Finding Monsieur Right (2010) (30 page)

Daisy smiled. 'Wow! That was quite something.'

'You did not know that his lectures were so popular?'

'Well, not really. I know you said so, Marie. But he's never acted like a big famous person or anything.'

'No,' Marie-Laure said in awestruck tones, 'I am sure he doesn't. Somebody like Deslisses has no vanity at all because he is completely cerebral. He lives the contemplative life. He is like ... a monk.'

'Really?' Daisy said, reflecting that this confirmed her own impression. It was true that Etienne seemed to have almost no interest in his own appearance, unlike most men she had known. Nor had he ever volunteered any information about his personal life, while Daisy herself, who did most of the talking when they met, had probably blabbed quite a lot about Raoul. She had never
dared
ask Etienne very much about himself - his reserve was just too intimidating.

'I bet lots of his students fancy him,' Daisy said.

Marie-Laure looked outraged. 'Oh, but somebody like him would never ... I mean he has so much integrity.'

'Then you're in with a chance ... Ow!' she said laughingly as Marie-Laure elbowed her in the ribs.

'Well, I am going to go,' Clothaire said, looking exasperated. 'I do not have the time to hang around here all day.
Alors
,
salut
.'

As he began to move away, Agathe suddenly stood up. 'Wait! I will come with you.' And after conveying to Daisy that she was concerned for Clothaire and sorry to leave so soon with the help of a brief, expressive pantomime, she hurried after him.

The crowd of students was thinning out now, and Daisy could see Etienne emerging slowly out of the amphitheatre, talking earnestly with a small band of students whose ecstatic demeanour and starry eyes reminded Daisy of what Chrissie was like when they were out clubbing together. And no, her eyes did not deceive her: Etienne really had a navy-blue
duffel coat
slung over his shoulder. Daisy was astounded. Had she missed some sort of ironic revival? Spotting her, Etienne excused himself and joined her group.

'Hi, Etienne! These are my friends: Marie-Laure, Claire and Amelie. They wanted to say hello.'

Etienne smiled at each girl in turn, bowing very slightly, then looked at Daisy.

'Goodness, Etienne!' Daisy said, grinning back. 'I had no idea!'

'No idea?'

'Well, all that applause. You're like a big sodding rock star.'

Marie-Laure, who had been standing on one foot like a child, something she always did when she was intimidated, screwed up her courage to speak. 'I think Daisy exaggerates. I mean ... what you do is so serious ... so important. You are teaching people how to think,
comment penser le reel
,
en fait
.'

Etienne shook his head and smiled. 'I would not go that far.'

'But you have taught
me
so much. The limpidity of your analyses. The elegance of your metaphors!' Marie-Laure went on, changing feet.

'Marie has read
all
your books, Etienne. Every single one.'

'Thank you very much. I am honoured.'

'But you see, if Etienne really
were
a rock star,' Daisy said teasingly, 'you could ask him to sign your bra or something. That would be fun, wouldn't it?'

'
Daisy!
'

'I'm only joking.'

Claire, who had not said a word, was beginning to look bored. 'Daisy, we are going to go.' She nodded curtly in Etienne's direction. 'It is nice to have met you. Bye, Marie.'

'Wait for me. Goodbye.' Marie-Laure shook hands with Etienne ceremoniously, then departed with the other two girls.

'Your friends are charming, Daisy. Shall we go to lunch? Do you like Chinese food?'

'Love it. I love all food.'

'There is a nice little place around the corner where I have luckily never run into any colleagues. Then you can tell me all about appearances and truth.'

'OK. And then
you
can tell me something ... Does the name Paddington Bear mean anything to you, Etienne?'

'Paddington? Sorry, what ... a kind of beer? No, not really, in fact.'

'Yep. I thought not.'

27 Isabelle

'That is really, really fly. But I think we need the puttees to break the look down. With the lurex apron? Or maybe the jumpsuit underneath? We need to rough it up a bit.'

'Savage doesn't want it too pretty. Savage hates pretty. Pretty makes her puke.'

'Right. Those puttees and maybe also ... a tea cosy on her head or something. Perhaps little fish-face could run and fetch it, hmm? Oi, you, what's your name again?'

'Isabelle.'

'Oh, right. Yeah, get that cosy for me, will you, sweetie? Let's make it surreal.'

