Paris Kiss (23 page)

Chapter 40

‘Get out! And never come back, do you hear me? I never want to see you again!'

The studio door slammed behind me and I stumbled down the stairs. All the way down I could hear Camille raving and the sound of crashing. I burst out of the doors into the street just as a plaster sculpture smashed at my feet. I looked up and saw Camille hanging out of the window. I fled from rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, the street I'd come to love so much and that would now forever remind me of this terrible fight with Camille. I stumbled on a café – the one where I'd met Henri and Suzanne – and sank down onto a chair and asked for an
eau de vie
. My hand shook as I lifted the glass to my lips, not from sorrow but with rage. Camille had turned the tables on me when I'd gone to speak to her about studio fees and this ridiculous contract she'd made Rodin sign. I had gone to the studio early, at dawn, to catch Camille. I waited outside until Rodin had left and went up to confront her. She'd listened in silence while I put forward what I thought was a reasoned argument. I was careful to keep my temper and be the adult to her spoilt child. When I'd finished she looked at me with a pitying smile.

‘Jessie, you are not yourself, to come out with these fantastical accusations – what an imagination you have! I forgive you.'

‘
You
forgive
me
?' My calm was beginning to evaporate.

‘
Ah, oui, toi!
' She gave a little chuckle. ‘Of course, I understand, Jessie. You've had a quarrel with Georges, no doubt. I knew he'd been in the country mooching off his parents again, but I heard he's back in town.' She picked up a carving tool and began to work. ‘You'll know by now of course that he hasn't a
sou
.'

‘What are you talking about?'

Camille turned back to me, her expression innocent. ‘Hasn't he told you? Ah, that's too bad. I hope Georges hasn't been taking advantage of your trusting nature.
Tu êtes une petite ingénue, toi
.'

I had been about to lose my temper, but my anger had been snuffed out. A cold gust of wind came through the open window and made me shiver.

I sat down, suddenly weary. ‘What do you mean, Camille?'

She took out a cigarette, made me wait while she lit it and took a drag.

‘Camille!'

‘Very well, I didn't want to say anything before, but it's about time you found out the truth. It's my duty, as your friend, to tell you that Georges is interested only in your money.'

A cold worm turned in my stomach. ‘That's ridiculous!'

Camille picked a strand of tobacco off her tongue. ‘Is it? You know the Duchamps don't have a pot to piss in? No, perhaps you don't, but all Paris does, you poor thing.'

I was dumbfounded. ‘But he lives so extravagantly – his clothes, the gold cigarette case, the endless cabs, the restaurants.'

‘He spends his small allowance as soon as he gets it and borrows the rest. Half the moneylenders in Paris know his address.'

I searched my mind for any clues that Georges was a fortune hunter but came up with a blank. And while I had never hidden my background, I couldn't remember telling him that Papa had become a rich man by investing in the coal exchange just at the right time. Georges and I, we talked about art, about our work. We had never talked about money. Certainly, Papa was generous to me and I never wanted for clothes, furs and jewellery, but in Paris I'd learned to dress more simply. Camille must be mistaken, or worse, spinning a malicious lie.

I stood up and faced her. ‘Let me get this right, you think Georges, your friend and mine, is only interested in me because my parents are wealthy? That's absurd. How could he possibly know that?'

She shrugged her shoulders in that French way I'd once found so charming and now despised for its casual disregard of the other person's feelings.

‘I told him,' she said.

‘Why? Why would you talk about that?'

‘
Because he asked me. I told him your father was as rich as Croesus. You know Georges, he likes fine clothes. He has no money but he's always been good at sniffing it out. Look at you, in your Worth dress and furs. It doesn't take a genius to see you're rich.' She looked at me carefully. ‘You're not upset are you?' Her laugher had a metallic ring. ‘Now, don't be angry with Georges. Did you think he was blind to the advantages your wealth would bring him – the freedom to do as he wants? Come now, don't be such an innocent, you're worse than the
grisettes
.'

