Chapter 22

Paris

1884

I sprawled on the bed in my breeches, watching Camille get ready for the ball. Her mouth full of pins, she cursed as she struggled to put up her hair in an elaborate style. I went to help and tucked it into a loose knot.

‘There,’ I said. ‘You should have dressed up as a boy, like me, much easier than squeezing into stays and fiddling about with hairpins.’

Camille was in dark blue silk, which shone like a blackbird’s wing against her pale skin. She ran her hands down the bodice that pushed her breasts up into tight little domes, caught me looking and grinned. ‘Not bad, eh?’ I undid a button on my cambric shirt so it bared my shoulders. Camille pulled at it and gasped when she saw I was bare-breasted underneath it. She sighed. ‘You’re so lucky not having to wear a corset with your costume.’

‘Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit would have looked a little odd in one,’ I said. We admired our disguises in the dressing table mirror: me, a young Italian boy, my hair tied back with a ribbon, and Camille, Artemisia Gentileschi, the seventeenth-century artist who had dared to paint herself as Judith beheading Holofernes. ‘You look magnificent,’ I said. ‘Have you got the sword?’ In answer she picked it up from the floor, pushed me onto the bed and pressed a wooden sword to my throat, its tip red with gore. We tussled until I gained the upper hand and threw her off. I took the sword and touched the bloody end. It was still tacky. ‘Is that what happened to my Cadmium Red? The tube was completely empty.’

‘And I used up the Venetian Red on the severed head.’ Camille nodded at the dressing table. On it sat poor Holofernes’ head, which she’d made with wire and papièr-maché.

‘Pig.’

‘Salope. Here, I’ll make it up to you.’

Kneeling on the bed, Camille took out a small tin and rubbed her finger in it. She dabbed a slick of rouge on her lips and then on mine. I looked at my reflection and when I smiled my teeth were white against the red. Camille sat next to me, the little pot of rouge still in her hand, and looked at me in the mirror.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘some of the models put rouge on their nipples.’

‘No! Why do they do that?’

She shrugged and grinned at me. ‘Do you want to try?’ I hesitated then opened my shirt to reveal my breasts. She dipped her finger in the rouge and smeared it on my nipples. They tingled and the skin puckered under her touch. Camille held out the pot to me. ‘Your turn.’ She pulled down her corset and I rubbed on the make-up. I saw her nipples harden and had an urge to take them in my mouth. I screwed the lid back on the pot and avoided her eyes in the mirror.

‘Let’s have a cigarette before we go down,’ I said.

Camille took two from the enamelled silver box on the dressing table and put one in my mouth. ‘Want to keep Georges waiting, eh?’

Georges was waiting in the street below to take us to the Madwomen’s Ball, but there was no rush this evening – we could stay out as long as we wanted. Camille’s mother had gone to the Claudels’ country house. She had left instructions with the maid to act as our chaperone, but Eugénie was only too happy to leave us to our own devices. Four glorious months of freedom stretched ahead of us.

I lit our cigarettes. ‘It won’t do Georges any harm to cool his heels for a bit.’

Camille laughed in her throat. ‘That’s right, you show him who’s boss.’ She blew out a stream of smoke and we sat for a while in silence. When she turned to face me, she looked troubled. ‘I’ve been meaning to speak to you, about Rodin.’

I didn’t want to speak about their affair, think about them together, but I said, ‘Yes, go on.’

‘I want you to know that he does love me, truly, and only me.’

I knew she was thinking about Rose Beuret. We hadn’t talked about her since that day at the studio, but she had been troubling me. The situation was already fraught with danger, and now there was another woman involved, a woman who insisted on calling herself Madame Rodin.

Camille took a deep breath. ‘The other day in the studio, when we saw that woman, Rodin’s, you know, I was shocked. I didn’t know about her either.’

I looked at her sharply. ‘You must have known. Didn’t he tell you he wasn’t free?’

