The Designer(63)

‘Don’t worry about me. I have always made my own way in life.’

‘Not always,’ Yvonne said quietly.

‘Well, I do so now.’ A well-dressed couple had come into the shop and were inspecting an Empire chaise longue. ‘Don’t neglect your customers, Yvonne. A bient?t, my dear.’

‘Do drop in again, any time you have nothing better to do.’

‘You may count on it.’

The two women kissed, careful not to actually touch rouged mouths to each other’s cheeks. Suzy put her arm through Copper’s possessively as they walked out.

On the pavement outside, Copper pulled away from her angrily. ‘So that’s why you dressed me up so carefully today. To show me off like a pet poodle.’

‘Perhaps there was some such thought in my mind,’ Suzy said tranquilly. She was looking pleased with herself. ‘But you are hardly a poodle, chérie.’

‘Whatever I am, I’m not your possession. I was absolutely mortified in there.’

‘Why should you be mortified?’

‘Because you only took me in there to discomfort that woman.’

‘You asked to meet her.’

‘I didn’t!’

‘I must have mistaken your curiosity, then.’

‘You were horrible to her.’

‘Was I?’

‘At your worst.’

‘I think you exaggerate. Yvonne and I understand one another very well.’

‘You were practically at each other’s throats.’

‘Perhaps. But were we to forgive one another, we might both find life somewhat duller.’

‘So you take all your conquests in there to show them off?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘You do. I can see it in your face.’

Suzy was laughing at her. ‘Of course I want to show you off. You are beautiful. And you are mine.’

‘I’m not yours,’ Copper snapped. ‘I’m going home.’

‘Copper, don’t go.’

‘Don’t call me again.’



Copper was deeply offended. The episode had left her feeling used and acutely embarrassed. On her way home, she tried to work out why it had been quite so distasteful. It wasn’t just the mortification of being paraded like some creature on a leash; it was the feeling that she had been no more than a dart hurled in a battle between two middle-aged women. It was all very well to be Suzy’s friend, but not if that meant she became a pet – with a pet’s loss of dignity. There was something suffocating, too, about her pampering. She couldn’t wait to get Suzy’s clothes off.

She reached the apartment in a temper, to find Pearl nursing a spectacular black eye.

‘What the hell happened to you?’ Copper demanded.

‘I walked into a door.’

‘Walked into a fist, you mean. And I know whose.’ She examined Pearl’s face angrily. The bruise extended from the swollen eye right across Pearl’s cheek, fading from violet to yellow. ‘How can you keep going back to that bastard?’

‘What about you, Copper Pot?’ Pearl said wearily. ‘She’s got you dressed up in her cast-offs. And drenched in her perfume. What’s that for – to cover the smell of cat?’

Copper escaped to her room and changed out of Suzy’s silk outfit. Her wardrobe was starting to fill with Suzy’s gifts. One couldn’t really call them cast-offs – most were fine Lanvin designs no more than a few months old – but they all carried something of Suzy on them. Where another woman’s dresses might have smelled of her favourite perfume, Suzy’s clothes had a hint of her body. Under the arms, they smelled of Suzy’s musk, bringing emotions flooding back into Copper’s mind. She wondered whether Pearl wasn’t right in her dire warnings that this relationship with Suzy would change her forever. It probably would. But perhaps she wanted to change. What else was life all about?



She was in her shabby old dressing gown when the knock came. It was Christian Dior, carrying a little white dog under one arm.

‘It’s Jacinthe,’ he said apologetically when he’d been admitted and was settled in front of the stove with a glass of red wine. ‘Bébé’s dog. She’s been locked in his studio all this time. Poor little thing, she’s almost starved to death. He’d left food and water, but it obviously ran out. I wondered whether you could look after her? Until Bébé is back with us?’

Copper took the trembling little animal, feeling the fragile, birdlike bones under the matted curls. ‘Of course I’ll take her.’

Copper took Jacinthe to the bathroom to wash her. She was in a pathetic state, her fur knotted and filthy, and her eyes rolling in distress. She also smelled awful. Dior came to sit with Copper and observed as she gently lathered the small dog.

‘How is Bébé?’ she asked.

He sighed. ‘They won’t let me see him yet. But I’ve been through these cures before with him and it’s terribly hard. He gets very ill. Last time, he almost died.’

‘Oh, Tian! What a tragedy.’

‘Yes. He is the most brilliant person I know. But with Bébé, there are no half-measures. He can’t stop until he’s completely shattered, whether it’s work or play. He simply pours himself out. The rest of us eke out our talents in a miserly fashion because we know how limited they are.’ Dior leaned on the edge of the tub. His face, shiny with steam from Jacinthe’s bath, was melancholy. ‘I don’t think he can last much longer.’