Liberty Silk (17 page)

‘Very good. Very clever,’ Louella pronounced. ‘Fancy another drink?’

‘Sure. I’d love one!’

So Lisa spent the next couple of hours schmoozing and knocking back whisky with Lolly Parsons, and by the time she reeled out into the blazing sunshine that nailed down onto Beverly Hills, she’d made a new best friend.

The hangover she had to endure was worth it. The piece that appeared in Louella’s column in the
Hollywood Reporter
was a virtual hagiography:

I recently spent two delightful hours in the company of the beautiful Miss Lisa La Touche, over fragrant Earl Grey Tea. Miss La Touche is one of the newer British actresses to arrive in Hollywood, but already she has earned her place on a pedestal. Yes – something tells me that Lisa is set to rise through the ranks to Goddess status. She has the beautiful manners one takes for granted from the English aristocracy (unlike some of our ‘aristocracy’ here in Hollywood: Take heed, our Nightclub ‘Queen’!) She has been presented at court, and is engaged to be married to a viscount, which means that one day she will be genuine nobility!

Like most of the English aristocracy, Lisa loves to ride and is an accomplished horsewoman . . .

Hell’s bells! thought Lisa.

. . . Mr Stein says of his protegée: ‘Miss La Touche’s career is mine to build and protect exactly as I have done that of my other stars, and I should be disappointed if she is not a very great star for the next ten or fifteen years.’ Her next picture will be
The Lady with the Little Dog
, to be scripted by one of our wittiest screenwriters, Miss Anita Loos. She will co-star with Lochlan Kinnear . . .

Ten or fifteen years of stardom? Top marks, thought Lisa. That wasn’t bad going in a profession that held youth and beauty in such high esteem that actresses over thirty were considered past it. She fetched a pair of scissors and started cutting out the interview to join the others in her scrapbook. As she turned the page to apply the adhesive, a headline caught her eye. ‘Mabel Philips found dead,’ she read. ‘Ziegfeld girl in suspected suicide.’

‘
WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE
for the preposterous charade? You or Demetrios?’

In a saffron-washed bedroom, on the top floor of the Montparnasse townhouse where Gervaise Lantier had his studio, Gervaise and Jessie were lying between sheets that were tempestuously tumbled. They had been there for nearly twenty-four hours, leaving the bed only to fetch food or wine – and once so that Gervaise could test her prowess as a model.

‘It was the count’s idea,’ confessed Jessie. ‘The story is that he found me wandering barefoot in the Tuileries Gardens suffering from amnesia.’

‘How very convenient!
La belle dame sans mémoire
.’

‘And
sans
baggage. The evening dress is the only item of clothing I possess.’

Gervaise smiled. ‘The
beau monde
will be itching with curiosity. Who is the beautiful, feral waif that Gervaise Lantier has plucked from obscurity to become his muse and bedfellow?’

‘So I’ve passed the test? I am to be your model?’ Jessie lowered her eyes so that he would not read the desperation in them as she awaited his answer.

Since the previous evening – from the moment she had been presented to Gervaise at that swagger apartment in the boulevard Péreire – she had sensed that she was under scrutiny, like an actress auditioning for a role. Around noon, with the sun at its zenith, the artist had positioned her beneath the skylight that latticed the ceiling and reached for his sketchbook, and Jessie knew then that going to bed with him had been but a curtain-raiser to the main event. The words of the painter who’d picked her up on the carrefour Vavin came back to her:
I’d like to examine the goods before we start
. . . That’s exactly what Jessie had become. The goods.

She had followed his direction to the letter, biting down on the inside of her lip with pain as she segued into pose after pose, each one tougher than the last: a more elegant elevation of her thigh, a more sensual curve of her arm, a more sinuous twist of her spine. She struck each attitude with apparent ease; defying gravity even when cramp threatened and sweat began to trickle down her ribcage, until at last dusk infiltrated the room.

Gervaise still hadn’t answered her question. A moment went by, then another.

‘A prima ballerina might have found those poses arduous,’ Gervaise said, finally. ‘The job’s yours.’

Thank Heaven. Oh, thank Heaven! This would keep her going until . . . Until when? Until she’d earned enough money to make a fresh start, or until her pregnancy started to show? She wouldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t tell him yet that she was carrying a child. She’d keep going until Gervaise got wise to the fact, and then . . .