‘But the drawing with the note, all the love letters he sent me in England.'

Camille waved her cigarette in the air. ‘Of course, he
thinks
he loves you. Georges is a scoundrel but he is a romantic one.
Après tout
, he is a French man. He has convinced himself he is in love. He loves you, in his way. But he is incapable of putting his own interests to one side. Not like William, he's a true English gentleman. But you let him get away. If you'd been clever, you would have hung on to him, and if you'd been a French woman, you would have had both of them.'

Camille walked over to me and pinched my chin, the way I remembered her doing to the maid the first day we met. ‘Dry your tears. I tell you this only because I love you. I'm glad we are friends again. Now, forget all this silly nonsense. We all share the same rent.'

That's when I went to the tea chest and pulled out the ledger, silently pointed to the figures that told their own story. And that's when she flew into a rage. She threw accusations at me like missiles: I was a viper in her bosom, I had stolen ideas from her, I wanted to steal Rodin from her, I didn't have a shred of real talent, I should marry William and have his brats because that's all I was good for.

It was like a typhoon ripping through me. When she came at me with her hands clawing I knew I had to get away from her. In the relative safety of the café, I took another gulp of
eau de vie
but it didn't do any good. I lay my head on the table and began to cry. People were staring at me, but I couldn't stop. Camille hated me: she must to make up such lies about Georges. I dried my eyes. Georges. She said he was in Paris. I needed to see him. I would go by myself, without a chaperone.

Chapter 41

‘Jessie!' Georges was in his shirtsleeves when he opened the door to his studio. ‘You're alone.' He looked closely at me. ‘You've been crying.' He checked the street was empty before he let me in.

It was dark inside, the shutters closed, and there was no sign of Sasha. Georges saw me looking at the bed with its bearskin counterpane.

‘Don't worry, he's out.'

We sat down together and I told him about Camille's outbursts in England, about her coldness towards me, and about the contract she had made Rodin sign. When I finished, I put my head in my hands and wailed.

‘I've lost my
maître
, my studio. Why is Camille doing this? She's supposed to be my friend.'

Georges waited for me to calm down. He cleared his throat. ‘Camille has changed. In Rodin's studio she struts about with the
practiciens
, holding court while they hang on her every word. They know she is Rodin's favourite and not to be crossed. One word from her and a man could find himself without a job.' He took out his cigarette case and offered it to me. I noticed the gilt had worn off. He struck a match and held it out. I leaned towards his hand, cupped it with mine.

‘I looked for you in the studio when I came back from the country,' he said. ‘But they said you didn't work there any more. Is it because of me, Jessie? Are you trying to avoid me?'

I shook my head. ‘Jules says I'm not needed now
The Burghers of Calais
is finished,' I said.

‘But you were also working on
The Gates
of Hell
, which is never going to be finished, the way Rodin changes his mind.' He thought for a while. ‘Camille must be behind this, she's frozen you out. The power has gone to her head. She grows more reckless every day, in her affair with Rodin.' I started and he smiled. ‘You think I didn't know?'

‘I thought you might have guessed. But I wasn't sure.'

‘I've always known. And now so do many others. They don't bother to hide it any more. It's common knowledge in our circle that Camille is Rodin's mistress and it won't be long before it's all over Paris.' He ground the end of his cigarette beneath his heel, leaving a black smear on the bare floorboards. ‘Camille ought to take care. What is amusing in the Latin Quarter becomes a scandal in
le faubourg
Saint-Germain. The critics, the art gallery owners, the ministers who commission artists, they like to think of themselves as respectable, and their wives love nothing better than to judge a women like Camille. She'll never get a commission. And once her family find out – as they inevitably will – they'll turn their backs on her. She'll be finished.'

Georges was right, Camille was flouting every rule that bound women of our class. I remembered my Ma's words of warning and went cold. ‘I have to do something.'