She shook her head but wouldn’t look at me. ‘Not until now. But he explained it all to me. You see, the problem is, that he can’t leave her, this Rose, not until their son gets on his feet. They’re having trouble with him, Rodin says. The boy had a fall when he was a child and has never been normal. Rodin won’t say any more, says he can’t just walk out on her, not yet anyway. But he says she means nothing to him.’

‘Are you sure about that? I wouldn’t underestimate her.’

Camille straightened up and looked at me. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She cornered me when you were…when you were with Rodin.’

‘You never told me. Why didn’t you tell me?’

My temper sparked. ‘Well, I’m telling you now!’

‘D’accord, calme-toi.’ She squinted at me through the smoke. ‘So, what’s she like, this so-called Madame Rodin?’

‘Formidable. She thought I had designs on Rodin and warned me off.’ Camille sniggered. ‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘You should have seen her – I’m sure she would have struck me if Georges hadn’t turned up and convinced her I didn’t have my claws in her man.’

Camille put her arm around my shoulder. ‘I can just imagine how he did that. Did he tell her you were his?’ I nodded and she laughed. ‘Any excuse! You really ought to put Georges out of his misery. He won’t leave you alone until you do.’

I shook her off, irritated. I couldn’t seem to make her understand the threat from Rose. It was like watching from a distance, powerless, as Camille walked too close to a cliff edge, oblivious of the rocks below. It would take only one false step and she would fall. I tried again. ‘The problem here is not Georges. The problem is Rose Beuret. I don’t think you know what you’re up against. You should have seen the way she challenged me; she’d have been at my throat if Georges hadn’t stepped in.’

Camille threw up her hands. ‘You see what Rodin has to put up with? He says she’s jealous of everyone, accuses him of sleeping with all the models – as if he would bother with those empty-heads when he has me!’ I wasn’t so sure Rodin had given up his taste for models. I’d seen the way he touched the two Italian sisters whenever he got the chance, the sly little strokes and pinches. Camille had grown more strident, as if to drown out any doubts she had about Rodin. She threw her cigarette butt on the floor and ground it beneath her heel. ‘He’s promised me he will leave Rose, and I believe him. It’s just the time isn’t right.’ Camille glared at me, daring me to challenge her version. I stared back at her and she put her head in her hands. She groaned. ‘Listen to me, I sound like an idiot. How often have you heard the grisettes bleat out the same excuses for their married lovers? The truth is I don’t know whether to believe him. Jessie, I don’t know what to do.’ She began to cry and I gathered her in my arms.

‘Hush now, hush.’

‘I love him,’ she said, her voice muffled.

‘I know you do. It’ll be all right, you’ll see.’

I could feel her tears on my neck, and then her lips, soft and open. I shuddered and her mouth found mine. Perhaps it was being dressed as a boy, or the emotion of the last few days, but I didn’t pull away and kissed her back. Our mouths opened, the tips of our tongues hot and soft; such warmth. We shifted closer, our hands exploring, when a pebble cracked against the window. We jumped apart and looked at each other, our breath coming in short gasps. Camille was the first to recover.

She laughed and pushed her hair out of her eyes. ‘I don’t know what came over me. You must not pay me any mind, Jessie, I’m not myself.’

I should have been relieved – after all this was the sort of thing curious schoolgirls did – but instead I was disappointed to hear her dismiss our embrace as an aberration. I shook myself. Camille was right: it meant nothing.

I stood up and buttoned my shirt. ‘That’ll be Georges.’

We went out onto the balcony and a figure stepped into the circle of light cast by a street lamp. Camille put her arm around my waist and we waved. From the street we must have been a strange sight, me in my breeches and Camille in her dress.

‘Jessie!’ Georges called. ‘What’s taking you so long? Come down!’

We touched up our rouge in the mirror. I met Camille’s eyes and bit my lip. ‘Let’s go. Georges is waiting.’