accept. ‘Perfectly,’ she snapped, spinning on her heel and marching away from him again. Even
faster now.
Her pretty cotton-dotted Chloé dress was clinging to her legs, her scalloped ballet flats almost collapsing on themselves, the leather saturated, but there was no point in running. Wet
was wet. She couldn’t get any wetter than she now was, she thought, as she furiously raked her hair back from her face, her cheeks pink from where the front strands flicked her cheeks like
tiny whips. More than that, though, she wouldn’t run from him. She wouldn’t allow him to think he’d harried her away, intimidated her. Won, in some way.
And so they wove through the sodden city in their peculiar dance, him a ruptured shadow behind her, swerving around the outsides of the parked cars as she resolutely ignored him. Well, ignored
him, but she couldn’t forget him – his silence filled her head, his will a wall she had to scale, and her breath came fast as she walked, her hands pulling into tense fists.
She was on Ines’s road when her phone rang, her hand flying to her bag to get it, desperate for something to do, something to show him she wasn’t alone out here with him.
‘Yes?’ she asked, glancing over her shoulder. Xavier was crawling behind, eyes on her but slightly closer than he had been, as she had slowed to answer the call. ‘Oh, Noah,
hi.’ Her heart dived. She should never have answered it! A late-night call? Who else would it be but a lover? But she had been rash, reckless, desperate to do something to divert her
attention away from
him
. ‘How are you? . . . Yes, it was great, thanks. On time . . . Yes, just left . . . a crazy day . . . I know, on a Sunday too!’ She realized she was almost
at Ines’s courtyard gate and she slowed down again, coming to a stop outside it. ‘Oh? . . . I see . . .’ Xavier rolled up, stopping in front of her now, his coal-black eyes
burning with . . . what? What did he want? ‘Y-yes, of course, that would be lovely . . .’
He turned on the ignition suddenly, revving the throttle like some petrol-head teenager, over and over again so that she couldn’t hear what Noah was saying. But it didn’t matter. She
suddenly understood that what mattered was what
she
said. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said, holding Xavier’s stare, refusing to concede so much as a blink. ‘I’d
love that.’
It was late when she awoke. She had forgotten to set her alarm and slept well for once, falling into a deep and dreamless oblivion, her sodden clothes still in a heap on the
floor by the foot of the bed. She could tell by the breeze that fluttered in through the open window that last night’s thunderstorms had cleared yesterday’s oppressive humidity and from
the silence that hummed through the apartment, she deduced she was alone.
She lay there awhile, feeling strangely optimistic. The sky was a celestial blue, airy tendrils spinning through it, and she had a sense of having transitioned from the past few weeks’
state of chaos to one of calm. Today would be the day everything would get better. Today would be the day they’d get their answers. She thought of Freddie – today was the day for truth
to win.
She grabbed her phone and fired off a text to Ines, asking her to brunch.
Ines’s reply came back in seconds. She was on!
Flora threw back the duvet and climbed into the shower, feeling the water wash her clean and rinse away the grime of Vienna.
Vienna –
She remembered Noah’s phone call last night, his invitation, another date. She closed her eyes and let the water run over her face; she would need to call him back and set him straight.
There was no point in wasting each other’s time. She never would have said yes if it hadn’t been for Xavier Vermeil
harassing
her.
Ines was already at the café by the time Flora ran up, her hair freshly dried, her dress catching the wind. Ines were stretched out in the plastic-wicker chair as though it were a
sunlounger, her bare legs tanned and long in cut-off denims, a cigarette pinched between her fingers as her arm dangled out limply, hair splayed as though there’d been a small explosion.
‘Hey,’ Flora said brightly, pulling out her chair.
Ines lazily opened an eye and grinned. ‘Hey, yourself,’ she said, pulling herself into a slightly more upright position, tucking her legs in so that Flora could get to the table.
‘You look perky.’
‘Thank you. I slept well.’
‘You slept
long.
I wasn’t sure whether to wake you.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t. I needed the rest. Angus was right – I’ve been running on empty for too long.’ ‘Angus? Huh. And how is he?’
Flora knew Ines found Angus uptight and almost colonial in his Britishness, rarely ever moving beyond his ‘network’ of old school chums for work and play. As someone who had cast off
her own privileged tribe for a bold new set as well as mindset, she was barely tolerant of his sort.
‘Stressed. What’s new?’ she said lightly, catching the eye of the
serveur
and ordering two espressos, some croissants and orange juice.
‘What’s he got to be so stressed about? You’re riding high, aren’t you, thanks to the mighty Vermeils?’ Ines took a final drag from her cigarette and stubbed it out
in the ashtray, blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth. Her fingers were adorned with multiple delicate gold rings – one shaped like an arrow, one bent to spell
amour
in looping,
unbroken script, another a triple-stacked style with a central spine that ran down the back of her finger – and enormous gold triangle earrings winked in her hair.
‘Oh, you know Angus, he isn’t happy unless there’s a drama to fuss about. He’ll always find something.’ Her tone was deliberately dismissive; she wasn’t going
to fret about their overdraft. Today was the day everything got better.