The Last Dress from Paris(11)
She feels a deep gratitude spread through her. A connection.
Perhaps some genuine common ground? He studies at the Sorbonne too. Alice feels her lips part to thank him, but the words won’t come. It suddenly seems so sad to be grateful for something others so easily take for granted.
Then Madame du Parcq is back at his side, and the moment is broken. Antoine straightens and Alice snaps a look of innocence across her face before his mother drags Antoine off under the guise of more necessary introductions and Alice excuses herself to check on the arrangements, her heart knocking against her ribs, her cheeks now a deeper shade of rose.
* * *
? ? ?
By eleven p.m., Alice is back in her bedroom. Anne’s fingers are lightly retracing her earlier routine, gradually freeing Alice from the dress she has worn this evening. Alice can feel her body gently yield as the corset is relaxed and then instinctively tighten again as Albert strides into the room. It should be him undressing me, she thinks, and wonders if that’s occurring to him, too, not entirely at ease with the idea it could be. Would he like to undress his wife like he used to? To peel back the layers of silk, her feeling his increased urgency, to reveal the softness beneath, flesh that once gladly responded to him. The glacial impartiality of his face would suggest he’s having no such thoughts.
“Christ, doesn’t she have a home to go to!” He tosses a hand dismissively in Anne’s direction. He can’t even remember her name, notes Alice. She feels Anne’s fingers pick up speed, and she knows the sudden urgency is for her own benefit, not Anne’s. Anne will leave soon, return to the safe sanctuary of her own home, and she won’t want Alice to be left to deal with an irritated Albert.
“Sorry, Monsieur Ainsley, I won’t be much longer.”
Albert doesn’t respond, but simply kicks off his shoes, expecting Anne to put them away, and heads straight for the door again.
“Darling, I’d love to hear all about this evening.” Alice loathes the mild desperation in her voice, like she’s searching for the scrap of a compliment, whatever he might choose to throw her way. “Who you spoke to and what everyone had to say. It seemed a success, wouldn’t you agree? Shall I ask Patrice to fix us a nightcap?”
“He can put a whiskey in the library for me. I’ve got at least a couple of hours’ work to catch up on.” The door closes and he’s gone, leaving Alice and Anne alone, the latter trying very hard to look as though she isn’t offended, like she wasn’t really listening. But it’s the slightly sympathetic dip of Anne’s mouth Alice can’t bear.
“I’m so sorry, Anne.” Alice will do his apologizing for him again.
“You have absolutely no need to apologize to me, think nothing of it. But—”
“Will you leave tonight’s guest list on the desk for me there, please?” Alice cuts her off; she’s far too tired to get into the rights and wrongs of Albert’s behavior now. Besides, she knows everyone who attended this evening will require a personal handwritten thank-you for doing so. “I may as well make a start on the thank-you notes now.”
After she’s struggled through twenty or so cards, Alice gives up. She’s wide awake but lacking the inspiration to make the cards sound personal and genuine, as they need to be. Her mind repeatedly wanders back to Antoine’s words from earlier this evening: I saw something different in you. She finds herself doodling them on one of the small brown dress cards that Anne uses.
Maybe Albert will have finished his work by now. Maybe he’ll appreciate an interruption, an excuse to switch off his desk lamp and chat to her. She doesn’t want to go to bed alone again tonight. She creeps along the corridor to the library. The door is shut, but she can hear her husband on the phone. It’s one a.m. Who can he possibly be speaking to now? Whoever it is, his hushed, casual tone suggests it’s not a business associate, and it would be a bad idea to interrupt him. She heads back to the bedroom, closing the solid wooden door. She leans against it, looking around the huge expanse of their bedroom, thinking about how few nights they have shared the same bed. Can it really only be just over a year since they would wake, tangled in each other’s bodies beneath the cool white sheets of their honeymoon suite, the rhythmic lap of the waves below gently stirring them both from sleep? Since they arrived in Paris, Alice feels like her untouched body has physically hardened. With every night Albert has made his excuses not to sleep with her, her confidence has withered until there is all this space between them. Cold emptiness. In this room, in their bed, and in her heart, and absolutely nothing to fill any of it.
3
Lucille
FRIDAY
PARIS
There are very long, very bare legs all over the hotel lobby this evening. Legs balanced on toothpick-thin heels. Legs draped across the arms of velvet furniture, others bending over tables loaded with flutes of champagne. Legs that are, no joke, twice the length of mine and topped with fringed sequin skirts that dance around barely covered bottoms. These legs are tan, lean; they have a sheen that speaks of the late-night parties they will be parading at later. I don’t recall ever seeing limbs like these back home. Not in my local, and certainly not anywhere near the gray open-plan office where I work. Dylan, the boss at the online travel website I’ve worked at for the past eighteen months, was not the slightest bit impressed when I emailed last night to say I needed to take today off. I’ve had to promise to check emails in case anything urgent crops up. I need to make sure I am back there bright and early Monday morning. That gives me two nights in Paris, plenty of time to grab Granny’s dress from Veronique’s tonight and be back in London for Sunday evening.