He stroked my cheek and I leaned into his warm palm. ‘Loyal Jessie! You still love her after everything. But there's nothing you can do. She's like a woman possessed. I know her. When she gets in these moods she doesn't listen to anyone. My advice? Forget about Camille. You don't need her, you have me.' His eyes gleamed in the darkness and he pulled me back onto the bed.

His lips were warm, his tongue teasing. I did not resist his kiss and allowed myself to sink back against the bearskin as he pressed against me. There was a rustling and his hand was under my skirts, moving up my thigh, pushing aside the thin cotton.

I wrenched my mouth from his. My voice was unsteady. ‘No, Georges, I can't, not now.'

He groaned. ‘I can't stop. I want you.' His hand worked its way higher until I sighed and moved against him. He kissed me again, his tongue deeper, his other hand slipping the buttons down the front of my dress out of their loops. He stopped and laughed softly. ‘It's like breaking into the
Banque de France
.' He kissed the top of my breasts, then pulled down my chemise and began to lick and suck at my nipples. I put my hands on his head and pulled him closer. He lifted up my skirts and ducked between my legs. I felt his lips brush the inside of my thighs, his tongue darting, and suddenly his hot mouth was there, licking and licking until I closed my eyes and arched my back, forgetting everything, the pleasure blacking out any thoughts of Camille.

Georges helped me with my buttons. ‘You know of course that I'll have to marry you now.' He stopped and took my face in his hands to kiss me again. My mouth felt bruised but I didn't care.

The fog in my mind began to clear. I put my hand against his chest. ‘Are you serious?'

He looked at me steadily. ‘Never more so.'

‘Even if I could do that to –' I couldn't bring myself to say William's name. ‘It would be difficult for us.'

He nipped the soft pad under my thumb with his teeth. ‘Why?'

I sat up and smoothed down my skirts. ‘There are practical matters to consider.'

He sighed and I heard the snap of his cigarette case. ‘Practical. I hate practical.' The flare from the match lit up his face and I caught sight of his beautiful mouth for a second before we were once again in the dark.

‘Well, there's the matter of a settlement,' I said. ‘If we were to marry we would be penniless.'

‘Of course, your parents will be angry for a while when you break off the engagement, but they'll soon forgive their only daughter. Surely they won't withhold your inheritance?'

‘That's just it, Georges, it's what I've been trying to tell you. There isn't any money left. My father made a bad investment and lost his fortune.'

The tip of the cigarette glowed as he drew in the smoke. I waited for him to say it didn't matter, that money, my money, meant nothing to him. That he would take up a profession and his family, with its vineyards and
château
, would help us. The silence stretched.

‘Jessie, I can't…don't you see…I need to marry money. I'm not made for poverty.'

I got up and reached for my hat. ‘It's true, then, that you are the worst kind of man, a fortune hunter. Camille was right – I have been naive.'

I walked out of the studio. A cab was passing and it wasn't until I was getting into it that Georges called my name. His footsteps rang out behind me as I slammed the door shut. It was only when I heard the horse's hooves pick up speed that I allowed my face to crumple.

Chapter 42

I couldn't go back to the Claudels' or my studio, so I fled to Rosa's apartment. She was a well-known figure in Montmartre – all the cabbies knew the woman who dressed as a man, and one took me to where she lived.

A maid led me into a room where a matronly little woman in a black silk dress and lace cap sat embroidering by the fire, a pot of coffee keeping warm at her feet. Her smile was sweet.

‘Rosa has told me so much about you.' She held out a small hand to me. ‘I'm Nathalie Micas. I'm so happy to meet you at last.' She had a high, flutey voice and her hands fluttered like butterflies as she poured coffee into a tiny porcelain cup. I stood without speaking, too stricken with misery and shame to do more than stare into the hearth at the crackling logs. Without asking me, Nathalie added crystals of sugar and a splash of cognac. ‘There, drink that and you'll feel better,
chérie.
Come and sit by the fire with me. Rosa won't be long. Just move the otter.'