‘When is your baby due?’

Oh, God. ‘You mean – you’ve guessed?’

‘Of course I have. I’m an artist. I see things that other people don’t.’

Jessie felt horribly deflated. She sat up and pulled the sheet over her breasts. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘My condition – well, it will make problems for you, won’t it?’

‘On the contrary. Your condition is a bonus; I’ll get an entire series out of your changing shape.’ He reached for an orange and began to toss it casually from hand to hand. ‘I’d mentioned to Demetrios just recently that I had planned a series of Violetta when she was pregnant, but she wouldn’t countenance it. She hated the idea of getting fat.’

‘Violetta?’

‘My last model but one. Also my ex-wife. After our divorce she had the nerve to ask me if I’d paint a portrait of her wearing the Vanderbilt diamonds.’

‘She’s a Vanderbilt?’

‘She is now. But even though she snared herself a millionaire, I’m still liable for our daughter’s upkeep.’ Gervaise dug his fingernails into the orange, and started to peel away the skin. ‘I take it the father of your child is past history?’

Past history . . . She thought of the words she’d pledged – the promise she’d made to love, honour and obey. She couldn’t ever stop loving Scotch – her love for him was part of her, as fundamental and immutable as the three primary colours: but since he hadn’t bothered to keep his side of the bargain, why should she concern herself about honour? As for obeying! The only imperative now was to obey the instinct for survival that told her how lucky she was to have been thrown a lifeline in the form of Gervaise Lantier.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘He’s past history.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Good. I should hate to think that he might turn up and reveal your true identity. Elitist imbeciles like the ones at last night’s party tend to recoil from impostors. They don’t like the idea that they may have been gulled.’ He was dividing the orange into quarters, regarding her from under the wing of dark hair that fell across his forehead. ‘You’ve successfully bluffed your way into high society,
Perdita
. Let’s go a step further and
épater le bourgeois
. You know what that means?’

‘Yes, I do.’ It’s what she had done when she’d pursued an education, embraced socialism, supported the Suffragettes and married a bohemian. Now something one of the molls on the carrefour Varis had said came back to her: when a girl is without fortune or profession, what can she do but keep her mouth shut, take what she can get, and thank God for it? ‘Have you ever known what it’s like to be really, really hungry?’ she asked.

‘No. I’m almost ashamed to say that I’ve led a reasonably privileged life.’

‘Hunger is a great leveller. I now know the literal meaning of “earning a crust”.’ She tore off a segment from the fruit Gervaise handed her and slid it into her mouth. ‘I know it’s vulgar to talk about money, Gervaise, but I have to ask how much—’

‘You’re absolutely right: it is in
eff
ably vulgar to talk about money. Suffice it to say that the higher the price I can command for my paintings, the happier Demetrios will be.’

‘Demetrios? Why?’

‘He curates my work. It’s in his interest to turn a profit.’

‘Does he take a percentage of your earnings?’

‘Yes. I don’t begrudge him; he makes us both a great deal of money. He’s very astute.’

‘Machiavellian?’

‘If you like. His type thrives on chaos. He’s clever enough to realize that the unorthodox times we’re living in call for unorthodox behaviour.’ Stretching out a hand for his cigarettes, Gervaise lit two, then handed her one. ‘I have to warn you that if you agree to become my muse, I make the rules. In return, you shall have all the privileges of a
maîtresse en titre
.’

‘Wasn’t the
maîtresse en titre
the chief mistress of the King of France?’

He nodded, regarding her with lazy, interested eyes. ‘You strike me as the emancipated type, Perdita, so you may consider that to be a retrograde step. However, you should know that in bygone years courtesans were highly respected. They were educated, beautiful, and – as a result of their connections – extremely wealthy.’

‘So I am to be your muse, model and mistress?’

‘You make it sound like a song.’ He smiled, but his tone was businesslike as he set about enumerating his requirements on elegant fingers. ‘Firstly, you are to be sexually available to me at all times – until your pregnancy starts to show.’

She caught the inference. He wouldn’t want to have sex with her when she was big with another man’s child. That was hardly a drawback – so long as he continued to support her. Gervaise was a skilled love-maker, which made her role of ardent bedfellow less burdensome, but she had no appetite for intimacy with anyone who wasn’t Scotch.

