The Lost Lover

Chapter Twenty-Four

Paris

‘Levez les bras!... Lift... lift the arm...’ the seamstress, Marie, said, looking up at Flora from her kneeling position on the floor with her mouth full of pins.

Flora did as she was told, trying not to squeal as she felt the sharp graze of a point along her skin. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, not quite able to believe what it was showing her: the fabric covering her – ‘a mesh’, she’d been told – was so fine it was like a fairy’s fishing net, showing more skin than it concealed, so that from a distance she looked nude and as if she’d been sprinkled with stars. What would her mother say if she were to see her like this? Mad Annie? Ma Peg? Everything had been pinned to her body so that it clung like a shadow, only the merest of wrinkles at her elbow or knee as she moved; sitting down was almost an impossibility, but there was no time for that anyway. The nearest she came to it was when she was carried in, precariously perched on Marcel’s shoulders, her legs dangling down the length of his bare torso, her arms spread wide and her head tipped back as Gilles, the director, shouted ‘Prezonce! Prezonce!’ at her.

In the pit, random notes from bows gliding across strings carried up to her, the orchestra bored and hungry for their lunch. Lights kept switching on and off, too, as the spotlight swung across the boards, looking for a fixed point on the stage and not – for the moment – her.

Pepperly was standing by the small desk set out just below the stage, talking intently with Gilles; both men were smoking cigarettes, their hats and overcoats set upon chairs in the front row. It worried her how sombre they always looked as they talked together – as if they were war generals in their bunker – their faces dramatically animating only when they directed their attention towards her. She was the ‘star’ – that was how everyone referred to her, and she felt eyes upon her all the time, both men and women: from the stagehands to the costume designers, the lighting men, the musicians, the dancers... She was supposed to like it.

‘Alors, tournez,’ Marie said, relieved of her mouthful of pins now and patting Flora lightly on the leg to impel her to turn.

Flora obliged, her eyes scanning the view as she slowly made a complete rotation. Two dancers kissing passionately in the wings, hands where they shouldn’t be... the frame of the giant birdcage... a sound director positioning the cable of a microphone stage right... and back to the sumptuous red maw of the performance hall with its all-scarlet floors, walls, velvet chairs and matching boxes in the balcony. Only the gilded vaulted ceiling and pillars disrupted the cardinal colour palette. It was like being inside one of the Cartier jewel boxes Pepperly had opened for her in recent weeks.

‘Bon, c’est parfait,’ the seamstress muttered to herself. ‘Tout fait!’ she yelled across to the two men, getting up stiffly from her knees.

‘But...’ Flora stammered. ‘The top... You said the top...’

She watched as the seamstress took several steps back, saying something to the director in rapid French, awaiting his judgement.

‘Turn around, let me see,’ Gilles ordered in his strong accent. ‘Ah oui, c’est superbe maintenant, Marie. Pas plus de—’ He smacked Flora on the bottom. ‘See?’ he asked, looking over to Pepperly, who had come over too.

‘Yes, I agree. It fits much more closely now. The line is wonderfully sleek.’ He looked at Flora. ‘You’re a vision under the lights.’

‘But she said she would add more sequins to here,’ Flora said, one arm strapped over her bosom, her modesty maintained only by the finest of margins for, in spite of the sparkling coverage, she was sure her nipples were still visible. Everyone seemed to find her modesty ‘charming’, as if it were merely a pose. The dancers themselves had costumes that were fully – shockingly – bare-breasted, their private parts hidden only by peek-a-boo feathers.

‘And so she shall, stop fretting,’ he reassured her. ‘Gilles has this bee in his bonnet about the silhouette that needs to be addressed first. The rest will follow.’

‘But we open tonight.’

‘Exactly. Plenty of time,’ Pepperly shrugged, drawing on his cigarette and closing his eyes blissfully as he exhaled a ribbon of dove-grey smoke.