'Yeah, and Savage wants some per-so-na-li-ty in that coat! OK, darling?' said Savage.

'I know, I know, it's just that her tits are getting in the way.'

'Can't she suck them in or something?'

'That looks lovely, sweetie, but can you just soften the face, hmm? I'm not getting the right vibe for the look.'

Isabelle cleared her throat as she came back into the room. '
Heu
... I'm sorry - I looked in the accessories cupboard and I don't think that, er, thing you mentioned is there.'

Savage slowly turned around in her black leather director's chair to stare at Isabelle through the pink lenses of her enormous sunglasses. She looked like a very glamorous and angry rabbit. She then nodded at Paquita, the stylist standing next to her.

Paquita sighed and gave her many bangles a little shake. 'Oh yeah, no, it won't be in the accessories cupboard, sweetie,' she said with a pitying look. 'If I were you, I'd try the
kitchen
, hmm? Chances are you'll find it sitting on the teapot.' Then she burst into prolonged high-pitched laughter and, after a moment, so did Savage. They turned away and focused again on the model standing impassively before them.

Walking into the kitchen, Isabelle found Chrissie leaning against the counter, furtively dipping a chocolate biscuit into a cup of tea.

'Hello, sweetie! Are Dorothy Discipline and her henchwoman on the warpath?'

'Yes. They're not very polite today. Chrissie, they want something called a ti, um ... cosi. It sounds Italian?'

Chrissie reached across the kitchen counter for something that looked like a knitted ski hat and twirled it around his forefinger. 'Easy-peasy. This is the
objet
in question, darling. I take it it's to be
worn
?' he asked with interest.

'Yes.'

'Goodness, Paquita
is
clever, isn't she? In a league of her
own
- or should that be "world"? Here, sweetie, take it to Savage
this minute
, or she'll
scream
the place down, and we can't have that because Muggins here is feeling a tad
fragile
this morning.'

Isabelle hurried back into the studio, holding the tea cosy aloft.

'Ah, there she is,' Paquita said. 'About time. Oh wow, Savage! I know what we can do! Let's get little fish-fa--I mean you, sweetie, have a go, mmm? Go on, you put it on Greta's head.'

'Me? Oh, I don't know ...'

'Come on, come on - we want it to look fierce, fierce, fierce.'

'Savage would really like you to try!' Savage said excitedly.

Kneading the tea cosy with both hands, Isabelle walked up to the expressionless model. She was reminded of being taken to the zoo in the Bois de Vincennes with Camille and Aude when they were all quite small and watching a man climb to the top of a ladder in order to wash a giraffe's head. But before she had to raise the question of whether a stepladder (or at the very least one or two volumes of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
) would be available, the girl bent her knees and lowered her neck, meekly allowing herself to be crowned with the tea cosy.

'Oh goody, it fits,' Paquita said happily. 'Thank goodness she's got such a minute little pinhead. No cellulite there, eh, sweetie? That makes a nice change!'

Unsure what to do next, but painfully aware that some mysterious fashion statement was expected of her, Isabelle tweaked the tea cosy this way and that.

Paquita looked at Savage, who nodded slowly several times.

'Oh, sweetie,' Paquita said expansively. 'It's just
gorge
! Well, that can be our sample for production, I think, yeah? You can work with that, can't you, Chrissie?'

'Definitely,' said Chrissie, who had come to stand behind them in prudent silence.

'Savage wants it embroidered with magic mushrooms and blue caterpillars,' said Savage.

'Oooh,' Paquita wailed, 'that's
so
genius!'

What had happened to bring Isabelle into Savage's orbit was Posy's abrupt departure in the early days of January. After working under Savage for five years, the diminutive PA had moved on to another job without so much as giving notice, and created a vacancy that needed filling as a matter of urgency. Having noticed that Isabelle seemed listless since her return from Paris - she spent most of her time sitting at the kitchen table staring into space - it had occurred to Chrissie that she might like to replace Posy, at least for a short while. A change of scene would help her get over her break-up with that horrid Clot-(of)-Hair, since she claimed
that
was the one and only cause of her abstracted mood.

