‘I’m not walking into another trap,’ Camille had said darkly.
In the parlour Guil was repairing the soldier’s uniform that had been damaged in their escape from the Conciergerie. James watched him.
‘Gosh, aren’t you all handy? I can sew up skin but set me to work on a button and it would be a disaster.’
Guil didn’t look up. ‘You learn to shift for yourself in the army. It’s a terrible shock for some of the little lords going from their grand apartments to the officers’ camp.’
Olympe was restlessly pacing the room, winding and unwinding a ball of yarn to keep the static from crackling between her fingers. She still wore thick make-up, hands flitting nervously to her ear or jaw, testing to see if the powder had held. An anxious arc of blue sparks coiled around her throat, making her hair frizz and halo.
Ada saw James give Olympe a curious look and quickly cleared her throat to get his attention. ‘I’m going to look for a map of the abbey. Be useful and come with me, James.’
He glanced at Camille. ‘I can, if you like, but I thought I was supposed to be lying low?’
‘You are,’ agreed Camille. Ada gave a pointed nod in Olympe’s direction and understanding crossed Camille’s face. ‘But I don’t want anyone travelling alone right now. Go with Ada.’
He stood, reaching for his jacket. ‘If you insist.’
Ada ignored his hopeful smile and swept down the stairs out to the street, James following.
Their Paris section was never quiet. With the Sorbonne University, the glittering Luxembourg pleasure gardens and the now defunct Cordeliers Club all within a stone’s throw, the streets were always busy. Shops and cafés opened until late at night, their awnings hanging over cobbled roads lined with crooked townhouses, three, four, five storeys high. They sank against their neighbours, plaster flaking from the stone and water dripping from broken gutters. The once fine gardens and facades of the old hôtels of the aristocracy had fallen into disrepair, spilling weeds and dead branches into already-clogged drains. The ghost of their former glory still haunted the city in the elaborate stone curlicues above the doorways, the wrought-iron balconies and slate-grey roofs. People filled the streets; young girls selling wilted cress, opium addicts slumped in dark doorways and street sellers hawking fortunes and rosaries in equal measure. Glamorous young wives bought spools of ribbon and lace as polished gilt carriages clattered past pristine glass shop fronts, disgorging the petit bourgeoisies into the law firms and counting houses. Ada stepped from cobblestone to cobblestone, holding her dress up out of the muck that flowed freely along the street.
Being in James’s company made her heart feel raw, but she couldn’t deny that some masochistic part of her was desperately curious about him. This boy Camille had selected before her. She looked him over as they walked. Tall, broad-shouldered, a lick of hair curling into his eyes. With his hat and coat brushed clean and buckles shining on his shoes she could see how expensively he dressed, how his cream linen waistcoat and breeches were tailored carefully to fit.
They gave the Conciergerie a wide berth and crossed the Île de la Cité at the far end by Notre Dame, the bridge lined on either side by jumbled black and white timber-frame houses. It was early evening, and the long summer days meant sunset was way off.
‘Is Cam always so tense these days?’ asked James as they reached the Right Bank.
There he was again, talking about Camille as if he owned everything about her. The familiarity of the nickname, the presumption that heknewher. That intimacy Ada had thought only she and Camille shared.
‘Only when we’ve got a job. Which is most of the time.’
‘And I’m still not allowed to know what this job is? Other than it involves an abbey that you need a map for.’
‘No, Camille’s orders.’
‘I see. At least that hasn’t changed. She always did like to be in charge.’
‘Why, was she very different when you knew her?’
‘In a way. It doesn’t surprise me, if that’s what you mean. I could see it in her. But life was different then. She had her parents. We didn’t have to make these sorts of choices about who we were going to be.’
She paused to step over an open sewer. ‘Just because there isn’t a revolution doesn’t mean we don’t have to choose who we are.’
James didn’t reply. She shot a glance back at him and thought she caught a flicker of tension.
‘No,’ he said eventually as they were passing the muddy banks by the Hôtel de Ville where the Paris Commune held court. ‘You’re right. I suppose that’s why I’m here. I want to make sure Cam knows that I still choose her – it was rather decided for us, our families were friends and it seemed natural that we should marry. Everything has changed, of course, but I want to make sure she knows that when this blows over she still has a family. Somewhere to belong.’
Ada felt as if she’d been punched. She took a few moments to collect herself before she said, ‘Cam has a family. She has us. I think she’s happy.’
‘Ah, well. That’s Cam for you. You never can quite tell if she’s happy – or angry or sad or bored, or much of anything. She keeps it all closed up in her head because I don’t think she knows herself what would make her happy.’
‘And you do?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve spent most of my life trying.’
Across the river, the Place de Grève was busy with people loitering, hoping for work in the farms or factories, or unloading wood, wheat, wine and hay from the boats gathered in the old port. A few young girls were dancing while a boy played the revolutionary anthem ‘Ça Ira’ on a fiddle, practising for the grand parade at the Festival of the Supreme Being.
They turned into side streets, Ada nursing a ball of hurt, as they weaved towards the bookshop she thought might have something useful.
