Chapter 27

The three of us – Camille, Georges and I – had just finished a long shift at Rodin’s studio. The little café at the end of the street was already closing when we arrived looking for a meal, so Georges suggested we go to his studio instead.

‘It’s not far – across the road, the door by that street lamp. There’s bread, cheese, wine and, of course, caviar.’

Camille yawned. ‘Why not? No one will know, unless you tell on us, Georges.’

I hesitated. It was one thing to be alone with Georges in Rodin’s studio, where we were colleagues, or out and about in public with Rosa keeping a sharp eye on him, but quite another to be alone with him in the privacy of his atelier. And since the night we’d kissed in the cab, Georges had been making it clear he wanted more with a little touch on the arm here, a lingering look there. And I’d been encouraging him, furious at William.

Camille tugged at my arm. ‘Come on, Jessie, don’t just stand there, I’m starving.’ She crossed the street ahead of us, but still I didn’t move. Snow began to fall and flakes came to rest in my eyelashes. I blinked them away, shivered and pulled my short cape more tightly around my shoulders. Georges unbuttoned his overcoat and wrapped it around me. It was lined with rust-coloured fur and I couldn’t help stroking the collar.

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘Russian wolf.’ He pulled the deep collar around my neck. ‘It suits you – it’s the same colour as your hair.’ He took off his gloves and held my face between his hands; they were warm. ‘Jessie, viens avec moi.’

I thought back to William in the painting, of his betrayal of the friendship we had shared since childhood. He had no right to sully it, no right at all. Why was I holding back when he had not? I tilted my face up to Georges, and he kissed me lightly, so lightly, on the lips, and led me through the deepening snow.

Camille was waiting for us in the doorway. ‘What took you so long? My feet are like ice.’ She stamped her boots. There was snow in her dark hair and her skin shone pale as a moonstone.

Georges unlocked the door and went over to an iron bed. He put his hand on a lump under the sable counterpane and shook it. ‘Sasha, wake up. We have company.’

A tousled head poked out of the fur and peered at us with cross little eyes, like a bear emerging from hibernation. ‘What time is it?’

‘Early. Just after midnight. We have guests.’

Georges’ Russian studio partner threw off the cover and stood in his longjohns. He scratched his tow-coloured head and grinned, pulled on a jacket with military frogging over his bare chest, and padded over to us.

He bowed and tried to click his stockinged feet together. ‘I am Aleksandr Cheburko Ivanovich. But you can call me Sasha.’

Camille laughed. ‘Well, Sasha, I am Camille and this is Jessie, and we are hungry enough to eat your fur bedding.’

‘No need! I have caviar and vodka.’ Sasha swept a shaving kit and jars filled with paintbrushes off a tea chest onto the floor. He beamed at us again and fetched a bottle of clear liquid, a tin of caviar and a hunk of bread and laid them out on his makeshift table. He indicated the bed. ‘Please.’

Camille and I sat down and Georges squeezed in between us, spreading the fur over our legs.

‘You girls can keep me warm,’ he said. ‘What a feast, Sasha. But vodka is rather strong for Jessie and Camille. I have a couple of bottles from my father’s vineyard, will you fetch them?’

The Russian brought the wine and a chair, which he sat astride. ‘You should try vodka. In my country, women drink it too. Is good for keeping out cold.’

‘I’d like to try it,’ I said.

Camille seemed to catch my reckless mood. She grinned as Sasha handed us small glasses of clear liquid. I took a sip and made a face as it burned a path down my throat.

‘No, no, like this.’ Sasha threw back his head and emptied his glass.

Camille copied him and fell into a coughing fit.

Georges patted her back. ‘I told you it was strong. Why must you always try to outdo the men? I swear, Camille, you’ll come to a bad end. Why don’t you just accept that women are the weaker sex?’

‘Never!’ Her defiance was spoiled by another bout of coughing.

Georges took the glass from my hand. ‘You should be more like Jessie, she knows how to behave.’

Well, I was sick of being a good girl – it hadn’t done me any favours so far. I took back my glass and swallowed the contents in one fiery gulp. The warmth spread through me and my courage returned: I was in Paris, alone. I could do anything I wanted. Anything. All those rules I’d been taught, the ones that applied to women but not men, could go to hell. William could go to hell.

‘Another,’ I gasped, holding out my glass to Sasha.

Georges shook his head. ‘You are both to eat something, straight away.’

‘Yes sir,’ I said and giggled. Camille belched and we laughed.

Georges rolled his eyes and muttered something about women not being able to hold their drink, but when we’d both eaten some briny caviar on rye bread, he poured us more vodka.

‘Santé,’ Camille said.

‘Bottoms up,’ I said in English.

‘Bottom? What is bottom?’ said Sasha.

‘Ton cul,’ Camille said, and we snorted with laughter, silly now and careless.

‘In Ukraine we say Budmo,’ said Sasha. ‘And we must shout, Hey! We do three time and everyone empty glasses each time.’

‘Hey! Hey! Hey!’ And down it went.

‘Jessie, you are English, da?’

I nodded, unable to speak. My tongue seemed too big for my mouth and I couldn’t feel my jaw. Sasha seemed unaffected and poured himself another drink.

‘I read many fine English books, Mr Dickens, Mr Hardy. You like famous Ukrainian writer Gogol? Dostoyevsky said we are all coming out from beneath Gogol’s overcoat.’

