The Designer(92)

He pointed to his bandage. ‘You think the investors will be impressed by a guy with a hole in his head?’

‘Get a wig,’ she said shortly. ‘Wear a hat. Use your imagination.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Tell me about this husband of yours.’

Copper felt the cogs of her mind engage against the idea of exposing her happiness with Henry to Amory’s nihilist scorn. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

‘He’s that good, huh? Or is he that bad?’

Copper gathered her things. ‘I’d better go.’

His laughter dried up. ‘Don’t leave. I’ll stop being a jerk.’

‘I don’t think you will.’

‘Maybe you’re right. I should get back to my novel anyhow.’ He opened the notebook and flipped through the pages. Copper saw that they were covered with doodles in red ink. There were no lines of text, only staring faces and meaningless scribbles. ‘This is my best work yet,’ he said with a skewed smile.



As she left the day room, Copper reflected that Amory was right in one thing he had said, at least. He was still essentially a child, while she was an adult. If she had felt that way two years ago, she felt it even more now. She had grown up, and she was married to another grown-up, who behaved like an adult and treated her like an adult.

‘How was your visit?’ Sister Gibson asked Copper at the door.

‘I don’t know whether it had the effect you wanted,’ Copper replied.

‘Maybe it did. There was a lot he needed to get off his chest.’

‘I hope he recovers from the wound.’

‘Wouldn’t you say he has more than the one wound?’ Copper looked into the nurse’s china-blue eyes, wondering what tales Amory had told of her cruelty. Sister Gibson smiled. ‘I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ll tell the family you came. They’ll be pleased, I’m sure. Good day, Mrs Velikovsky.’





Sixteen

‘I’ve done something stupid,’ Dior said.

Henry poured him a glass of wine. ‘What’s the matter?’

Dior took the glass, but he was too agitated to drink it. He paced the carpet in distress, his face pale. ‘I went to see Boussac. About Gaston, you know. I went in there determined to refuse his offer. But—’

‘You said yes instead!’ Copper exclaimed.

‘I did something far worse. I told him I wanted my own couture house, under my own name.’

‘Tian!’

‘It all just burst out of me. I told him it was time for a change, that the old fashions were as dead as the dodo. I said there was no use trying to breathe life into a corpse, and that we had to go back to the highest traditions of French couture or go under forever.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He asked what else I wanted, in a very ironic tone. I told him I wanted the best workers in Paris, making the most luxurious clothes for the best-dressed women in France.’

Copper was listening with bated breath. ‘And then?’

‘He told me that this wasn’t what he had been thinking of at all. He said my plan was overambitious. And then he showed me out.’

Henry refilled his glass. ‘At least you told him what you wanted.’

‘What if he thinks it over – and agrees?’

‘Then you’ll be made.’

‘Oh, my God. Then I’ll be finished, you mean.’



‘He must have finally snapped after all the years under Lucien Lelong,’ Copper said to Henry when Dior had left.

They were in their bedroom and she was rolling her stockings down her slim legs. Henry had been watching her with smoky eyes while he undressed. ‘Stop.’

She looked up. ‘Stop what?’

‘Just don’t move. You’re so beautiful.’

‘With my stockings half off?’

‘I want to remember this moment for ever.’

Copper smiled, pausing in her undressing. ‘What’s so special about this moment?’

‘Every moment with you is special. But sometimes it strikes me—’

‘What strikes you, my dear?’

‘How very beautiful you are. That you are here with me. That you are mine at last. The miracle of you. All that is astonishing to me. And when that thought strikes me, I want to take a moment out of time and hold it forever, so it can never be lost.’ He came to kneel in front of her. ‘I can still hardly believe that you’re my wife.’

‘Well, I am. I promised never to run away again.’

‘Are you happy with me?’ he asked as he slipped her stockings all the way down to her ankles with deft fingers.

‘I’m blissfully happy, Henry. You must know that.’

He took the diaphanous nylons off her slender feet. ‘There is nothing that I could improve on?’

‘You exceed all my expectations constantly.’ She ran her fingers through his hair. ‘You’re not worrying about anything – anybody – are you?’

He kissed the delicate veins of her ankles with warm lips. ‘I want to make you happy.’

‘No man – or woman – has ever made me feel the way you do,’ she said tenderly. ‘If you’re worrying about Suzy, she never gave me the happiness you do. You give me heaven. If I’d known how happy you would make me, I would never have left you at the altar like that. I’d have shouted “Yes, yes, yes” and dragged you home to bed.’