Chasing Cezanne by Peter Mayle Page B

a newly burgled man.

7
    FLURRY reigned at the Madison Avenue offices of
DQ
, which were even more overwrought than usual as the latest issue was being put to bed. Camilla’s plans had been turned upside down—completely
bouleversés
, as she said—by the unsolicited submission of an article on decorative bidets of the famous, accompanied by some simply ravishing pictures taken by a promising young Parisian photographer. Rarely had hygienic porcelain looked so rich, so sculptural, so much a part of today’s well-dressed bathroom—and the end of winter was such a perfect time for readers to be reviewing their sanitary requirements. At the editorial conference, it was generally agreed that this was groundbreaking material, possibly even a first in magazine history. Also, as Camilla was quick to point out, there was the added cachet provided by the celebrated owners of the bidets. They were nowhere to be seen in the photographs, for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, they had granted permission for their names to be used. It was too good to pass up.
    But the issue was already full, and one of the scheduledfeatures would have to be dropped. Camilla stalked back and forth in the conference room beside the long table on which the dummy page spreads were laid out. She was shadowed, as always, by her junior secretary, notepad poised, and watched by the art director, the fabrics editor, the furniture editor, the accessories editor, and a flock of young assistant editors, looking like a row of solemn black-clad pixies.
    Camilla came to a stop, nibbling her lower lip. She couldn’t bring herself to defer the piece on the Duchess of Pignolata-Strufoli’s medieval folly in Umbria, or the other major feature, which was the elaborate conversion by a dear little Swiss billionaire of a nunnery in the Dordogne. The social repercussions of a postponement might be awkward and could easily jeopardize the summer invitations that had been extended to her. Finally, she came to a decision. In the manner of a fairy exercising the vanishing powers of her wand, she tapped three of the dummy spreads with her Montblanc pen. “I hate to see these go,” she said, “but icons are
completely
timeless, and bidets are somehow such a spring thing. We’ll have the icons in the summer.”
    Amid much nodding and note taking—but not without some ritual sulking and tossing of curls from the art director, who would have to reassemble all his layouts—the meeting broke up. Camilla returned to her office, to find Noel on the phone in considerable distress.
    â€œYou poor, poor boy,” he was saying. “One’s treasures picked over by those horrible people. I’d be in tears. It’s just too bad. Oh, here she is now. I’ll put youthrough.” He looked up at Camilla. “The most dreadful thing—Andre’s been robbed. I think he needs a shoulder to cry on.”
    Camilla went to her desk and sat down. Andre—the very mention of his name provoked a vague and most unusual emotion. Could it be guilt? Anyway, he was the last person she wanted to speak to, and she tried to think of some plausible crisis that might have occurred between Noel’s desk and her office that would allow her to avoid taking the call. The phone glared at her with a blinking red eye. She picked up, preparing herself to be shocked and sympathetic.
    â€œSweetie! What
ever
happened?”
    As Andre began to tell her, Camilla slipped off her shoe to ease the throbbing ache of her toe. The relief was instant and made her think that instead of trying to squeeze her foot bravely into Chanel’s best, she might consider dressing the part of the injured editor—trousers, of course, and a pair of those cozy monogrammed velvet slippers. Perhaps an ivory-topped walking cane. Didn’t Coco herself use a cane in later years? Yes, definitely a cane. She started to make notes.
    â€œCamilla? Are you