The Girl Behind The Fan (Hidden Women) (31 page)

I suggested as much to her.

‘I read about Clemence Babineaux when I was just fourteen,’ she said. ‘And I was fascinated by her. The power she exerted over men was immense. But she was exploited too. When she was just a child. I think you have to hate men more than a little to take such cruel advantage of them. When it came to finding love, she ended up with a woman.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.

‘She was tired of all the thrusting.’ Suddenly, Kat placed her hand on my knee. ‘You know, I didn’t make love to you just because Steven wanted me to. I told him that afternoon that if I didn’t actually fancy you, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I may be a great actress but even I can’t fake enough enthusiasm to go down on another woman if she doesn’t turn me on.’

‘I suppose I should be flattered.’

‘You should. You’ve got an amazing body.’

She stroked the bare part of my thigh beneath my hem.

‘There’s something else about you too. You have a sort of buttoned-up intensity. Like Charlotte Rampling in
The Night Porter
. As soon as I saw you walk into the club, so upright and brittle, I knew that if you could ever let go of your inhibitions you would be dynamite.’

I stared at Kat. She looked right back at me. She didn’t care if I seemed discomfited.

‘It was a challenge I could not resist,’ she continued. ‘Getting you to come undone for me.’

‘I did it for Steven,’ I said. ‘I was at that club because I thought it would save our relationship. I let you touch me because I knew it would turn him on and I thought that the sight and the memory of it might be enough to keep us together.’

‘You may have started out doing it for Steven, but I don’t think you really believe it ended up being such a one-sided transaction. You enjoyed it. If you hadn’t let yourself enjoy it there’s no way you would have come and I know you weren’t faking it. I could taste you.’

I was transported back to that night at L’Infer. I saw Kat dressed in her silly kitten costume: leather basque, red velvet cape and the cats’ eye-shaped half-mask that drew attention to her perfectly shaped mouth, outlined in scarlet lipstick.

Kat took her hand from my leg and sat up straight. I watched her take a sip from her drink, with its salty rim, and lick her lips clean afterwards. At the same time, I thought of her mouth upon my body. I focused on the lipstick mark she had left on the glass. When I looked up again, Kat was studying me with a half-smile. Then she glanced over my shoulder.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Looks like the party’s started.’

Right behind us, another very straight-looking man in a suit had his tongue down the throat of a much younger girl. Her dress was open and her small pert breasts were exposed.

‘Prominent member of the socialist party,’ Kat told him. ‘I met him here last year.’

‘What kind of place is this?’ I asked, realising too late that Kat had brought me to another L’Infer.

‘Want to join in?’ she asked me.

‘No,’ I said. I felt too hot all of a sudden. I started to get up.

‘I know you still fancy me,’ said Kat, catching my hand. ‘And I fancy you even more now that I’ve got to know you properly. Why don’t you just let go for a while? No one here is going to judge you. No one knows you. What happens in here will remain our secret.’

She pulled me close to her with surprising force. She took my head between her hands and kissed me hard on the mouth. It was as though she had flicked some kind of switch inside me. I immediately felt everything below my navel begin to soften and start to vibrate. Kat’s kiss was as powerful and exciting as any kiss I’d received from a man. But I couldn’t take it further. Just as forcefully as she had grabbed me, I pulled away.

‘This isn’t my thing,’ I told her. ‘I ought to go.’

‘What’s stopping you from letting go, Sarah?’

I walked out of the club before she could stop me.

Chapter 45

When she realised that I wasn’t coming back, Kat followed me down the street. I heard her clipping along behind me. She caught up with me at a crossing.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s OK.’

‘No, really. I shouldn’t have done that.’

It seemed unlike Kat to worry so much about offending anyone. I guessed she was worried that I had more sway over the casting of the Augustine movie than I actually did. But when I could bring myself to look at her, I thought perhaps I had been too harsh. She did look genuinely concerned.

‘It’s not about you,’ I told her. ‘There’s someone . . .’

We sat down together in a small scruffy park so that Kat could have a cigarette, and I found myself telling her about Marco. At least, I told her a heavily edited version. I didn’t say we hadn’t actually met.

‘So that’s how you got this job,’ she said when I finished.

‘What?’ I didn’t understand her.

‘Marco Donato is the guy bankrolling the movie.’

I just stared at her.

‘You didn’t know? Greg Simon told my agent. My agent wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get stuck with the bill for flying out to LA, so Greg reassured him that the money is all there. Marco Donato. Cruise liners. Has to be your guy, doesn’t it? Apparently, this is his pet project.’

I felt a bubble of emotion growing inside me, though I didn’t know whether it was excitement or anger. At last the bubble came out as a laugh.

‘Did I say something funny?’ asked Kat.

‘You’ve made my day,’ I said.

‘If you didn’t know,’ said Kat, suddenly worried, ‘then perhaps I wasn’t supposed to tell you.’

‘You definitely weren’t supposed to tell me,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose Greg thought we’d end up drinking two bottles of champagne together after he’d gone.’

‘Or kissing . . .’ said Kat.

‘He definitely wouldn’t have thought that.’

‘So, why didn’t your friend Marco tell you this was his film?’

‘Perhaps he thought it might put me off. Look, I’ve got to go but before I do, I want to give you something.’

Kat tilted her head expectantly. I think she may even have puckered her lips. I shook my head, got out my phone and a pen and copied down a number onto the back of her cigarette packet.

‘If you want some more company this evening, I’m sure Steven will be very glad to hear from you.’

I couldn’t get home fast enough after Kat told me the news. Marco must have set up this whole film just to make some kind of contact with me. It was too much of a coincidence that Greg Simon had approached Nick Marsden about the research job. He must have known Nick would recommend me. The job was always mine.

