The Hidden Palace, page 5
‘What about you?’
‘Me? No, I just take what I can get.’
As the dancers began their second routine of the evening, the smoke in the room stung the back of Rosalie’s throat. But she managed to catch her breath and threw herself into twisting her body in rhythm with the music. Dancing was her love, her life, her passion. She smiled at Irène and the other three as they spun around, joyfully swinging their arms wide, reaching high then swooping low almost to the ground before rising with fantastically high kicks. Rosalie was the most balletic of the dancers, a result of a decade of ballet training. And she loved losing herself to the sound of Saul’s beautiful playing when even the air seemed to be vibrating and you could feel the sound of it in your blood and in your bones.
As the routine ended, she heard raised voices and from Irène’s expression could see that her friend had heard them too. Unease was sweeping right across the stage. There had been a feverish air about the night as if the desire for fun had surged; the kind of night when anything might happen. Rosalie had known something had been building although she hadn’t identified it until now, and she wasn’t surprised when a loud crash followed the shouting. Then another crash, like a table being tipped over and, in its wake, glass breaking. Saul stopped playing and signalled to the girls to grab their coats and cover up just as a tangle of men fell into the hall from the bar. The men picked themselves up and began snatching up chairs, raising them above their heads and hurling them against anyone who got in their way. Rosalie fled to the changing room to slip on her coat but when she came back out again, she saw one of the young thugs from Jeunesses Patriotes had Saul in a headlock. Everything was noise, confusion and smoke. So much smoke, although she couldn’t see where it was coming from. Her heart thumped against her ribs, instinct telling her to run, but she could not. She had to do something to help and quickly. She ran towards Saul to try to release him, but Irène pulled her back, whispering furiously in her ear. ‘It won’t help. Save yourself.’
There was no way out except through the bar where all hell had broken loose. From among the melange of screaming women, shouting men and weeping girls, more and more people were piling into the little hall to join the fight. Rosalie shrugged Irène off and ran to Saul, grabbing hold of the other man’s arm and trying to pull him off the musician. Just then someone’s elbow caught her in the temple. It sent her reeling and she reached for something to break her fall. But there was nothing, and when she fell and hit her head on a step, she saw a last sliver of light and then blacked out.
By the time she came round again, dazed and traumatised, a huge number of police had arrived and were busily handcuffing an indignant Saul and several of the right-wing Jeunesses Patriotes who swore and kicked at them. One of the policemen helped Rosalie to her feet. She was about to thank him but then he handcuffed her too.
‘But I didn’t do anything,’ she protested.
‘Then how come you have blood pouring down your face?’
Rosalie touched her cheeks and felt the sticky wet surface. She glanced at her hand. ‘Oh God. I’m bleeding.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Indeed. So, what’s a nicely brought-up girl like you doing in a place like this? How old are you?’
‘Twenty-one,’ she lied and touched her mouth, worrying that she might have broken a tooth too.
‘Sure you are. And I’m the Lord Mayor of Paris. Come on, off to the station with you.’
She tried to pull the edges of her coat together, do her buttons up, hide her scanty costume.
‘Don’t worry, miss. Already seen what you got. Tasty little piece. Soliciting, were you?’
‘Course not.’
‘Well, you can explain yourself down the station unless you’ve got something else to offer me?’
He laughed and she kicked him in the shin. Another policeman took hold of her arm and dragged her outside to a waiting police van. And although she protested loudly, she was bundled into the back of the van, her objections unheeded.
At dawn the next morning, the door to the cell Rosalie shared with two other women – both of whom had painful-looking bruised eyes – swung open and a policeman entered. She had used her coat to rub the blood and as much of her make-up as she could from her face. Certainly, the scarlet lipstick was gone, the rouge too, she hoped, but the eye make-up … well, she wasn’t so sure. She had no mirror to check but she didn’t want her parents seeing her ‘done up like a tart’ – her mother’s habitual reaction at the sight of a vulgar ‘fancy’ woman. The policeman pushed Rosalie through a long, rank corridor smelling of stale sweat and tobacco, and then up some stairs which led to a small room at the back of the station. There her father stood, rigid with anger.
‘Thank you, Officer,’ he said, so tight-lipped his voice was almost a hiss. ‘I can assure you this will never happen again.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘And I can trust you to keep this quiet?’
The man nodded and patted his pocket. Her father had clearly paid him off.
Rosalie opened her mouth to speak.
Her father held up a hand. ‘Not … one … word.’ He thrust her out through the door and followed behind.
She spent the silent car journey home trying to figure out what to say. Her coat was tightly buttoned, and her father hadn’t seen what she was wearing beneath it, so maybe she could say a friend had taken her to the bar for a drink. It wasn’t the best excuse, and they wouldn’t like it, but it was better than admitting she worked as a dancer there. Her authoritarian father would have a fit. And as for her mother, there was no way of guessing what she might do, but it would certainly involve hysterics. Neither of them had the first idea about having fun.
