The Designer(9)

Copper smiled. ‘I think he is, too. I’m going to go home and tell him that right now.’



Copper returned to the flat to find it smelling strongly of Chanel No. 5. It was the perfume of the season. Gallons of it had been given away to GIs by Coco Chanel in an effort to erase her wartime record as a Nazi collaborator. The GIs had, in turn, bartered the perfume for sex; and the stuff was now being worn by every pute in Paris.

‘Have you had a visitor?’ she asked Amory, who was hammering at his typewriter, working on his novel.

‘No. Why?’

‘The place stinks of Chanel.’

‘Oh. Yes. A grubby little man came round, trying to sell a few bottles. He splashed it all over to show it was genuine.’

‘You’ve certainly got it all over you.’ She evaded his attempt to embrace her and went to the bedroom. Their bed was carelessly made – not the way she’d left it – the pillows dented and smeared with face powder. She stood staring at the bed, trying not to cry. Amory came in behind her.

‘It doesn’t mean anything, you know,’ he said.

‘Doesn’t it?’

‘You’re the only one who matters to me, Copper.’

She turned to face him. ‘But apparently I’m not enough.’

‘Well, it’s not as though we have a sparkling sex life these days. You never seem to want to make love anymore.’

She grimaced at that painful accusation. ‘Can you blame me?’

He rubbed his chin. ‘I suppose I’ve been behaving badly lately. Too much booze, too much sex, too many parties, too much of everything, really. I’ve been working on my novel a lot, and that makes me promiscuous.’

‘You’re always promiscuous.’

‘Well, that’s how I am. You know that.’

She started to cry. ‘Oh, Amory. In our bed.’

‘I could swear that I’m going to reform. But I might as well swear to change the colour of my eyes. It’s no good. And you know how they throw themselves at me.’ He spoke with the casual self-confidence of a man who knew he was beautiful.

The stinging tears slid down her cheeks and she dashed them away. ‘I don’t think I can stand this much longer.’

‘It was only a little kiss and cuddle, as it happens. We didn’t go any further than that.’

‘I don’t believe you; not that it matters.’

He shrugged, and went back to his typewriter. Copper stripped the bed, trying to stop crying. This wasn’t the first time, or the second, or even the third. She’d fooled herself about Amory’s infidelities, accepting his casual lies, telling herself that it didn’t matter, or she didn’t care, so long as he loved her. But it did matter. And this was the first time he’d taken another woman to their bed. That hurt very much indeed. It showed that he was now completely indifferent to her feelings.

She’d once been so feisty. She’d been the littlest one who’d grown up motherless with five siblings in a crowded apartment. She’d been the ginger kid who had marched with her father and brothers on the freezing picket lines.

She’d been appointed by the small fry to deal with the schoolyard bullies. She’d been the hoyden who’d been expelled from St Columba’s for slugging Sister Bridget (nobody had ever hit back before). Amory had fallen in love with her, so he’d said, for her fieriness.

But life with Amory had slowly and steadily put the dampers on her fire. He’d systematically frozen it out in that cool, calm way he had. She wanted to rage and scream, but she couldn’t. The scream stayed locked up inside her. She could tackle a lynch mob, but not her husband.

Screaming at Amory didn’t just come under the ‘nagging, pestering or complaining’ that the good wife was supposed to eschew. It would make him retreat into an icy fortress. He did not tolerate displays of emotion. And the fear that he would grow tired of her was always there. If a marriage was in trouble, you were supposed to fix it, not walk away. That’s what the experts said.

She went to the kitchen. ‘Do you want coffee?’ she asked Amory, in as near to a normal tone as she could manage. She saw his face relax as he realised that she wasn’t going to make a scene or demand further discussion.

‘Sure. How was Dior?’

‘He’s designed an outfit for me,’ she said, putting the percolator together blindly. Her voice was strained as she reached for a fa?ade of normality. ‘I insisted on paying. He wants five thousand francs.’

‘I’ll give you the money.’

She was not going to be bought off that easily. ‘No, thank you,’ she said in a brittle voice. ‘I’ve got the money.’

‘If that’s what you want to spend it on. Fashion is dead. Everyone knows that.’

‘What would you know about it?’

‘Don’t snap at me.’

‘Then don’t talk nonsense to me.’

He rattled out another sentence on his typewriter, his long fingers deft. ‘Let’s go out tonight.’

‘Where to?’

‘La Vie Parisienne. Said to be the most decadent bar in Paris.’

‘I think I’ve had enough decadence for one day.’

‘Oh, come on, kid. We’re in Paris. It won’t do either of us any good to sit at home moping.’