Lace

by Shirley Conran

  It was different in the front row, which was always reserved for film stars, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Women’s Wear Daily. . . . “Who’s that little blonde? How did she get there?” someone asked Judy.

  “That’s Empress Miller, she’s the new fashion writer for the New York Clarion” Judy had met Empress at one of Aunt Hortense’s parties.

  The mob behind the front row were quieter now, all notebooks ready. The miasma of a thousand new perfumes grew more sickly. It was getting hotter and it would be worse when the arc lights were turned on.

  The lights went on and there was an immediate hush.

  Behind the scenes Judy felt she was witnessing a kaleidoscope of hissed queries, anxious eyes, strained faces and general chaos in the model dressing rooms. Naked to the waist, stockings snapped to their girdles (no models wore panties because the line would show through the clothes), the young women sat before their mirrors. The shelves below were a jumble of coloured grease, half-empty pots, grubby sticks of makeup and stumps of lipsticks. The models stuck on immense eyelashes while hairdressers stabbed at their coiffures. Then the models were helped into their clothes by dressers—zippers zipped, snaps snapped and buttons buttoned. The head dresser checked that accessories were correct, hems straight, clothes properly pressed and immaculate.

  Holding the accessories ready, Judy watched the models leave their cabines, ready to go. Timing was by stopwatch and military-precise. The presentation had been planned to contrast and counterpoint the colour, cut and line of the new collection, and the clothes were grouped so that the press could see a new line or colour develop. Judy had seen it all decided at the first rehearsal. Instructions were then transferred to the big pinboard outside the dressing rooms; rows of cards with each model’s name and the number of garments were listed vertically in appearance order. That pinboard was the blueprint of the show: 22, 13, 71, 49, 32, etcetera; the numbers were not according to appearance but had been allocated to the garments months ago, when they were first designed.

  The models were as nervous as greyhounds at the gate, fiddling with the necklaces that Judy clipped on them, pulling down jackets and smoothing their hair. There were six house models and eight freelancers—cinnamon-stick thin—had flown in from overseas; they were even skinnier than the Dior house models because it was essential that they fit every designer’s clothes. They lived on Dexedrine and yogurt and frequently collapsed after the collections from exhaustion, malnutrition and stress.

  The first model was announced by an oddly high, breathless voice. “Peking, numéro trois, nombair sree.” The model wore Oriental makeup, her doe eyes lined with black crayon. The loose white linen jacket, straight black skirt and straw coolie hat were carefully calculated pointers to the theme of the whole collection—the Chinese influence. Pencils leaped, the working audience concentrated. Journalists were allowed to take notes but not to write complete descriptions or to sketch. Some journalists were incessant scribblers, but Empress Miller only noted, “No change skirt length/Chinese/b & w coolie look/fluid/no stiffening/no padding/easy move/hats straw big brim/suits sailor navy & w/skirts pleated & flat.”

  It was getting even hotter. A girl in a lynx coat collapsed and was swiftly carried out. A raven-haired house model in a scarlet strapless net formal gown noticed a journalist sketching; the model paused, touched her left earlobe and smiled directly at the journalist.

  Annie pounced.

  Sketches and notes were confiscated and the journalist’s name put on the syndicale blacklist. Two other journalists were expelled later. Rage, threats, pleas, tears—all were useless.

  An hour afterward, in the dressing room, Judy heard a sudden roar of applause. Monsieur Dior, in an immaculate pale gray suit, his face glistening with heat and fatigue, had stepped forward to bow his thanks. Judy paused as she unfastened a gold necklace from a model wearing only a feather hat and garter belt. The head dresser visibly relaxed. “Not so loud as ‘47 but louder than last July,” she pronounced. Slowly they all grinned; then Monsieur Dior appeared in the dressing rooms and an orgy of kissing started.

  “I feel like a broken spring,” Judy said gloomily, five days later.

  “Cheer up,” said Guy, who was lying on her bedroom floor with his bare feet propped on the bed. “You always knew that your job at Dior was temporary.”

  “Yes, but I hoped they’d keep me on.”

  “You’ve still got a job until the end of February when Annie’s assistant returns,” he pointed out, “and you’ve got your gray flannel Dior dress, which would have cost over eight months’ salary if you’d paid for it. If you’re willing to go anywhere and do anything for the same pathetic salary as Dior paid you, you can work full time for me. The hotel says I can’t continue working from here; they say it’s not a sweatshop. So your first job is to find us two workrooms somewhere near here. No, don’t kiss me while I’m drinking.”

  Judy found an adequate, skylit studio two streets away from the hotel. She was now responsible for all nonmanufacturing work, saw clients, answered the telephone, did the bookkeeping and handled dispatch.