Papa was a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Public Works. He was proud that during the turmoil between ministers he had been the spokesman on anything to do with the reconstruction of France. His career meant everything to him, and his wife and children only seemed to cause him barely concealed indifference.
Rosalie had only told her sister about her secret dancing job. Claudette was nine years older and promised not to say a word but had strongly advised against continuing with it. She had three children: Hélène, Élise, and little Florence, and they all lived in England. Her husband was half French, half English. She regularly came back to Paris to see her parents, and in between visits Rosalie missed her big sister terribly. For theirs was a home of little warmth, where keeping up appearances was everything, emotions were repressed, and it was Rosalie’s duty to become a good wife and mother. Claudette was the only one Rosalie loved.
Back at home, her parents gave her a horrendously hard time, but she stuck to her story that she had been taken to Johnny’s Bar for a drink by a friend who had led her astray.
‘What is that black stuff round your eyes?’ her mother demanded.
‘I—’
‘Who was the friend?’ she interjected, not waiting for an answer. Her father, who was less interested in that, spoke up now.
‘I’ll not have you involved with the communists,’ he said, true to form.
‘I’m not,’ Rosalie insisted. It was true, after all. She wasn’t involved with communists.
Her father supported the Action française which was said to be financially underwritten by perfumier, businessman, and newspaper publisher, François Coty. The rumours spoke of his many mistresses and multiple illegitimate children, but her father turned a blind eye to that. What he cared about was that Coty had grown to become one of the wealthiest men in France during the war and had backed several of her father’s reconstruction projects. Whatever was true about Coty or not, it was clear he and the rest of the right wing aimed to prevent the growth of French socialism by fanning the populist fear of communism.
Her mother was still demanding to know the name of the friend who’d led her astray.
‘Just someone I met at ballet class,’ Rosalie lied. ‘Anyway, she’s left now.’
‘Well, you are never to see her again,’ her mother replied. ‘In fact, it’s high time you stopped ballet. I will cancel your lessons and increase your typing classes.’
Rosalie quietly groaned.
‘You’re too tall to ever be a ballet dancer and far too …’
And there she stopped, but Rosalie knew what she meant. Rosalie was extremely curvaceous, which of course had been one of the reasons Johnny had been keen to take her on. The Americans enjoyed a woman with something they could grab hold of and were not interested in half-starved Parisian waifs.
‘Time to find you a suitable husband,’ her mother continued. ‘Or you’ll be left on the shelf. You can’t remain under our roof for ever, doing just whatever you please.’
Rosalie turned away. When she found the man for her, she’d know it. Her heart would sing, and she’d feel such passion it would bowl her over. None of her mother’s choices had caused even the slightest wobble.
CHAPTER 8
A bearded man with a bulbous nose, who could either have been an artist or a criminal, seemed to be studying Rosalie. She tried to meet his pale, guarded eyes but they were focused just shy of her left ear, unsettling her. Judging by the look of the network of broken veins on his cheeks, he was a drunk, but still Irène led her across to the bar to introduce them.
He frowned and something pulsed inside her. A warning maybe. Rosalie shot her friend a curious look. Why was she insisting on introducing them?
‘This,’ Irène said, ignoring the look, ‘is Pierre.’
‘Drink?’ the man said.
She spotted he had two chipped teeth then looked down at his feet. You could tell a lot by a person’s footwear and his shoes were expensive, Italian leather. When she glanced up, she smiled. ‘Pernod, please.’
‘Good choice,’ the man said.
‘Pierre has something for you,’ Irène said.
‘Really?’ Rosalie said, tapping her fingers on the bar counter.
The man studied her face before speaking, and something about the way he did it made her feel wary. There was menace in his gaze. She saw it in the way the skin around his eyes tightened as if he were calculating.
‘What would you say if I told you that your father has a secret?’ he finally said.
Rosalie frowned. How did this man even know who her father was?
‘I’d laugh at you,’ she replied, already sensing that if she engaged with him there might be no turning back.
He tilted his head to one side and scrutinised her face again. ‘You’d be wrong to do so.’
‘How can someone like you know anything about my father?’
‘I could take the information to the police.’
As well as a sickly-sweet cologne, danger came off this man in waves.
‘What’s it about?’ she asked.
He scribbled something on a piece of paper, and she raised her brows.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘Interested in saving your father’s reputation?’
‘You have proof?’
‘I do.’
And what do you want in return?’
‘Just a small payment.’
‘How much is small?’
The door of the bar swung open and a group of wealthy young people swept in, older than her of course, laughing and teasing each other as they clamoured for champagne. High spirits, she thought, longing to be one of them.
The man whispered something in her ear.
She raised her brows. ‘I don’t have that kind of money.’
‘I’m sure you can find a way.’
‘In that case,’ she said, turning to watch the newcomers and quickly deliberating before twisting back to the man, ‘I will see you and your proof the evening after next.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow.’
The next afternoon, while her mother was taking a nap on the chaise longue in the drawing room, Rosalie crept into her parents’ bedroom, where heavily draped velvet curtains shut out the light. This was risky and she’d have preferred to wait until a time when her mother might be out enjoying her weekly luncheon with her cronies.