‘Deshabillez... Take it off...’ the seamstress said, tapping her in that particular way of hers so that Flora gave a quarter turn and she could start to unbutton the tiny loops that ran down Flora’s right side. An assistant ran over with a jade silk robe with cream fringing, wrapping it around Flora’s body as the costume was peeled off her like a second skin.

Flora watched as the seamstress disappeared into the wings. She couldn’t get used to the close attentions to her body. There had been a moment, early on in the fittings, when Marie had been on her knees, pinning, and she had stopped to trace a finger, low down on Flora’s stomach. The seamstress’s eyes had flashed up to hers, as if she understood something – but what? At the first opportunity, when she was alone again, Flora had rushed to the mirror and checked the spot she had traced, to find a single pink groove in her skin, like a rut in mud; she had never noticed it before and couldn’t have said how long it had been there. Possibly all her life? There had been neither opportunity nor scope for examining their bodies back home. But why had it caught Marie’s attention and what did it betray?

‘Where are we at with the cheetahs?’ Pepperly asked Gilles.

‘Boucheron will be delivering at six on the dot,’ the director pronounced, highlighting the words with precision. ‘But they insist on a security guard.’

It had been, by all accounts, a protracted negotiation for the sapphire chokers that would grace the crystal-studded statues at either side of the stage. Pepperly was adamant that they must have the ‘requisite sparkle’.

‘After the business I’ve put their way?’ he muttered irritably, rolling his eyes. ‘Well, so long as they’re in dinner dress and don’t look like detectives about to raid the joint. Just make sure they’re discreet.’

‘Naturellement.’ Gilles jerked his chin up. ‘Did you hear back from London?’

Pepperly took a sharp intake of breath as though the question pained him. ‘No. They’re not returning my calls.’

Gilles looked irked, but then he shrugged. ‘Their loss. They will be missing out on the hottest opening night of the twentieth century.’

‘Hm,’ Pepperly said, the sound a low growl in his chest. ‘Don’t let Josephine hear you say that.’

Gilles chuckled. ‘Mais c’est vrai! Look at the frenzy we have here. Who needs The Times anyway?’

‘Hm,’ Pepperly intoned again, looking no less pleased as he held his cigarette between curled fingers.

Flora watched them talk as she tightened the robe’s belt around her waist; she had quickly become used to the feeling of silk against her skin. Six weeks ago, it had existed purely as a concept in her mind; now she slept on it and dressed in it. Jewels, too, had become a rapid fancy and almost every other day, it seemed, Pepperly was opening up navy or red leather boxes for her to choose a sparkling bracelet or earrings or a necklace. They were borrowed, he apologized, but it made her ‘look the part’ at the places they frequented: the ballet, the opera, the theatre... Some days they had five o’clock tea at Angelina’s, where tiny cakes in pretty colours were brought out on tiered stands. Pepperly had instructed her on how to eat them correctly – there was ‘a form’ to these things; she couldn’t simply put them in her mouth – just as he had with croissants, and asparagus, and escargots, and myriad other foods that she had never even heard of before. The cakes were exquisite but her favourite treat was the hot chocolate drink that was so thick, the spoon stood upright in the centre of the cup.

Pepperly indulged her at every opportunity. ‘I want to see a sparkle in those beautiful eyes, Flora. Where is it?’ he would ask, watching her intently each time he presented her with a bracelet, or a bouquet of pure white roses. She would smile and coo but try as she might, the delight never seemed to move past her lips. Her heart was broken and she wasn’t a natural actress, after all; she couldn’t force her face to express emotions she didn’t feel even though she wanted to please him, to make him proud. He was the closest thing to family she had here: if not a father figure, then a favourite uncle. He had never once looked at her with a lascivious eye, nor flirted, nor said anything risqué or inappropriate. It was a relief to be able to trust him.

For the first week after he followed her back to Lochaline, very little had happened. He had commissioned his best songwriter to work day and night for him on new material for the show while she stayed behind and began the process of saying goodbye – the doctor had been paid, bills met, her father visited in hospital and a few days later she had packed a bag with everyone’s blessings. Pepperly had met her off the train at Queen Street with a bunch of fifty pink and yellow roses and, just like that, she had stepped into her new life. Hotels, trains, cars – everything was already arranged. She had to think about ‘nothing but looking pretty’, he had smiled, unaware of the shadows that lurked inside her.

