The Last Dress from Paris(81)
Anne negotiates the stairs at a snail’s pace, stopping frequently for Alice to breathe and control the seesawing feeling of dizziness. They make it as far as her bedroom door before Alice feels the room darken around her and her body collapses into Anne.
“I think I need to call you a doctor,” says Anne. “You’re not well enough to make it to the surgery yourself.”
Alice doesn’t argue. She allows Anne to lift and move her rag doll arms and legs out of her dress and to help recline her back onto the bed. Moments later she is sound asleep.
* * *
? ? ?
When she comes to, Anne and her regular doctor are standing by her bedside, Anne’s hand on her cold, clammy arm.
“Madame Ainsley, I have Dr. Bertrand with me. He’s going to check a few of your vitals to reassure us all it’s nothing serious. Is that okay?”
“Yes, of course. You’ll have had a wasted journey, I’m sure, but please do what you feel is necessary.” Anne helps to sit her up, stacking two large pillows behind her. She feels a little weak, almost like the sleep never happened.
“I am very happy to have my time wasted if it means you are well, Madame Ainsley. Now, let me have your arm and we’ll start with your pulse and blood pressure.” He takes a firm hold of her arm with one hand and pops a thermometer under her tongue with the other.
“Are you taking any medications I should be aware of?”
She shakes her head.
“Your pulse is fine, but your blood pressure is a little low. Aside from the fainting, have you had any other symptoms?”
“Not at all, I am in perfect health.”
“Okay. Well, I am happy that you seem fine for now. But I want to be called if there are any further symptoms, please.”
“Of course, but honestly I think we can consider this a one-off.” Alice shuffles up higher in the bed, keen to demonstrate she doesn’t intend to be in it for much longer.
“And I would like you to do a urine test, please.” He hands Anne a small tubular container. “It’s the best way to highlight an infection that we may otherwise miss. It will give us a good overview of your protein, sugar, and hormone levels so we can rule out anything serious. Perhaps you will be good enough to bring the sample downstairs to me when Madame Ainsley is done?” he asks Anne.
“Of course. We’ll just be a couple of minutes.” She guides the doctor back toward the bedroom door.
“The results will take a few days, and who knows, we may be looking for bad news where there is only good,” he adds, allowing his face to soften slightly into the whisper of a smile.
“Oh, what an almighty fuss,” moans Alice the second he is out of earshot. “But while you are down there, please will you grab a tape measure, Anne? I need you to take my latest measurements and phone them through to Dior. I don’t have time to go back into the boutique.”
“Of course. I won’t be long.”
* * *
? ? ?
While Anne is gone, Alice’s thoughts turn to the toile de Jouy fabric from her last visit to Dior. She thinks about Antoine’s words this morning, his determination for them to be together, his blind insistence that they will be. But before she can fully lose herself in the fantasy, the bedroom door flies open and Anne flails into the room, her face ashen.
“What on earth?” Alice sits bolt upright.
“Albert.” One single word capable of striking a cold shard of fear through Alice.
“My God, now what? What has he said to you?”
“Nothing. He never said a word. I walked into the cloakroom to find my handbag, I always keep a tape measure in there.”
“Yes, and?”
“And Albert was in there. Alice, he was searching through my handbag.”
“What? What a total invasion. What can he possibly be thinking?” But even as the words are leaving Alice’s lips, her brain has jumped ahead of her. “Oh my God. Did he see it?” The room seems to drain of all its warmth, the air thinning around them. “My letter to Antoine. Please tell me it wasn’t in there. Please, Anne!”
“It was.” Her hands are pulling at her hair, her mouth slashed open in a panicked grimace. “But it’s not now. I’m so sorry, Alice, I think he has it.”
21
Lucille
SATURDAY
LONDON
Stepping into Mum’s vast apartment is like entering an air vacuum. It’s hard to believe any human or plant life-form can exist in it. If she had Do Not Touch signs strategically positioned, it wouldn’t be any more of a deterrent than the freakish tidiness of the place already is.
Seriously, who lives like this? Everything is so precisely considered and angled. Nothing is accidental. Symmetry reigns supreme. But it does provide a wonderful window into the mind of someone for whom control, accuracy, and single-mindedness are everything. The effort to achieve it must swallow hours of her time, every single day.
Color is common, apparently, so everything is a shade that ranges from white through beige to gray. Cream hydrangeas look crisp enough to have been picked this morning; cushions, like they have been lined up with a ruler. To most people, I imagine this is the high-shine dream. To me it’s clinical and frigid. It makes me want to shout something vulgar or violently swing my handbag at something expensive. Give me the cake-crumb comfort of Granny’s cottage any day.