Paris: The Novel (113 page)

“Where do you find them?” she asked him, not for the first time.

“I’ve built up so many contacts over the years,” he answered with a shrug. “And you’re a great success. You have class, which is hard to find. People are talking about you.”

“One more is all I want, Luc.”

“Understood. The arrangement will be as usual. No names. At least, not at first. You’ll meet for dinner. After that, it will be up to you.”

“And him. He may not like me.”

“He will. By the way, this man knows about a lot of things. You could learn from him.”

They met at the Café Procope, just off the boulevard Saint-Germain. He looked in his fifties, but well preserved. Graying temples. Above
medium height. Quite slim. An intelligent face. He looked artistic, but she suspected he might be lacking the pugnacity of a creative artist. An intellectual of some kind. But one with money, clearly.

“I hear you’re English,” he said pleasantly.

“Half English, half French,” she answered.

“Well, I don’t know about your English, but your French is very good. And you model for Chanel?”

“Yes. It’s quite interesting. And she is remarkable.”

“Indeed.”

She had a feeling he probably knew Chanel, but she wasn’t going to ask. He’d tell her if he wanted her to know. The art was to be discreet.

They made light conversation. The Café Procope, with its gilt mirrors and pictures, was like stepping into the eighteenth century. She said she liked it.

“It was founded back in the seventeenth century. It’s funny to think that Voltaire himself ate here, and it probably looked much the same. What other restaurants do you like?”

She wondered if he was expecting her to name some expensive places.

“Places with character.” She smiled. “I’m just as happy in a bistro if it’s interesting.”

“Really?” He looked at her thoughtfully. “There are plenty of interesting places to eat if one knows where to look. By the way, do you know the origin of the word ‘bistro’?”

“I don’t think so.”

“After Napoléon fell, and the Russians briefly entered Paris, the Cossacks were camped up on Montmartre and went into the little restaurants, and when the service was slow they kept shouting ‘bistro,’ which is Russian for ‘quick.’ So the French started calling these informal restaurants bistros.” He shrugged. “Well, that’s the story anyway. It probably isn’t true.”

They talked of many things. He was clever and amusing. By the time they’d finished the main course she was sure that she liked him. So much so that, for once, she even ventured to ask him a question or two.

“Luc is very discreet, monsieur, and so am I. But he told me that you were not married. And I am surprised that someone as charming as you doesn’t keep a mistress.” She smiled. “Unless you already do.”

He laughed.

“No, mademoiselle, I don’t. Though I have done so in the past. But in my life at present, if I can find a suitable person—I mean someone like
yourself, which is hard to find—then it’s better for me to have an evening a week, let us say, to look forward to, than to have a constant companion.”

“Less personal commitment?”

“Not only that. I do so many things. I have a family business that occupies some of my time. I have many other activities. Often I go out on social engagements in the evening and then return home to work at night, or to read. I haven’t room for a companion, to whom I should otherwise feel bound to give my attention. You may think this selfish, but it is the only way I can get things done.”

“Are you an artist, or a writer? I do not mean to pry.”

“I was an artist at one time. I prefer to write about these things now.”

“I have one other question, monsieur. Might I ask how it is that you know Luc?” She shook her head and smiled. “I’ve never been able to work out how he knows so many people.”

He looked at her cautiously.

“You do not know?”

“No. I have always been curious.”

“Are you going to repeat what I tell you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“It is cocaine, mademoiselle. Luc has supplied cocaine to people for God knows how many years. Everyone. It is always pure. Everyone trusts him. He supplies … all sorts of people. And sometimes they ask him for other things.”

She stared at him. Of course. Everything made sense now. How could she have been so naive, and so stupid, not to have guessed? Was that how he knew Chanel? God knows. It was none of her business.

“He always has money,” she remarked, “but I don’t think he’s rich.”

“The people like him are not the ones who get rich in that business. Often they become addicts themselves.”

“I don’t think Luc uses the drug.”

“He doesn’t. He’s rare. I seldom use it myself. Sometimes, if I have too many things to accomplish, it helps me work through the night. That sort of thing.” He smiled. “So, mademoiselle, I have answered all your questions. May I ask now if you’d be interested in seeing where I live?”

“I should be delighted, monsieur.” She meant it, and he could see that she did.

As they left the restaurant, she linked her arm in his. It was only a short walk to his place near the Luxembourg Gardens. On entering, they took the small elevator up to the third floor and entered his apartment. It seemed to be empty.

“I have only two servants that live in,” he explained. “And they are up in the attic quarters for the evening. So we have the place to ourselves. Would you like a drink? I’m having a little whisky.”

“The same. Thank you.”