Rehearsals had begun the very moment they arrived at the Gare du Nord. The venue had already been booked, the cast and crew hired and they all worked long days putting the numbers together into a show. Though she could sing and dance in a certain country style, she had never heard of the fashionable (and shocking) tango before now and had certainly never acted in her life. Gilles had his work cut out, but he seemed to see in her what Pepper had seen – some rare, elusive appeal – and he gave tireless instructions on how to make an entrance, command a stage, enthral an audience. Pepper had also hired singing and acting coaches, who were teaching her how to both protect and project her voice.

If it had all been thrilling, it was also exhausting: for the first month, she crawled into bed each night in the studio apartment he had rented for her in Montmartre. Life had been hard on St Kilda, but this was a different kind of work. She ached inside and out from her exertions as she learned to use her body in entirely new ways.

She was grateful for it – the intensity meant her nights passed dreamlessly and her days in a blur of choreography and song lyrics. She had practically no time to think of her lost child or lost lover; though her grief was still attached to her, with each day that passed, its grip loosened; it began to hang from her shoulders like a limp scarf instead of corseting her like a girdle. Her eyes might not sparkle but she found herself smiling along with the dance troupe’s louche antics; her tummy no longer growled with constant hunger, and she found a comfort in satiated appetite. Crucially, she had a plan, and with every day that passed, she was now inching closer to, not further from, her child.

Every day Pepperly instructed her quietly and with dignity, teaching her how to move through society. She now knew when to use a salad fork, the correct form for greeting a duke, how to walk in high heels. She moved with ease in the crowded streets, holding her chin high the way he had shown her and not dropping her head as she felt the many stares begin to settle – as they always, invariably did. ‘Let them see you,’ he commanded as they ‘promenaded’ through the Jardins des Tuileries or past the Madeleine. ‘Let them wonder about you... You’re a star, Flora,’ he whispered as he gave her his arm, a gentleman to a lady. ‘Make them look.’

And she did. By the end of their first week ‘on the town’, as he put it, they had people constantly dropping by their box or their table, angling for an introduction to her – but Pepperly kept everyone at arm’s length. He said she had no French and refused even to divulge her name. Speculation about her identity mounted quickly: it was assumed that she must be the star of his new show, and when tickets went on sale, they sold out within a single morning. By the end of the second week, Pepperly’s social post bag had doubled as talk of his mystery companion grew; and in the third week, he moved Flora into a suite at the Ritz. She wore clothes by Madame Chanel and had acquired a habit of sliding her hand up and down the ropes of pearls that accessorized her outfits; Pepperly approved, saying it made her look ‘fantastically bored’ – which was a good thing, apparently. What he didn’t know was that it was her self-soothing technique, much like rosary beads; a way of keeping her nerves in check.

Flora felt the new urge for a calming glass of champagne as she watched the organized chaos around her. ‘Curtain up’ was at nine o’clock. The press had been invited for this, the first night, and everyone’s nerves were running high. Everything had to be just perfect. She had to be perfect. She had to somehow be the woman everyone thought she was from these curated glimpses, so carefully choreographed.

One of the trumpeters impatiently blew a jarring minor note, holding it for longer than necessary, and Pepperly checked his wristwatch, looking startled by what it showed him. The hours were beginning to run away... ‘Right, everybody – time for déjeuner!’ he called, clapping his hands. ‘Reconvene ici at deux heures, s’il vous please. Ready to pick up with the fifth number. Cinquième! Paulette, remember the ostrich feathers this time, please!’

He turned to Flora, squeezing her arm affectionately. ‘Take the car back to the hotel. Have lunch sent up to the room. Try to rest, Flora. It’s going to be a long day.’