‘Get out of this one,’ I argued with Marco silently as I hurried home through the quiet streets. ‘Now try to tell me that you didn’t want me back in your life. Tell me you didn’t plan for me to turn up in Venice all along.’

I ran up the stairs to my apartment and opened my laptop before I had even taken off my coat. I didn’t want to wait a moment longer than I had to.

Dear Marco,

I’ve just had a most interesting evening. Are you familiar with Kat Adams? Well, you should be. She’s about to get a part in your movie.

Marco, I know that you put up the money for the development of Project Augustine. I’m guessing it’s not a coincidence that the research job spec ended up on my desk. And knowing that I would jump at the chance of working on a film and that I would take my role very seriously, you must have known that eventually my research would lead me back to your door. Why insist then that you had no idea that I would return to Venice and that you certainly wouldn’t have encouraged me?

Perhaps you’ll explain to me why I’m wrong and tell me once again that you have no interest in me whatsoever. Or perhaps, for once, you’ll tell me the truth.

Yours,

Sarah

I pressed send. Let the fireworks begin.

Chapter 46

Paris, September 1846

The thought that Remi and I would soon be together again sustained me through the long winter nights. Though I began to suffer a slight cough, for the most part I felt as vibrant as I had done in my childhood. I was even able to be a little more affectionate towards de Rocambeau. Though the man was a brute, I was soft-hearted enough to hope that no one – not even the Duc – would be hurt when Remi and I made our escape. Despite the brutality with which he had sometimes treated me, I sensed that de Rocambeau had, somewhere in his selfish heart, a little place for me and he would miss me.

Oh, and he would be embarrassed too. A duke does not lose his lover to an impoverished artist. Or even an artist who can provide her with a decent bourgeois living, as Remi said he would be able to do when the portrait was completed and the Duc paid up. Yes, Remi had decided, we would now have to wait until the painting was done before we did our flit. The fee would keep us both comfortably for a year. Plenty of time for the scandal to die down.

What dreams I had about the life that Remi and I would make together. I drew a little picture on a piece of paper that Remi left behind one afternoon, of the cottage I imagined we would have. It might be modest but it would be comfortable. There would be fruit trees in the garden and flowers round the door. Inside, I would have a big wooden table where one day we would share meals with our beautiful children. Remi would have a studio in the house too, where he could continue to paint the portraits that would assure his place in history. Upstairs would be our bedroom with our very own double bed. Clean sheets and deep pillows. We would lie there in bliss for hours on end. As I thought about that, I felt the familiar tingle. I was so happy.

Then, one afternoon, I had an unexpected visitor.

‘There is someone here to see you,’ said Pierre. He handed me a calling card. The name on the card was ‘Sauvageon’ – the name that always warmed my heart – but the initial was not ‘L’. It was ‘C’.

‘Send them in,’ I said.

I was still expecting my visitor to be Remi, though surely in that case, Pierre would have told me that ‘the artist’ was on the step, or even just let him find his own way in, as he had done several times that week. I smoothed down my hair and arranged myself by the fireplace. I grew more nervous as I heard my visitor’s footsteps on the stairs.

If a Sauvageon who was not my beloved Remi was visiting me, then it could only herald bad news. Remi was meant to be with me that afternoon. Was this C. Sauvageon here to tell me why Remi had been detained? Had there been an accident?

Standing by the fireplace, dressed in my silk dress and my Indian shawl, I was suddenly as fearful as that little girl in the garret, waiting for her lover to come back from the snow. I put my hand on the sketch in my pocket as though it were a talisman, but I could not shake my feeling of foreboding.

Pierre drew my attention to my visitor’s arrival.

‘Mademoiselle Christine Sauvageon.’

‘Christine Sauvageon?’

‘That’s right, Mademoiselle du Vert. I am Remi’s older sister.’

Christine Sauvageon gave me a small curtsey.

‘Thank you for seeing me without an invitation,’ she said.

‘It’s a most unexpected pleasure,’ I answered by the book. ‘How may I help you? Would you like to sit down? Would you care for some tea?’

‘I will sit down,’ she said. ‘But I will not be having tea. I do not intend to take up much of your time.’

‘Oh but you must stay as long as you like,’ I said. ‘I have nothing to do this afternoon except wait for Remi to arrive.’

I was incredibly nervous. This could be my future sister-in-law –
ma belle-soeur
. As she arranged herself on the chair opposite mine, I imagined this as the first of many meetings. We would become great friends. One day we might even sit opposite each other like this with our babies in our laps. For all these reasons, I loved Christine Sauvageon right away. She so closely resembled her brother that it was hard for me not to fling my arms round her and kiss her familiar cheeks. But she did not regard me with the love I knew Remi had for me. Instead, she kept her dark eyes on her gloved hands as she began to speak.

‘Mademoiselle du Vert, I know that my brother is in love with you. And I believe, having heard him speak of you at some length, that you are worthy of his love.’

Her words were thrilling to me, but she continued.

‘You were not born to such wealth as surrounds you now and I understand the awful circumstances that have brought you here. I have been lucky enough to enjoy the love and warm support of a father for all my years, and I would not judge you for the choices you have made in the absence of a father’s guiding hand. It cannot have been easy to find yourself an orphan at such a tender age.’

I nodded my agreement.

But she carried on and the tone of her message started to change. ‘I am not one of those women who considers that your kind is only to be reviled. I pity you and, in a strange way, I admire your courage. Seeing you here, I can also understand how you have bewitched my brother. I had heard talk about your beauty but you are far more lovely than I might have believed. I suppose I had expected you to show some sign of the life you have led on your face.’