Lace

by Shirley Conran

  There was a nasty silence, then Chardin said with venom, “You will both be expelled from this school tomorrow.”

  “No they won’t,” said Pagan in a tired, oddly disinterested voice.

  Chardin turned to her, “And who are you, miss, to tell me what to do?”

  “I am a friend of your friend, Paul. He took me to his house and showed me lots of photographs. I didn’t think he’d miss them so I stole a few and left them with a friend in town. But here’s one.”

  She felt in her dressing gown pocket and produced a photograph of Paul in bed with the two little South African girls who had left so suddenly after Christmas. Pagan showed the photograph first to Matron, then to Chardin, then she put it back in her pocket and produced her trump card—a photograph of Monsieur Chardin himself, plump and naked as a baby, poised above the naked body of Paul.

  “Happy snaps,” said Pagan with disinterested weariness. Yesterday this scene would have been dramatic and terrifying. Today, it was trivial compared to her grandfather’s death. “I can’t help thinking that your scheme only works if you play one father at a time. If any father had seen photographs of more than one girl, it would have been apparent that you are in fact a cheap blackmailer, Monsieur Chardin, and that you deliberately set those girls up to be photographed with Paul. Anyway, he told me all about it.” Nobody spoke or moved. “I think he said the going rate for fathers is six thousand francs every three months. I don’t really know what to do about it, but if you take any action against Maxine and Kate, I’m going straight to the police with my story and the other photographs. So it’s your decision, Monsieur Chardin.”

  Chardin stood silent for a moment. Then smiled. In a forced voice, he said, “Miss, you are no doubt overwrought because of your grandfather’s sad death, therefore I shall take no notice of your ridiculous accusations. And because I do not want to bring disgrace upon my school, I will not punish these two foolish girls.”

  He cleared his throat and paused to regain his authority. “But I trust that they realise the seriousness of their folly. It is just lucky that none of your set is pregnant. Now get to bed, all of you.”

  The exhausted, frightened girls stumbled off to bed, weak with relief. There was no need for further anxiety, they thought, as they wearily undressed.

  But they were wrong, and so was the headmaster.

  Because one of the set was pregnant.

  PART

  TWO

  7

  CONCIOUS OF HER shabby overcoat, Judy suddenly felt like a hick. She longed for the fragile, beautiful clothes, so artfully displayed in the windows of Paris, that Maxine pointed out, chattering nonstop until they reached the corner where Hermes stood. Timidly, they pushed through the glass door, whereupon Maxine adopted a haughty, nose-in-the-air attitude, examining the most expensive silken scarves and handbags in the world as if none of them were quite good enough for the two teenage girls. Intoxicated by the smell of rich leather, Judy bought a Hermes diary, a beautiful calfskin appointment book with its own gold pencil stuck in the side.

  It made her feel a bit more French and a bit more grown-up. After all, she was now seventeen years old and she had been in Paris for two whole days. She was completely fascinated by the city, by the superb chestnut-lined boulevards, the glittering boutiques, the elegant, scented women, the wonderful mouth-watering restaurants and the cheerfully noisy apartment of Maxine’s family, where Judy was staying for a week or two until she found a job and a place to live. She wasn’t going to think about that yet; today she was going to pretend that she was able to lead the carefree, protected existence that Maxine, Pagan and Kate were able to lead. One day, Judy promised herself, she would live like that always, not just for a few days.

  “Now for the Latin Quarter,” Maxine said. They hurried down the streets, still snow-covered in February, and clattered under the wrought-iron art nouveau lilies of the valley that decorated the entrance arch of the metro at Palais Royal. They plunged down the steps and past the fat old flower seller huddled on a stool, a gray shawl around her head. A blast of welcome heat carried upward the fragrance of Gaulois cigarettes, yellowing newspapers, bad drains and garlic.

  “We’re late. I told Guy we’d meet him at twelve,” Marine worried, as they emerged into daylight at the end of their journey. “Not that he’s likely to be on time, especially not for me. Ever since we were children he’s been conscious of the fact that he’s three years older than me. We only saw a lot of each other because our mothers were close friends at school, so he had to put up with me.”