‘No, no, no! No book talk. I forbid it,’ Camille said. She wriggled off the bed and pulled Sasha to his feet. ‘Show me your work, Sasha, I want to see your work.’

He held out his hands, palm upwards, in surrender. ‘French women – so commanding, is irresistible.’

‘Bossy, more like,’ Georges said, leaning back on his elbows on the bed. ‘Don’t take any nonsense from her, Sasha. If Camille annoys you, put her over your knee. She likes that.’

Camille turned and stuck out her tongue at Georges. ‘It is you who needs punished, coquin.’ She squinted and shook her finger at me. ‘See to it, Jessie.’

Sasha opened a curtain over a doorway into the next room, where I could see canvases stacked against the walls.

He shook the bottle he still held. ‘First, I must buy more vodka, there is tavern near here.’

Camille noisily insisted on going with him and they both tumbled out into the cold. The door closed behind them.

Georges shifted on the bed to face me and pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. ‘Do you also think I need punished, Jessie?’

I pretended to consider the matter. ‘Well, you don’t always behave like a gentleman.’

‘I don’t care about any of that, all those rules for people of our class, about how we should behave.’

He sat up and took one of my hands in his. I thought he was going to take me in his arms and make love to me.

‘You seem troubled, Jessie, ever since that night at Henri’s studio. Has something happened?’

This was what made him so different from William. Georges paid attention to me, studying me like an artist studies a rival’s painting, looking carefully at the brushwork, at the colours used, at the composition. William reserved that concentration for his work. He loved me in a distracted, amused way more suited to a sister than a lover. Georges made me feel like he was interested in me, and only me, above everything else. He took me seriously, sought my opinion and treated me as an equal despite his jokes about women artists. And he was handsome in a careless, ruffled way that made me catch my breath. It was a devastating combination.

He was still looking at me, patiently waiting for me to speak, and I found myself talking about the painting, about William negotiating with those women. At one point, I began to cry and tried to take my hands from his to dry my eyes but he held them firm and kissed the tears from my cheeks with his warm mouth.

‘Jessie, if you were mine I would never look at another woman. With you it would be different. He must be mad to let you slip from his hands. Me, I would never let you go, never.’

He tightened his grip on my hands and I cried out. Then his mouth was on mine. I resisted at first but he put his hands in my hair and pulled me towards him. His shirt was open at the neck and his chest was smooth. I felt the muscles in his back flex and ran my fingers down the groove of his spine. The heat from the alcohol pulsed through me as Georges put his hand on my thigh and pushed it to one side. I knew it was wrong but I didn’t care. It would be a relief to give in and take what I wanted, just as William had. I stopped thinking and lay back on the bed. Georges leaned over me, his eyes searching mine. He stroked my face.

‘My God, you are beautiful, like a Bellini nymph, carved from the whitest marble.’

There were voices at the door. We looked at each other with a wolfish hunger before leaping apart. I rearranged my clothes, my fingers clumsy.

Camille and Sasha were still fumbling with the lock and laughing. Georges put his hand on mine and spoke quickly.

‘Jessie, I know Rosa and Camille, they joke about me, and how I have an eye for the girls. It’s true, or at least it was true, until now. I’d give up everything for you, I swear to it. J’en mettrais ma main au feu.’

Camille burst in with Sasha, laughing as they stumbled into each other in the doorway, but she stopped when she saw us.

‘Jessie, your eyes are huge. And Georges, I don’t know. You look like one of those tormented couples from Rodin’s Gates of Hell. Have you quarrelled?’

‘I think I’ve had too much to drink, that’s all,’ I said. ‘Georges was telling me not to have any more.’

‘Time for us to go.’ Camille removed Sasha’s arm from her shoulders. ‘Georges is right, no more vodka for you,’ she said, firmly.

I followed her as if in a dream.

We walked home in silence, but when we reached our street, Camille turned to me.

‘What really happened in there?’

‘Georges kissed me,’ I looked down. ‘And more. I don’t know how far it would have gone if you hadn’t come in.’

I heard her gasp.

‘Did you want to?’

‘Yes.’ I groaned and put my face in my hands. ‘Yes I did. I’ve never wanted anything so much.’

We stopped under a street lamp and faced each other. Camille’s eyes were as dark and cold as the bottom of a lake. Rodin called her his dream in stone, after the Baudelaire poem, and now I knew why. She was angry, jealous even. It was the same for me when she told me about Rodin, when I pictured them together, naked, touching. I was seized by an urge to take Camille in my arms in the empty street and kiss her like we had before the ball. But my blood was up and this time I knew I wouldn’t stop.

Camille laughed abruptly, the sound like the snap of a sail, and the moment was over. She quickened her pace and her limp became more pronounced. She could never disguise it when she was angry. I hurried to catch up with her.

Her voice was dangerously light. ‘I’ll bet Georges told you he’d mend his ways, settle down and be a good boy for you.’ I didn’t say anything but she looked at me sharply. ‘Ha! Don’t be a fool and fall for it, ma petite anglaise, he says that to all the girls, believe me, I know, I’ve had enough broken-hearted models wailing on my shoulder about him. A word of warning: Georges is amusing – and handsome of course – but you’d be a fool to fall for his fine words. You’d be better to stick with your William, much safer.’

‘But what about love, Camille?’ I said, hurrying to keep up. ‘What about love?’

‘Ah, love.’ She stopped and looked at me sadly. ‘Love always gets in the way.’