Thus it had been arranged that Isabelle and Chrissie would meet Savage at an opening in one of the designer's regular hang-outs, a small art gallery in the East End. Surrounded by a clique of oddly dressed people, Chrissie and Isabelle had looked at the exhibit from every angle, but, Isabelle thought with some exasperation, it remained just what it was - dozens of bottles of soy sauce lined up on a none-too-clean tabletop. Although it did not seem polite to say this out loud, since the artist (a very slim and silent young man in a white boiler suit with a challengingly asymmetric haircut) was present, she thought privately that it was no real competition for a single painting by, say, Chardin or Watteau. After an hour of waiting in vain for Savage, Isabelle's patience was exhausted.

'Oh, she'll be here, darling,' Chrissie said serenely.

'But you said she only lives around the corner. Why is she so late?'

'She doesn't operate on the same timescale as us mere
mortals
.'

Isabelle, who had been taught from an early age that
l'exactitude est la politesse des rois
- that punctuality was kinglike courtesy - was scandalised.

'Chrissie, it is incredibly impolite to keep us waiting like this. Stay if you like, but I have had enough. If she wants to meet me, she'll have to make another appointment.'

Chrissie put his beer bottle down and looked at Isabelle with a mixture of admiration and amusement. 'Temper, temper, my little French firecracker! Oh, all right. Come on, I'll walk you to the Tube.'

They set off together down the empty, darkening street. After a few moments, Isabelle discerned an approaching silhouette in the distance. It looked not unlike the Michelin Man.

'Oh
heavens
,' Chrissie whispered, gripping Isabelle's arm and turning her around with military firmness. 'It's her! It's
her
! Let's go back. She'll be
furious
if she sees that we were about to leave.'

Isabelle allowed herself to be frogmarched back to the gallery, outside which they were standing, nonchalantly sipping from bottles of beer, when the distant apparition caught up with them a few minutes later. On closer inspection, the slender designer looked nothing like the Michelin Man. She was wearing a deliriously oversized white silk puffa jacket over slim white trousers and boots. Beneath her sleek silver bob, Isabelle saw, Savage's large, wide dark eyes were rimmed all the way around with a generous amount of purple glitter. As Chrissie made the introductions, Savage's glittery gaze fastened itself on Isabelle with unwavering intensity, taking in her face, her hair, her clothes, her shoes, and returning to her face.

'Hello,' Isabelle said politely. 'It's nice to meet you.'

After a moment's silence, Savage smiled widely. 'Savage loves your lipstick,' she said breathily.

'Thank you,' Isabelle said, a little taken aback. 'Um, it's Chanel.'

'It's a very chic colour, very elegant. You're very chic, very elegant.' She turned to Chrissie and said in a much lower, louder and slightly frenzied voice: 'Savage
likes
!'

'I
knew
you would, darling. Isabelle's great, isn't she? She's
French
, you know.'

'French? French!
French
.' Savage smiled again, with childlike delight.

'Yes
indeedy
. Well, what do you think? Should Isabelle come in with me tomorrow morning? And I'll show her the ropes and what have you?'

'That would be ...
cool
,' Savage said, looking at Chrissie with intense earnestness.

Smiling ethereally at nobody in particular, she turned on her heel, floated into the gallery and was soon being embraced and feted by the rest of the crowd as though she were the Queen on a state visit. Even the sullen young artist became animated at the sight of her and came over to present his compliments.

'Am I hired?' Isabelle asked, confused. 'But does she know that I do not have a degree in fashion?'

'Oh, honey. Savage is so
not
corporate in her approach. She likes the
look
of you. That's enough.'

Since that day, Isabelle had taken on Posy's duties. These involved answering the phone in Savage's studio, opening all mail and dealing with press enquiries. But in actual fact the better part of Isabelle's time was taken up with other things, like Savage's complicated brews of tea. Today, for example, the designer had requested a cup made of one-quarter peppermint tea, one-quarter nettle and one-half Lapsang Souchong, sweetened with one-eighth of a teaspoon of Japanese rice syrup; the water had to be Volvic. But the recipe kept changing. It was safer to stock every brand of mineral water, the more esoteric the better, just in case Savage wanted her lunchtime cracked bulgur wheat cooked in something Swedish or Sicilian. That was because Savage's food and drink had to be the result of a spontaneous decision, or so her nutritionist said. This usually involved Isabelle taking a long walk (or several) to the health food shop to pick up a particular kind of seaweed.