Everyone scattered like marbles on his cue, the hubbub of laughter and conversation quickly dying away as the musicians, dancers and stagehands pushed through the double doors in pairs and groups, heading for baguettes and coffee at the café on the corner. Most of them smoked ‘like trains’ too, but it wasn’t a habit Flora had yet been able to acquire.

She went back to her dressing room, where her clothes were draped over a chair, and began to get dressed again. There was a green silk chaise longue in one corner that she never had time to lie on; her costumes hung on a rail. An extravagant bunch of lilies sat on her dressing table; bright electric bulbs lit up the mirror with a harsh light and in the reflection, as she buttoned up her blouse, was a peeling poster of Charlie Chaplin on the back wall.

She was fastening the final button when there was a quick knock at the door.

‘Message for you, M’selle MacQueen,’ one of the stagehands said, peering round and holding out a slip of folded paper.

‘Merci.’

He disappeared in the next moment and she opened it: Call Effie.

Flora straightened up with a frown. Had something happened? They had exchanged a couple of letters since her friend’s relocation to Ayrshire, but to place a telephone call suggested there was a matter of some urgency.

Pulling her sleek knitted skirt over her hips, she hurried from the room and down the narrow corridor, heading for the stairs to the first-floor offices. She had only been up there a couple of times, but she knew they had telephones, and she sensed this couldn’t wait until she was back at the hotel.

The door was ajar and she knocked quickly, lightly, peering in to find it empty. Everyone was at lunch, making the most of the calm before the storm. She headed straight for the telephone on the nearest desk; three secretaries worked in here, and there were some smaller half-glazed offices leading off the main space. Those doors were all closed.

Flora reached for the receiver and waited as the operator spoke to her in rapid French. Pepperly had taught her what to say, without needing to understand, and she read the number on the note; a few moments later and she heard the clicks down the line as the connection was made.

Distantly, a phone began to ring. She leaned against the edge of the desk, waiting and trying not to panic as she looked idly around her. Much like her dressing room, this was the sort of environment that had never existed on St Kilda, something she would have been unable to imagine before she found herself standing in it for the first time. Piles of paper towered on the desks, a printed silk scarf was draped over the back of one of the chairs, typewriters were fed with clean sheets and awaiting the first strike of an inked hammer; a basket of newspapers was on the floor and beside it, a small dog’s bed. There was a shiny red apple on the desk opposite; a letter opener with a bone handle left on a pile of letters.

Flora reached for it; it reminded her a little of some of the knives back home—

‘Dumfries House.’

Flora hesitated at the sudden, clipped tones. ‘... Hello? May I speak with Effie Gillies, please?’

There was a pause. ‘May I ask who is calling?’

‘Flora MacQueen.’

‘Just a moment, please.’

Flora heard the sound of the receiver being set down, leather-soled footsteps receding along a hard floor.

She caught sight of a small vanity mirror tucked beneath the papers on the desk where she was sitting. She checked her reflection. Lipstick on teeth was a concern these days, a mainlander’s worry –

Just then, a low, indistinct sound, muffled, came to her ear. She pulled back, feeling instantly guilty for snooping on the desk, and looked around her for the source, but the room was empty – there were no noises coming from the corridor or the stairs, only the far-off tone of a Scottish phone in her right ear. Had she imagined it?

She picked up the patter of running footsteps coming into earshot, but they were distinct from the others and she could tell just by the sound that her friend was barefoot. She smiled, comforted by this small token of constancy. Effie was still Effie.

‘Flora?’ her friend breathed – but not because she was out of breath.

‘Aye, it’s me, Eff. What’s the matter? You sound worried.’

‘I am. I can’t talk long – the police are here.’

‘Police?’

‘They’re back again, asking questions. About Mathieson.’

‘What kind of questions?’

‘Where was I that night? How well did I know him? Did he bring me gifts? Was I working with him, moving stolen goods?’

‘Oh, Eff!’ Flora realized she was whispering too, hushed by her friend’s panic. ‘What have you told them?’

‘Everything we agreed. But you need to be ready, Floss; they’ll come to talk to you too. It doesn’t matter that you’re over there in Paris. It’s a murder investigation now.’