The apartment was impressive. She’d never seen so many paintings in a house in her life. She saw Manet, Monet, van Gogh …

“Turn on any lights you want,” he said, as he handed her a tumbler of whisky. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She sipped her whisky and looked around. The salon was large. There was a grand piano in one corner with some framed photographs on it. She went across to look at them, turning on a table lamp to see them better.

They were not photographs designed to impress the visitor, but family photographs by the look of them. A number of them featured a tall, elegant woman. One was a wedding group. She saw her companion at once. He was a young man then, but quite unmistakable. She looked at the bride and groom.

And froze.

The groom was James Fox. The London lawyer. There was no mistaking him. Not a shadow of a doubt. She stood there staring at it.

Behind her, she heard him come back into the room. He came and stood beside her.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” She pointed to him in the group, trying to sound casual. “Family wedding?”

“Yes. That’s my sister in the middle, the bride. And that’s her husband. An Englishman as it happens. But of Huguenot origins. They were called Renard, and anglicized it to Fox.”

“Interesting. The wedding looks French.”

“It was. At Fontainebleau. Her husband died, sadly. A very nice man. The flu, you know, after the war.” He pointed to the elegant woman in another picture. “My aunt Éloïse. She had this apartment before I did. A remarkable woman.”

“She looks it,” said Louise, trying to sound interested.

Her mind was working fast. Fox. His Paris law office. The adoption. Blanchard. She turned back to the wedding group.

“So these would be your parents?”

“Correct. And that’s my brother. He was the respectable one—in those days. I was the artist.”

“In your twenties.”

“Yes.”

“Very handsome.” She considered a moment, and chose her words. “It looks the perfect bourgeois wedding. If you don’t mind my saying so.”

He chuckled.

“That describes the Blanchard family, all right.”

“Would you excuse me a moment?”

He indicated a passage. “Down there on the right.”

It took her a minute or two to collect herself. James Fox had married a member of the Blanchard family. It was too great a coincidence. This must be the same Blanchard family who knew who her father was. Probably one of themselves. And if her father was a Blanchard, then the obvious candidate was just a few feet away from her.

And then, suddenly, she wanted to cry. So it had come to this: she’d almost found her father after all. But either it was this man, who now knew, or someone else whom he would tell, that she was a whore, and that Luc the cocaine dealer was her pimp. This was her life. What sort of welcome was that likely to earn her?

She sat very still. She did not allow herself to weep. But she saw her situation with icy clarity. If she didn’t do something, she was about to sleep with a man who was probably her father.

She had to get out of there. Fast.

It was the first conflict Claire had experienced with her mother. But the conflict was silent, unspoken, never acknowledged. How could it be?

In the first minute, as she had walked down the lawn away from Frank and her mother, she had experienced only cold shock. By the time she’d entered the house, she was shaking. But as she wandered in the street, another sensation gradually began to take over.

Anger. Rage. How dare her mother try to steal her young man? She wasn’t going to let her do it. She was young. She had good looks. She’d show her mother. She’d take Frank Hadley from her.

But powerful though the feeling was, it didn’t last for long. By the time she passed the local parish church, it changed to a sense of hopelessness.
Frank Hadley didn’t belong to her. He’d made no sign that he wanted her at all. It seemed he wanted her mother, and perhaps he was going to get her.

There was nothing she could say. So she said nothing.

And her mother didn’t say anything either. She carried on calmly, as if nothing was happening at all. If she’d raised the subject, she knew what her mother would say: “He’s flirting with me.” She’d shrug. “It’s amusing, I suppose.” And what could she say in return? Protest that it was disgusting? Then her mother would guess that she was jealous, that she wanted him for herself, but that he didn’t want her. Why should she expose herself to that defeat?

So she gave no sign. She felt misery, resentment, humiliation. But she gave no sign at all.

As soon as they were back in Paris, they were both busy at the store. She watched for hints of Frank hanging around her mother. He didn’t seem to be.

She was quite surprised, therefore, a week after her return when Frank telephoned her at Joséphine.

“I thought you might be interested. There is a whole crowd of us going up to Montmartre this evening. The Hemingways, some artists, some people from the Ballets Russes. If you’re free, I thought you might want to be there. Hemingway told me to tell you to come.”

She had nothing special planned. And he was right, this was the sort of gathering she should be at.

“I’m wondering if my mother would like it,” she said.

“This is really a younger crowd.”

They met at the foot of the hill. There was a group of a dozen people waiting there when she arrived. Frank greeted her with the usual two kisses, but it seemed to her that there was a new warmth in his manner. Nothing obvious, but something.

A moment later the Hemingways arrived and they all cheerfully piled into the funicular cabin and rolled up the steep tracks. As the rooftops of Paris began to fall away below them, Frank, who was pressed quite closely beside her, whispered, “I get vertigo in these things, but don’t tell Hemingway.”