[Fen Churche 02] - Night Train to Paris

was home to a couple of jars of dirty greyish-green-looking liquid, a precariously balanced palette and plenty of well-used paintbrushes. Some of the brushes were soaking in the jars, others were teetering on the edge of the table and looked as if they were about to join some of their fellows, which were lost in the ruched-up folds of a dust sheet, which was doing its best to protect the beautiful wood floor beneath it.
The smell of oil paint, turpentine and tobacco smoke was stronger in here and it instantly transported Fen back to a time when she would spend lazy hours reading Rose’s art books and playing with jigsaws on the floor while Rose painted something or other at her easels. Nothing, it seemed, had changed from all those years ago, except that even more framed paintings now crowded the walls, hung between the panelling in a haphazard way, vying for attention and space, much like those at the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy.
Rose waved them past the tools of her trade to the other side of the room where a chaise longue and two comfortable-looking armchairs were placed around a low table.
‘No need to apologise for the delay, Fenella dear. I was quite at one with the muse last night in any case. And it’s simply marvellous to see you again. And meet your… friend.’ She looked James up and down and indicated the oldest and saggiest armchair for him to sit on. ‘Let me bring some refreshments through, make yourselves comfortable, dears.’
‘I don’t think she likes me,’ James whispered to Fen.
‘You’re doing marvellously,’ Fen reassured him, keen to alleviate his obvious concern that he might have put a foot wrong. ‘She’s just wonderfully eccentric. My brother and I used to play Madame Coillard Bingo, you know, after that game they play in America? If she said or did something silly or funny then we’d shout “bingo” to each other and roll around laughing. She must have thought we were feral animals.’
James chortled to himself and settled into the armchair and gazed around the room.
Fen looked around too, taking in the apartment’s architecture and decor for the second time in as many months. The floor was parquet wood, smooth and bleached by the sunlight that filled the room from the three great windows. The walls were painted a pale eau de Nil with that beautiful light sea-green colour barely visible behind all the paintings.
‘She is really quite the artist,’ Fen explained to James. ‘She was artist in residence at some rather smart château down in the Loire in the early twenties, then she started at the École des Beaux-Arts at about the same time as we moved here. That’s where we met her. She knows everyone… Don’t get her started on Picasso though. She still thinks he’s a double agent apparently.’
James chuckled to himself again and shook his head. ‘She does seem like quite a character.’
‘She is. Pa always suspected she might be Le Faussaire, the art forger who was flooding the market with cheap, but seriously good, fakes in the thirties. I never bought that theory, but I did hear that some students called her lessons the École des Faux d’Art… She has a real eye for it though. Here, look at this,’ Fen moved towards the windows and pointed to a small framed canvas that was hung between two of them. ‘It’s by an Impressionist. Deluca or Deland, or something. She’s told me a hundred times, but I’m such a dunderhead at remembering artist’s names.’
‘One of the lesser-known ones, eh? Doesn’t trip off the tongue like Monet or Manet.’
‘I suppose so, that’s my excuse anyway.’
Fen laughed and stepped back from the small painting, which, to the untrained eye, looked nothing more than a swirling mess of pastel-coloured paint strokes, devoid of composition or structure. To the more discerning viewer, however, it was a pretty little painting of a cherry tree in full blossom, verdant greenery around it.
‘Gosh the light is stunning in here, isn’t it?’ Fen had wandered over to the middle of the three floor-to-ceiling windows and was caught in a trance by the view over the rooftops opposite. ‘I think I can make out the dome of Saint Sulpice, and just behind it is the Luxembourg Gardens of course. Oh, I’ve missed Paris.’
‘You had a happy time here?’ James asked.
‘Yes, rather. Slightly bohemian perhaps. And I was never really “one of the girls” at school. They called me Lily L’Étranger… Lily the Foreigner. But I learned the language and love the city. Did lose the gerbil in the catacombs once though, which upset Ma a bit. Ah, here she is…’ Fen moved back towards the small table and perched on the edge of the elegant chaise longue as Rose flounced into the room carrying a brightly varnished papier mâché tray, on which was a small ornate silver teapot and three delicate teacups.
Tipper jumped up next to Fen on the daybed and snuffled his little nose into her lap.
‘Afraid I don’t go in for breakfast much myself. But I grow my own mint. Desperately good for the digestion and of course free, which is undeniably a bonus.’ Rose sat herself down in the other armchair and began to pour the steaming liquid into the teacups. She passed them around and Fen inhaled the sweet, fresh aroma of the mint tea. ‘It looks a bit insipid, but come the cocktail hour it goes marvellously well with a tot of rum and some molasses, if you can ever come by that sort of thing these days.’
‘Oh Rose,’ Fen reached over and gently touched her friend’s arm. ‘It is so lovely to see you.’
‘And you, my dear,’ Rose replied. ‘Now, you must fill me in on what you got up to in Burgundy. You mentioned a murder?’
Fen sighed, and looked across at James. He gave a slight nod of his head, and she settled down to telling Rose all about what had happened since she’d last seen her.
‘Tell me, dear, how