A Week in Paris by Rachel Hore Read Free Book Online

and again it was empty. There had only been the dress.
    She was folding the dress back when she saw a torn piece of card sticking out of a pocket inside the rucksack, so grubby and curled up that she’d almost missed it. She smoothed it out. It was a label. On one side was written in a black sloping hand,
Fay Knox, Southampton
. The other side read,
Couvent Ste-Cécile, Paris
. St Cecilia’s Convent. The name meant nothing to her and yet she sensed it should. A convent. In Paris. And she was going to Paris!
    She sat staring at the label for some time, while the faintest glimmer of a memory rose in her mind. Sunshine falling on flagstones, the blue robes of a statuette, and . . . but no, it was gone. It was as though a door had opened, just a chink, in her mind, before it shut again. She knew now that her mother had been trying to tell her something, something to do with Paris. Since the rucksack was her own, it suggested that they’d both been in Paris, she and her mother. But surely that couldn’t be right. When she was little there had been the war, and Paris was occupied by the Nazis – and her mother had never spoken of that. Instead she’d talked of living in the whitewashed house at Richmond.
    Fay put the rucksack aside to take with her, then replaced everything else in the trunk and locked it. But when she returned the key to its pot she accidentally knocked the photograph frame, which slipped forward and fell to the floor. She bent to pick it up and saw to her relief that the glass hadn’t broken. It was coming apart, though. She tried to fit the backing board into place but it wouldn’t go. Something was in the way. She prised up the metal tabs to investigate.
    A postcard had been inserted between the photograph and the back, the same size as the frame. She turned it over. It was a sepia-coloured shot of a battleship, its prow carving through the water. It was just possible to read the name on the bow: HMS
Marina
.
    The
Marina
. It meant nothing to her, but it was a beautiful craft and staring at it she could sense vividly how it might feel to be standing on deck with the wind in her hair, the smell of tar, the taste of salt on her tongue. For a moment it felt as though she was there, feeling the low throb of the engines and the sea spray on her cheeks. How funny. As far as she knew she’d never been on a ship. This card, she thought, must be there to hold the photograph firm in the frame, for its reverse was not written on and she could see no further significance. She fitted everything back together and stood the frame in its place next to the pot.
    Over the next few days she often took up the canvas rucksack and examined it, smoothing out the small dress it contained and wondering what it meant.
Maremarry
, her mother had said – Maremarry by a church. Ste-Cécile’s convent might be by a church, and Maremarry might be Mère Marie. She would try to find out when she got to Paris.
    Fay borrowed from her mother’s wardrobe an ivory blouse, a black cardigan and an evening stole that Kitty wore to concerts. In London the next morning she dipped into her savings to buy a coat of sky blue, a pair of black patent court shoes, an evening dress and two skirts, an unusually fashionable choice for her. Then returning to the flat at lunchtime, laden with bags, she walked into Jean-Paul’s salon to ask for an appointment.
    It was busy as usual, but to her surprise Derek said in his faux-French accent, ‘Give me ten minutes,
chérie
,’ and before she could change her mind, he whisked a gown round her shoulders and sat her in a chair with a magazine to look at.
    When he was ready, she explained where she was going and, very tentatively, what she wanted. He nodded and stared hard at her face in the mirror, arranging her hair this way and that, frowning. Then without further ado he dampened her hair with a spray, took up his scissors and began to cut. She shut her eyes, unable to bear the sight of her dark brown