‘Secondly,’ he continued, ‘I shall expect you to be inspirational, compliant, resilient and hard-working. And thirdly, I shall want you to keep me amused. A sense of humour is an essential trait in a
maîtresse en titre
. Violetta regrettably lost hers when Ghislaine was born.’

‘Ghislaine is your daughter?’

‘Yes.’ Gervaise plucked the cigarette from between her fingers and stubbed it out, before extinguishing his own. Then, leaning on an elbow, he turned to look down at her. ‘What do you say, Perdita? I think that between us we shall make a very elegant couple. And if we fail, we shall fail with panache.’

Jessie took a moment to assess the validity of this. It was cut and dried: failing with panache was infinitely preferable to failing abjectly. Here she was lying on Irish linen, with duck-down pillows supporting her head and a glass of vintage Bordeaux within arm’s reach. The alternative was a room where she was obliged to sprinkle pepper between the threadbare bed-sheets to rid them of bugs, and a dank cellar where Adèle and the Green Fairy held sway. She returned Gervaise’s smile.

‘We shan’t fail,’ she said, with decision. ‘When do I start?’

‘You’ve already started.’

He drew the sheet aside, and as he readied her for lovemaking, Jessie vowed that she would make herself indispensable to him. She, Perdita, the construct who’d wandered barefoot into Parisian society, would master the strategy made famous by Machiavelli, and she would damn well win. Gervaise was rich already – she could make him richer. Jessie was determined that she and her baby would want for nothing.

ONE DAY, ZIGGY
Stein summoned Lisa to his office and uttered the sweetest seven words she’d ever heard. They were: ‘You’re ready for the big time, kid.’

If Ziggy weren’t so ugly, Lisa might have kissed him.

‘I’m casting you as a plucky young British nanny on board
The City of Benares
.’

‘
The City of Benares?
Isn’t that the liner that was torpedoed last year?’

‘Yup. It’s time we got on the war propaganda bandwagon.’

Ziggy lit up a fat cigar, and Lisa tried not to show her distaste.
The City of Benares
had, tragically, been carrying a cargo of hundreds of British children to safety in America when the Nazi U-boats had attacked. Privately she thought it crass that so recent a tragedy should be the subject of a major motion picture, and wondered if she shouldn’t try to get out of it.

‘Lochlan will play your love interest.’ Smoke plumed from Ziggy’s mouth as he eyed her knowingly, and Lisa demurely lowered her eyelids. ‘You make a great couple. On screen.’ The emphasis was on the noun. ‘If you can promise me to keep your reputation squeaky clean . . .’ Lisa inclined her head ‘. . . I have other plans for you. See that painting?’ He waved a hand towards a portrait on the wall that showed a woman with her skirts bunched up around her thighs, treading grapes. ‘That painting is by a famous French artist called Lantier.’ He pronounced it ‘Lanteer’, his accent clumsy. ‘I have invited Mister Lanteer to come to LA. Columbia got that British painter Sir Laverty—’

Lisa refrained from pointing out that ‘Laverty’ was actually Sir John Lavery, and that he was Irish, not British.

‘—to paint Loretta Young and Maureen O’Sullivan. The guys at Twentieth Century got a portrait of Anna Lee, by some other fucking British lord. So I’m going to go one better and have a French artist paint my English rose.’

Lisa tried not to wince. She hated being described as being an ‘English Rose’ almost as much as she hated Myra going around telling the ladies and gentlemen of the press that she was an accomplished horsewoman.

‘That’s wonderful news, Mr Stein. I’m so honoured.’

‘You should be. It don’t come cheap, commissioning a famous artist to travel all the way from France and shack up in the Chateau Marmont.’

‘When is he arriving?’

‘Next week. So you’d better help yourself to something from Wardrobe.’

She had hoped that she might pose for her portrait in something glamorous by one of the legendary Orion costume designers, but Ziggy was insistent on the English Rose image, and Lisa knew he was right. Recently Dorothy had written to tell her that there was a growing backlash in Britain against ex-pat film stars, with headlines such as ‘COME BACK YOU SHIRKERS’ emblazoned on newspapers. It wouldn’t do to offend British moviegoers by dressing ostentatiously, so Lisa ended up wearing a simple buttercup-print frock and a straw hat. It was decided that the location for the portrait should be equally unpretentious, and that’s how she found herself on Sound Stage 4 one warm November day in a ‘barn’, where she was required to recline against a stack of hay bales.