‘Why not? You never talk about her. You never tell anyone about her. Do you know what it’s like when you’re the only person who remembers someone? It’s as if they never existed. You could be making it all up and no one would know. I needed you to remember her. I still need you now. Because if you’re gone then so is she.’
He withdrew, tidying up the script and filing it away.
‘I’m not going to talk to you if you get hysterical like this. I brought us to Paris because that was my decision to make as your father, and that should be more than enough reason for you.’
‘I wastenand you ripped me away from the only home I’d ever known and dumped us here where I knew no one, and no one knew my mother. And when I finally found someone who loved me, whoIloved, you reported her father to the Revolutionary Tribunal.’
He sighed. ‘This again. I did my duty as a loyal citizen. Her father was a fanatic and his daughter was a corrupting influence on you.’
‘So he deserved to die?’
‘That was up to the Tribunal to decide.’
‘Convenient for you.’
‘That is the rule of law, Ada, whether you like it or not.’
For a moment, she imagined picking up the heavy paperweight on his desk and smashing it into his unfeeling face. Instead, she dropped her head into her hands.
‘You’re right. I’m a fool for coming back. I tell myself every time it will be the last, but then here I am again.’
‘You come back to me because you know your family matters.’
He swilled the dregs of his coffee around his cup and looked out into the night. The street wasn’t quiet. From the sounds of it, the gin had been flowing freely and more cheaply than bread for the starving poor of Paris. Sometimes Ada could understand why Al wanted a brandy in his hand at all times.
‘She won’t choose you,’ her father said, still looking out of the window.
‘What?’
Turning back to her, his mouth was twisted down, eyes a sombre cobalt. This wasn’t one of his usual masks.
‘That girl. I’ve seen her type before. I saw it in her father. My darling Adalaide, in the end Camille won’t choose you.’
Ada returned his look with a glare. But she couldn’t stop the memory flashing through her mind. In the Conciergerie, when the plan was falling apart and they were separated, she’d left Camille behind. And Camille had left her too.
‘You’re wrong. She loves me – we’re a team.’
Her father gave her a thin smile.
‘I hope you’re right.’
10
The Streets of the Right Bank
Outside, the air was crisp with fresh rain. Unease stalked Ada all the way to the Palais de l’Égalité, where she arrived just in time to look as if she’d been waiting for Camille. Her father’s words echoed in her head, making her feel as though she needed to scrub her skin clean.
Night had fallen, but Paris was still busy. The Palais de l’Égalité, formerly known as the Palais-Royal, thrummed with music spilling from the cafés and restaurants and casinos above. Smart shops lined the colonnaded walkways, where men in frock coats and tricorn hats and women in lace and ostrich feathers rubbed shoulders with prostitutes in glamorous silks and waiters hurrying between tables with jugs of beer and bottles of wine. Camille was barely distinguishable from the other Sans Culottes in their uniform of trousers, a short, red carmagnole jacket and floppy Phrygian cap, tricolore cockade pinned to the brim. Ada took the opportunity under cover of drunken darkness to walk up to her and kiss her on the cheek, feeling the pressing need to hold onto Camille, to make her real and present.
‘You’re safely out, then?’ said Ada, slipping an arm through hers.
In the gloom, Camille grimaced. ‘Mostly.’
Walking slowly towards the river, Camille filled her in on the meeting among the foundations of the Madeleine, and the duc’s threat if they didn’t produce Olympe.
‘Do you think he knows we have her?’
Camille shrugged. ‘Don’t think it matters. We’re in his sights either way. We’ll have to give him something to get him off our backs.’