  She hurried along the Boulevard St. Germain, tugging Judy with one scarlet glove; the American girl dawdled to peer down the winding streets that branched off the main boulevard.

  “What sort of clothes does Guy make?” Judy asked.

  “Mostly suits and blouses, with a few light coats.”

  “Does he sew them himself?”

  “No, no, he has a cutter and a seamstress. They work in one room and he sleeps in the room next to it. He’ll soon have to look for an atelier, but they’re unbelievably scarce if you have no key money—and Guy hasn’t.”

  “Then how does he pay the seamstress and the cutter?” asked Judy.

  “His Papa refused to help him because he said that fashion was an occupation for pédérastes, so Guy got money from a few private clients. At the start he went to my mother and offered to dress her in four outfits a year for a modest annual advance payment. She accepted and sent him to her friends and they all signed up, even my Aunt Hortense.”

  Judy was still bewildered by the thought of Maxine’s Aunt Hortense, who was unlike any aunt she’d ever met—or any other adult, come to that. The previous evening Aunt Hortense had taken them to dine at Madame de George, an elegant meal that had transported Judy from Rossville forever, as she ate quails’ eggs, artichokes, guinea fowl and a dessert that tasted like frozen brandy. After the sumptuous meal, the lights were lowered and the floor show began, with a frou-frou of pink ostrich plumes covering—just—the pudenda of a line of unusually beautiful showgirls, all tall, elegant, slim-hipped and high-breasted. Suddenly, Judy noticed their wide shoulders, biceps and muscular forearms. Her mouth fell open. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She pinched Maxine and said, “Are those . . . er . . . girls . . . er . . . men?”

  “Yes,” Maxine giggled.

  “I’m amazed that your aunt would bring us to such a place.”

  “She wanted you to see something oo la la!” Maxine laughed. “And this is the least naughty of the naughty Paris nightspots. Aunt Hortense likes to épater les bourgeois—she can’t stand pompous people and she likes to shock the smug.”

  “I’ll never understand you Europeans.”

  “Aha, but we understand you, we know what shocks you,” said Aunt Hortense. Her voice reminded Judy of gently drifting snow, raindrops splashing on an old stone fountain, the well-bred chink of china and weathered leather riding boots. Judy sensed that Aunt Hortense, while raising hell, would never raise her voice. She had a large, craggy face with a huge thrusting nose above a wide mouth drawn back in a permanent, deceptive smile, and her eyelids were painted emerald to match her emerald satin cocktail hat. She was tall, imperious and forbidding until she fixed you with her oddly enchanting wide smile.

  Hurrying through the snowy streets, eventually the two girls reached the steam-misted glass walls of the café Deux Magots, where they sat down at the only empty table and ordered hot lemon punch.

  “Merde, I mean ferk, no one I recognise,” wailed Maxine. “It’s different in the evening. I once saw Simone de Beauvoir having a row with Jean-Paul Sartre. And I once saw Juliette Greco. She always wears a black sweater and pants—an odd wardrobe don’t you think?”

  “Saves making a decision in the morning,” said a small, wiry blond boy wearing a black sweater and pants. He sat down in the empty seat beside her. He looked like an unmasked cat burglar—small with a slightly hooked Roman nose, a wide sensual mouth and a shock of hemp-coloure
d hair. “Heavens, the difference. . . . Your face, Maxine. . . . I would only recognise you from the rear. And you’re so svelte that I could use you as a model.” He unwound the long black scarf from his neck and ordered three croque-monsieur, the fried ham and cheese sandwich that is the staple diet of French students.

  “What’s been happening to you?” Maxine inquired.

  “I’ve been living here on the Left Bank in the Hotel de Londres for over a year, being a master couturier, but nobody seems to have noticed.”

  “How did you become a master couturier?” Judy asked, plunging right in. “How did you get out of your service militaire?”

  “I had TB when I was fourteen so the army didn’t want me. Papa was furious, of course, but Mother was enchanted when I joined Jacques Fath because I no longer insisted on making dresses for her. She said it was so tedious being fitted by me—I stuck pins in her!” He giggled.