I looked down at the sofa and what I had taken to be a small dog looked back up at me with unblinking eyes. It opened its blunt whiskered snout and gave an odd little bark, showing sharp teeth. I took a step back.

‘Don't worry, Zola is quite harmless, aren't you
mon petit chou
?' Nathalie lifted the otter and sat down with it on her lap. She stroked the gleaming fur and it paddled its webbed paws with pleasure.

I sipped the potent coffee. The cognac began to have its effect and I sagged back into the sofa. I looked glassily around the crowded room. There were stuffed animals on every surface – on the table uncomfortably close to me, a fox fixed me with its beady eyes, a vole dangling limply in its mouth – the walls were crammed with paintings of animals of every sort, domestic, working and wild. I was admiring a fine bronze of a hunting dog when I yelped and nearly dropped my coffee canteen. A pair of claws dug into my shins as a heavy, furred creature pulled itself up onto my knees.

‘I see you've met Rimbaud.' Rosa stood in the doorway dressed in an artist's smock, bell-bottom sailor's trousers and labourer's boots. ‘Don't worry, he's quite tame, aren't you,
mon petit ange
?'

The lion cub turned its head towards its mistress, its eyes glowing amber in the firelight. I ran my fingers through coarse fur and it began to knead my skirts, opening and closing its paws in ecstasy.

Rosa came into the room, wiping her hands on a rag. ‘Welcome, Jessie. I'm sorry I wasn't here to greet you, but I was busy with a dissection.'

‘
Putain! Putain! C'est combien? Je suis un bon coup, tu sais!
' A rasping voice shouted and a clatter of feathers landed on my shoulder. The lion cub gave a warning growl and a black bird with a large yellow beak flew up onto the mantelpiece. Lifting a wing, it deposited another streak of white guano onto the marble fire surround.

Rosa bent down and kissed me roughly on the cheek. ‘Don't be alarmed. It's only Baudelaire, my impertinent Mynah bird. You must excuse his language, but he can't resist chatting up a pretty face. Baudelaire, mind your manners!' She stroked his back and the bird clucked in its throat. ‘He used to belong to a sailor who traded down the coast of Africa, so he speaks French, Swahili and Afrikaans. Don't you, you clever little thing!'

The Mynah bird put its head to one side and opened its beak ‘
Fokof jou bliksem!
'

‘Filthy little beast,' Rosa said. ‘And I see you've met my darling Nathalie, the gentlest woman to walk the earth and a damn fine artist. God knows what she sees in me.' She sat down next to Nathalie and put an arm around her. ‘Now, you must tell us what is wrong, dearest Jessie.'

‘Is it obvious that there is something wrong?'

‘Yes.
Allez, raconte-nous
. You know you can tell us anything.'

I pulled at the ears of the lion cub, which had fallen asleep, and told them everything from the start: how Georges had tricked me into thinking William had been unfaithful, how William had left me after finding Georges' portrait and note. I couldn't bear to tell them yet about what I'd just done with Georges, so I told them about Camille first. When I had finished, I was trembling with anger once more.

Rosa put her head to one side, as if considering a mathematical problem. ‘Camille is drunk on love and professional success. That's a powerful mixture and enough to turn any artist's head. But she's a damned fool to shun her friends. You're not the first she's behaved badly towards – lately she's been casting us off, one by one. The little upstart even tried to snub me at a dinner for Puvis de Chavannes, but I put her in her place. Nobody snubs La Bonheur.'

I leaned forward and the lion cub grunted. ‘Won't you talk to her, Rosa? She seems to think I'm some sort of threat to her.'