Would the man really go to the police? What information could he possibly have? Rosalie had lain awake all night going over it in her head. Now she withdrew the small key to the old jewellery box her mother kept on a shelf in her wardrobe. Her father had intended to install a safe in the apartment, but luckily for Rosalie, that hadn’t happened yet. She unlocked the box, lifted the mother-of-pearl lid, and then pulled open the lowest of the satin-lined drawers where the very smallest pieces of jewellery were kept in velvet drawstring bags. Without her mother ever noticing, she’d been trying on these family heirlooms for years. Now she withdrew a pair of tiny glittering earrings, their absence least likely be noticed. She replaced them in their velvet bag and, hearing a sound from the drawing room, crept out and ran soundlessly to her own room.
That night she danced as she’d never danced before. More overtly sensually, and more dangerously. In the crowded, smoky room, the mirrors glittered with reflected light and, ramping her performance up, she swayed her pelvis, feeling like an enchantress. Then she turned her back and rotated her feather-clad bottom to jubilant yells from the audience. She kicked up her legs and twisted her body, the eroticism charging the already excited audience with an even headier thrill.
When it was over and the clamour had died down, she met with Pierre again. This time Irène did not stick around, perhaps knowing it was going to be a private exchange.
‘You got what I wanted?’ he asked when they were both settled in an alcove with drinks before them.
Discreetly, she showed him the earrings.
He whistled. ‘Nice. But I said cash.’
‘That wasn’t possible. These are diamonds and worth far more.’
He pulled a disgruntled face. ‘More traceable too.’
She smiled, beginning to enjoy the exchange. ‘I’m sure you’ll find a way. So, what have you got for me?’
He drew in his breath and then leant forward conspiratorially. ‘It’s complicated. The bottom line is that your father is using another name, not his own.’
‘And?’ she frowned. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘To defraud the government.’
Now she laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s clear you know nothing about my father.’
He inclined his head and gave her an insincere smile. ‘There was an article in which he was quoted and in which his photograph appeared.’
‘In Le Temps. I saw it. He was talking about the success of French reconstruction since the war. It’s the department he works for.’
‘And you were proud of him?’
She sniffed. ‘I don’t have that kind of relationship with my father, not that it’s any business of yours.’
‘So, you wouldn’t be interested in knowing he has set up a little construction company of his own?’
‘I’d be extremely bored by that.’
He tilted his head. ‘A company that does not really exist, into which considerable sums of governmental money have poured for work that has never been done.’
She laughed again. ‘Where on earth are you getting all this?’
‘I have my contacts.’
‘So? Go to the police.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘The police do not pay for such information.’
‘And you have proof with you now?’
He passed her a folder. ‘You will find it there. My cousin, shall I call her, works at the bank where the money is paid in and from where your father draws it out. Like I said, he uses a false name, but my “cousin” recognised him from the photograph in Le Temps.’
‘Where’s the bank?’
‘All in the folder. The bank is in a distant suburb where under normal circumstances nobody would be likely to recognise your father. Civil servants are usually grey, faceless men. Usually his image would not have been in the paper, but with no minister in post, it was.’
‘But why would my father do this? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘You may not know it, but your father has another secret.’
She stared at him, feeling a strange fluttering in her chest. ‘Not another family?’
He laughed. ‘I can put your mind at rest about that. He gambles, my dear.’
She frowned. ‘Where?’
‘Private members’ clubs. Secret clubs.’
‘So why not go straight to him with this?’
He twisted his mouth to the side. ‘Because he’d kick over the traces in moments and I’d likely be carted off as a blackmailer.’
‘Which you are.’
‘Maybe.’ He lifted the earrings and smiled. ‘But I’m not a greedy man. These will do nicely.’
‘Who else knows?’
He sighed. ‘Only my cousin knows about the bank. But I do have an associate who works in one of the private members’ clubs. It was only I who put two and two together.’
The next day was Sunday and Rosalie was feeling jittery, her nerves completely on edge. She needed to decide whether to show the folder to her father or not. He would be outraged if he saw it, not least with her, and would undoubtedly deny everything, but if she didn’t show it to him, what then? Pierre or his cousin might get greedier. Demand more, or even inform the police. If a scandal erupted, then everything would be lost and her father could go to prison. She wasn’t his greatest fan, but she didn’t hate him. At least if she gave him the folder, he might be able to ward off disgrace and humiliation.
After a long dreary lunch, during which she tapped her foot nervously and was scolded for it while her mother ate painstakingly slowly, she went to her room and then came back into the drawing room carrying the folder.
‘You need to see this, Papa,’ she said, holding it out.
He didn’t look up. ‘Put it down somewhere, I’m reading.’
‘Papa, you have to see this now.’
Her mother raised her chin. ‘Do not speak to your father like that, child. What are you thinking?’
‘But Maman …’
Her father looked up now. ‘Well give it to me then,’ he said and reached out for the folder. Rosalie watched anxiously as he opened it and read the contents. His face turned pale.