  “How did you suddenly jump out of school and into the studio of a world-famous couturier?” Judy asked.

  “Frankly, I got the job with Jacques Fath because my mother knew the head vendeuse. When I wasn’t picking up pins, I spent every spare moment sketching the Fath clothes. As publicly as possible, you understand—I can draw wonderfully.” He blew a straw at Maxine.

  “When my first year was up at Fath, they took me on as a studio sketch artist, and when my second year was up, I was promoted to designer’s assistant. Not assistant to Fath himself, you understand, but to one of his menials.” He poured wine for all of them. “My job was to translate Fath’s sketches for the workrooms, then sort out the decisions until the toile was made, then look after every zipper and button until the garment was ready for the first model fitting. Naturally, we never had anything to do with the clients—the vendeuses dealt with them. . . . Maxine, you shouldn’t eat croque-monsieur at such a rate if you want to keep this amazing new shape.”

  “But how did you learn to make clothes?” Judy persisted. She wanted to know everything.

  “Oh, I don’t know, I just did it.” Guy shrugged his shoulders.

  In spite of his careless pose as a newly hatched genius, the real secret of Guy Saint Simon’s success—apart from his talent—was the obsessive interest in fashion that had led him to spend every spare moment with the Jacques Fath tailors and cutters, learning to cut with the skill that had evolved over generations and had been passed on—only by example—from man to man (the tailors were always men, the women worked as dressmakers).

  “But you can’t ‘just start,’” objected Judy.

  “Well, I made some proper suits for my mother and she wore them. I thought she was doing it just to please me, but then all her friends wanted to buy the same suits. So—voilà!—I was in business! Now tell me what you intend to do with yourselves.”

  “I want to be an interior decorator and study in London,” Maxine said, “but I don’t dare tell Papa yet so I’m going to try and get Aunt Hortense to intercede for me.”

  “And I’m going to get a job here in Paris as an interpreter,” Judy added, sounding far more sure of herself than she was. She knew that the job competition in Paris was almost as fierce as the traffic, and that French working hours were long and poorly paid.

  “Then she’s going back to New York,” said Maxine gaily, “to get a job in some glamorous international company where she can use her languages and eventually, of course, marry the boss!”

  “Can we see your clothes, Guy?” Judy asked, wanting to change the conversation.

  “But of course. You might both marry appalling old millionaires and become my best clients. But not today; I have to see my button-maker in ten minutes. Meet me after work tomorrow, six o’clock at the Hotel de Londres. I’ll take you to dinner at the Beaux Arts afterward, because it’s St. Valentine’s Day tomorrow and all the students will be having a terrific party. . . . What’s wrong? . . . Why are you both looking so odd? . . . Have I said something to upset you?”

  “No, no,” said Maxine hastily, “it’s just that we had a bit of trouble at school last year on St. Valentine’s Day. We . . . er . . . got back from a dance later than we should have done.”

  “Well, you won’t be bothered by such childish things anymore,” said Guy, waving for the bill and not noticing the girls’ uneasy silence.

  Outside, a weak winter sun was shining, the wind had dropped and it wasn’t nearly so cold. The two girls drifted along the cobbled quais, by the stone parapets of the Seine, past the secondhand book carts and the dark green stalls.

  “Does Guy like girls?” asked Judy as they walked over the Pont Royal. There had been something about the way he moved his hands.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps not, I’ve no idea. Either way, you mustn’t fall for him, you know. I want to leave you with someone to look after you, someone to take the place of Nick—a brother, not a lover, for the moment. I don’t want you to feel alone in Paris.”

  “Can’t I have both?”

  “But of course, you won’t be able to avoid it in Paris. Just wait until the spring when the chestnut trees are flowering. Look, there are already some snowdrops here in the Jardin des Tuileries.”

  The girls hurried through the gardens, then turned left toward the Avenue Montaigne, becoming increasingly excited as they neared number 32, the salon of the greatest couturier in the world, Christian Dior.