‘I could try, but I doubt she'll listen. As you know, Camille's stubborn and always, always thinks she's right.' Rosa ran a hand through her hair, which was cut short like a choirboy's. ‘I'm worried about her – there's a lot of talk about her, and none of it flattering. This business with Rodin won't do her reputation as an artist any good. The best she can hope for is that he marries her and she becomes respectable in the eyes of society, but men like him are not easily yoked. And there is the matter of Rose Beuret – Rodin will never leave her.'

‘But, he doesn't love her,' I said. I couldn't believe that after all Camille had said to me and put me through, my first instinct was still to spring to her defence.

‘How do you know?' Rosa said. ‘Rodin's comfortable with La Beuret. And she was a great beauty in our day – we all longed to sleep with her.' She smiled at me. ‘Yes, even me – especially me. No, Rodin won't leave his first love. When you get to our age, young lovers are a delightful pastime, but in the end exhausting. What you want is someone who has known you in your youth – and still sees you as the young person you once were.'

Rosa smiled at Nathalie and kissed her tenderly. I thought about the warmth of Camille's breath on my neck in the cave at
La Hottée du Diable
, the softness of her mouth when we kissed before the Madwomen's Ball, and wondered what it would be like to live like this with Camille, as a couple; to sit side by side in the twilight of our days in a room full of our sculptures, after a long life of work, unfettered by the demands of men and children.

I shook my head as if it still held wisps of fog from the Villeneuve moors. ‘Surely, you live as you choose with Nathalie,' I said, my voice rising. ‘You don't care about respectability or about what society says; why should Camille and Rodin?'

Nathalie had been listening quietly, but spoke up now in her clear, high voice. ‘Rosa and I can live in peace the way we do only because we have our own money, and we earn plenty more by making conventional art that people want to buy – the kind of art that some of your friends might sneer at, I suspect.'

She was right: Georges or Henri and the rest of the Montmartre crowd would hoot with laughter at the realistic scenes of hunting horses and spotted sows that hung on the walls.

Rosa took up Nathalie's argument where she left off, in the manner of an old married couple. ‘You see, Jessie, we are not dependent on anyone. We have no disapproving family breathing down our necks and ready to cut the purse strings. Camille is different entirely from us. Her work is unorthodox – some would say shocking – for a woman, she has no money of her own and is dependent on her family's good will. She desperately needs Rodin's influence to get her commissions. But the little fool is making the classic mistake so many women make – she is pouring all her energy into Rodin's work and giving him her ideas, the little fool. But I don't know why I should feel sorry for her – she's been a bitch to you, Jessie.'

I could feel the heat rising in my face. ‘Don't call her that. I love her.' I had been frozen until now; stunned by the blows I'd received in quick succession from Camille and then Georges. But speaking those words out loud broke the dam holding back my pain. I began to cry in earnest for all that I had lost: first William, then Camille and now Georges. Alarmed, the lion cub jumped off my lap. Nathalie and Rosa came to my side, put their arms around me and rocked me. In the shelter of their embrace, I closed my eyes and told them my secret – about Georges and what I had done with him and how he had dropped me when he found out I would have no fortune and was of no use to him.

‘My poor darling,' Rosa said. ‘Didn't I warn you about them? Those wild animals! And now they have hurt you.'

‘I'm so alone,' I said between sobs that tore at my throat.

‘You are not alone,' Rosa said. ‘You must stay with us. I'll send word to the Claudels – Louis-Prosper knows me. We will look after you.'

I don't know why they call it heartbreak, it feels more like your heart has become too big for your chest, so swollen with pain it nearly chokes you. The curse of a childhood like mine is that it doesn't prepare you for being hurt. I had always expected to be loved and didn't know – not really – that love could be taken away. And when you're young, you think you'll never get over it, never laugh or love or be happy again, but of course you do, and that makes me sadder than it should. Time heals, so they say, but losing Camille and Georges, it changed me, made me less brave.