Flora winced. ‘They don’t think it was an accident?’

‘No.’

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to relive the horrors of that night. ‘Have you told Mhairi?’

‘Well, that’s the thing – she wrote to me. And it’s why I’ve called you. There’s something you need to know.’ Flora could hear her swallow. She was nervous. ‘Donald’s been arrested.’

Flora’s mouth dropped open, but she could make no sound. It was as if her voice had been snatched along with her soul. ‘Donald...?’

‘Because of the ambergris business. They think it’s a strong enough motive to kill.’

‘But...’ Flora felt a fear begin to settle in her bones. ‘You mean he’s in jail?’

‘Aye.’

Flora tried to hold herself together, to stay calm even as her heart began to pound. ‘How long will they hold him for?’

‘Sholto says they’ll either release him without charge or, if they press charges, he may have to stay in jail until the trial goes to court. It depends how strong they think the case is; Sholto says there’s a chance he might be granted bail. We’re heading to Oban this afternoon to meet Mhairi off the boat. She’s on her way down from Harris... She’s coming to give Donald his alibi.’

Flora felt a sharp pinch of unease. Why would Mhairi travel all that way to give Donald an alibi? They had already agreed he would say he’d been with his wife. ‘But why hasn’t Mary...?’

‘She told the police she didn’t see him for several hours after midnight; she said she had the baby and then he went out. She got herself off the hook...’

‘And landed him in it,’ Flora whispered, now deeply troubled. Something was very wrong, she could feel it. ‘You need to talk to her, when you get to Oban, Eff – make the woman see sense.’

Effie swallowed nervously down the line. ‘We can’t. That’s the thing. Mhairi says she’s gone. No one knows where she is.’

Flora felt the ground tilt beneath her feet, the world losing form. Gone? ‘... And the baby...?’ The words were just whispers, flutters of breath that fell from her without hope.

The silence that followed was agonized. Flora could hear in it the crackle of strain. ‘We have to assume she’s taken him with her. I’m sorry, Flora...’

‘But you don’t know where?’ Pain twisted her voice into a higher pitch as she felt herself begin to fall apart. No. This hadn’t been... it hadn’t been the agreement. Donald was to raise the baby: he was a good man who had lost too much. He would pour all his love for his lost lover and his lost child into her son – that was the plan. That promise had been the only thing keeping her mind and body together. The thought of Crabbit Mary, somewhere out there without him, raising Flora’s child as her own... For her to disappear with Flora’s child just as she was striving to get back to him...

‘No. Not yet, I’m sorry. I hope Mhairi might know more when she gets here.’

‘We have to find her, Eff,’ Flora said desperately, her voice cracking. ‘We have to find Mary.’

‘And we will. Sholto says he knows people. He has resources. I’ll keep you updated, I promise. Are you still staying at that hotel?’

Flora felt her breathing become laboured as she dropped the receiver to the desk, where it lay like a dead crow. She planted her hands flat on the surface as her head hung low. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be real—

The muffled sound came again and blankly, instinctively, she looked up, noticing that one of the office doors had merely been pushed to. From a first glance as she entered, it had appeared shut, but from here it was open sufficiently that a wide seam of the activities within was revealed: someone leaning back against the desk... the flash of a signet ring held low on something dark and moving... hair... Fingers in dark hair... She heard another sound now and this one was clearer – a groan, drawing out, urgent whispers... ‘Yes... yes...’

Flora felt a shudder of nausea rise up in her as she realized what she was seeing. Suddenly the entire world felt ruined – dirty, spoiled, shameful. No one was above hiding secrets, not even those she admired the most.

‘Flora? Are you still there?’ Effie’s voice was far away, a metallic audio dot in the room.

She picked the receiver up again, unable to draw her eyes away from what she was seeing. ‘Aye.’

‘Are you still at that hotel?’

Flora looked back at George Pepperly and Marcel. She had tried to do the right thing by coming here, but what kind of place had she really run to? Who could she trust?

‘Flora?’