  A cloud of perfume enveloped them as they entered the pampered warmth. Aunt Hortense, whom they were to meet, was nowhere to be seen so they wandered around the boutique, fingering exquisite silk blouses in sugar-almond colours, eyeing the unbelievably fragile lingerie and stroking the suede gloves.

  To Judy’s relief she was ignored; but the vendeuses fluttered around Maxine, who was wearing her navy Dior overcoat, so she daringly decided to try on a couple of things. She put on a floor-length jackal coat, watched by an indulgent saleswoman who knew that this child had no intention of buying, but that nevertheless somebody had bought her clothes from Dior. Then she slipped on a white cotton nightgown trimmed with narrow green satin ribbon that cost the equivalent of her allowance for three months. She had just discarded it and purchased a pale blue lace garter belt—three weeks’ allowance but worth it—when Aunt Hortense swept in and they went off to claim their reserved seats from the big antique reception desk.

  Had Aunt Hortense not been a regular customer, the elegant receptionist would have courteously asked her name, address and telephone number, then written them in the big leather visitors’ book; she would also have asked who suggested they visit the house of Dior. This procedure helped to sort out the spies and time-wasters from the genuine customers. Commercial spies rarely tried to get in after the opening of a collection because they had all the information they needed by the third day of the show, but smartly dressed women (sometimes genuine customers like cosmetic tycoon Helena Rubinstein) often visited the collection with a less well-dressed “friend,” who was really a dressmaker—and whose second-rate shoes, bag and gloves invariably proclaimed the fact.

  “So comfortable here,” said Aunt Hortense, as they were seated in the pale gray salon in the front row of delicate gilt chairs, “although I have never understood why men think women enjoy shopping. It is a painful ordeal that has to be endured in order to acquire new clothes. The pain comes in two parts—choosing the right garment, then making sure that it fits. . . . Oh, the arguments I’ve had with fitters! So I come to Christian Dior because I dislike shopping. One isn’t demoralized at a couturier, as one is in a shop where they urge you to try on clothes that make you feel fat, awkward and ugly.”

  “Or complain that you’re not a stock size, in a way that makes you feel like a freak,” agreed Judy.

  “Or intimidate you, so that you end up buying something expensive merely because you don’t look as dreadful in it as the other things you tried on,” Maxine added.

  “Quite so. It’s easier to go to Dior. You pay more, but you never waste your money and you always look your best. Ha, here comes the first
model!”

  The audience concentrated keenly, like buyers at a horse auction, as each haughty, elegant model appeared, held a pose and then drifted back through the gray velvet curtains.

  “How can that girl possibly have such a tiny waist?” Judy wondered, as a raven-haired model appeared in a pale gray flannel coat cinched with a wide silver-gray calf belt. “Where does her food go?”

  “If you remove the belt,” Aunt Hortense murmured, “you’d find that there was no flannel underneath, only silk taffeta joining the top to the skirt. That’s why her waist looks so tiny. But she shouldn’t carry her furs so carefully. Pierre Balmain says that the trick to wearing mink is to look as though you’re wearing a cloth coat, and the trick to wearing a cloth coat is to treat it as if it were as precious as mink.”

  As always, the final item in the collection was a white bridal gown with a flutter of little lace frills frothing from the shoulder to form an eight-foot-long train. “Excellent,” approved Aunt Hortense, “a bride should always choose something with back interest for everyone to look at when she’s kneeling at the altar. A wedding service is so boringly predictable. Now for my fittings.”

  They moved to a dressing room where the silent fitter—silent because her mouth was full of pins—made minute alterations on an apricot silk dress with billowing gypsy violinist sleeves and a wasp waist. “Three fittings for every garment,” grumbled Aunt Hortense, “but it means a perfect fit, which is one of the main attractions of a couture garment.” She addressed herself to the fitter. “It needs a little more room at the waist, don’t you think? . . . You want to know why I chose this dress, Judy? Because it’s fairly original but not outrageous. Only the very rich, the very beautiful or the truly creative can carry off really original clothes. I am not one of them. But I know what effect I wish to give, whereas most women want to look distinctive and indistinguishable, both at the same time, which is impossible.”