In the days after it happened, I couldn't work or eat; even sleep was a false friend. In my dreams, Camille was the Camille I'd first met, laughing as we shared a cigarette, scowling in concentration as we sculpted, her beautiful face clearing when she looked up at me. I would wake happy, only to remember all over again that Camille had destroyed our friendship, and that Georges had made the worst kind of fool out of me. The wounds would open again and my helpless sobs would bring Nathalie to my side with cold cloths and laudanum-laced tinctures. The animals seemed to sense my pain. The lion cub took to sleeping next to me on the bed Nathalie had made up in the corner of the parlour: my nest they called it. At night, the cub stretched out next to me, its breathing a hot rasp against my neck. When the tears came it would sit up on its haunches and lick the brine from my face, its rough cat tongue tangling in my hair. During the day, the otter tumbled and played at the foot of the bed, nipping my toes through the counterpane and kicking at them with his hind legs. The Mynah bird kept a respectful distance, rumbling and whistling.

Rosa was stroking my forehead one evening as the tears ran down my face unchecked and wet my ears. ‘I know it is hard to believe now, Jessie, but the pain will ease with time. You will think of them less and less and then one day you will realise you can't remember what they look like.'

‘I can't forget Camille. I keep going over it again and again. I don't know what I did to her, to make her turn against me. Did our friendship mean nothing to her? I would never have thrown it away so lightly. I don't understand why she has done this to me. If only I knew why, I would have some peace.'

Rosa handed me a small bottle. ‘Drink this and sleep now.'

I fell back against the pillows. As the laudanum fog rolled through my mind, I felt the bed shift. Rosa stood and through half-closed eyes I saw Nathalie beckon her from the door.

‘Is she asleep, Marie-Rose?' Nathalie said.

‘Yes,
la pauvre
. Dreaming of that she-wolf, no doubt. What is it?'

‘Georges Duchamp is here. He wants to see Jessie.'

Suddenly I was wide awake.

Rosa sighed. ‘He'd better not see her like this. Help me put the screen around her then we'll hear what Monsieur Duchamp has to say for himself.'

When the screen was in place I sat up carefully in bed so as not to make a noise and looked through the space between the hinges. Georges came in and sat by the fire. He put his face in his hands and a lock of his hair fell forward. He was unshaved and his jacket was rumpled. Nathalie disappeared, leaving Rosa standing before him, her arms folded.

‘So, Duchamp,' she said. ‘What brings you here?'

‘It's Jessie. I'm afraid I haven't behaved well.'

Rosa snorted. ‘Really? You surprise me! There's not a working girl in Montmartre or a countess in
le faubourg
Saint-Germain whose heart you haven't broken with your empty promises. It's just as well Jessie is made of sterner stuff.'

He stood up and grasped Rosa by the arms. ‘Have you seen her? I've been looking for her everywhere. Is she here?' He looked around the room and I instinctively drew back from the screen.

Rosa shook him off. ‘She's come to visit for a few days, yes, but she's out for a walk just now with some friends. What is it you want from her, Georges?'

‘What friends? Who is she with?' He sat down again and covered his eyes. ‘This is absurd. What's wrong with me?' He leaned forward and took Rosa's hands and pulled her down to the sofa. ‘Rosa,
je t'en prie
, you must persuade Jessie to see me. She'll listen to you.'

‘Don't be ridiculous. Jessie is her own woman. She doesn't want to see you, and I don't blame her, quite frankly.'

‘She told you what happened?'

‘Yes, she told me everything. Nice work, Duchamp.'

He groaned. ‘You must understand I was taken by surprise when she told me about her family's situation. I assumed she was rich – the clothes, the hats, the grand house in England, the way she talks and dresses. I can tell these things.'

‘Yes, you are quite the connoisseur of wealthy young women.'

‘It's not my fault. My father, the bastard, squandered most of my inheritance on cards and his mistresses; he brought me up to have the tastes of a gentleman, but left me with the income of a clerk. The money – what's left of it – is running out and in a few years, I'll be penniless. It's true that Jessie's fortune drew me to her at first, but then I fell in love with her.'