  Guy designed, bought materials and supervised the workshop staff. The faithful José had now been joined by another seamstress; the new sewing hand’s mother was a first hand at Nina Ricci so Marie had been trained since childhood to sew to a professional standard.

  Judy was busier than she’d ever been, and happier. The buyers liked her because she didn’t stand blankfaced, order book in hand, but talked and joked with them. She had a keen sense of the ridiculous and liked to make people laugh, even if she could only do it by making them laugh at her. A few people found this exuberance exhausting, and some found it difficult to accept her forthright attitude, for she was direct and said exactly what she thought. After watching her scold a buyer for not ordering one of their new jackets, Guy said, “You might cultivate a little tact, Judy. Why can’t you behave with the buyers as you do with Aunt Hortense’s crowd—with a little more respect?” He was annoyed. “I know you’re just being straightforward, but the French do not understand it. They interpret you as ‘tough,’ which you aren’t.”

  “More’s the pity,” said Judy, scowling at the clip of invoices marked “overdue” that she held in her hand, “and here is where I start. I’m going to be tough about payments. You can’t afford to give these people credit. In the future they’ll have to pay when they sign the order, and we won’t process it until the check is in our account.”

  “Selling on cash terms is a nice idea, but nobody in the garment business does it. I’ll lose all my customers.”

  “And a lot of bad debts,” said Judy. “But cash was the way you started, remember? Your mother and all her Avenue George V friends paid in advance. If people want your stuff, why shouldn’t they pay for it when they order it? Now is the time to find out whether they really want you—before you go bankrupt.”

  Judy earnestly tried to look older than her age. She and Guy found their youth a grave disadvantage in business because nobody took the young seriously. “I suppose it’s just a nuisance to be endured,” Guy complained, “like a breaking voice or General de Gaulle; in time it will pass.” In the meantime, Judy didn’t wear teenage clothes; she grew her hair and wore it twisted up in an unbecoming French knot; she lived in her gray flannel Dior dress and wore big hornrimmed spectacles, hoping to project an air of age, distinction and respectability.

  “Ma chère, you quite frighten me,” said Maxine. She had returned from her two years’ training in London the day before and they were catching up on each other’s news over breakfast in the Deux Magots. Maxine planned to ask her father for a loan to start a business.

  A touch envious, Judy said, “You’re damn lucky to have a rich father.”

  Maxine, dunking a croissant in her café au lait, said, “Papa isn’t rich; I couldn’t have gone to Switzerland if Aunt Hortense hadn’t paid. Papa is comfortable. I hope he’ll guarantee a bank loan for me. I don’t think he can afford to give me the money,
but he’ll still be taking a risk on me.” She took a large bite and flakes fell on the table as she mumbled, “Guy is the one with a rich father.”

  Judy put her cup down. She was astonished. “Then why is Guy always so short of money?”

  “First, because he wants to make it on his own and second, because, as you know, his papa disapproves of designers. He made it plain he wouldn’t help Guy. So Guy wants to show his old man he can get along without him.”

  Judy went straight back and asked Guy for a raise. Then they plunged into work for the July collection; they were showing a range of separates—jackets, skirts, pants and suits—each in three alternative colours, with one overcoat and one raincoat. Judy loved the colours of the new collection: subtle, seductive grays in pewter, silver, oyster and pearl blended with pale rose, burgundy, burnished chestnut, copper and bronze. Narrow toreador pants were worn with brilliant taffeta tops that had huge puffed sleeves. Judy’s favourite was geranium taffeta worn with saffron velvet pants. Their smoke-gray overcoat, bias-cut like a cape, was also lined with geranium silk; the raincoat, of similar cut, was dark green gabardine lined in pink silk.

  With this show Guy hoped to establish himself as a serious businessman, not just a young design prodigy playing at fashion. So this time they planned to present it in style, at the Plaza Athénée again, but with a professional stage manager in charge. It was expensive, but worth it.

  For Guy, this collection was make or break.

  11

  FIVE DAYS BEFORE the show, Guy burst into Judy’s bedroom. Too tired to work for another minute, she had decided to have an early night before the inevitable last-minute rush of the show. She was leaning with her elbows on the window frame as a hot July breeze stirred the white lace curtains. The couple opposite had just started their nightly fight.

  “They’ve been stolen! Everything’s gone! Even the accessories! They’ve cleared every damn thing off the racks, six months’ work has just disappeared! My whole collection has vanished from the workroom.”

  “Have you told the police?” Judy demanded, after she realised he wasn’t joking.

  “Of course. Immediately. They sounded uninterested. Then I telephoned you, but the hotel phone was out of order so I ran around. Every damn thing has disappeared, but only clothes; what’s odd is that the thieves didn’t take my little silver coffee set or the typewriter or the bales of cloth or anything else valuable. Only the clothes.”

  Together they ran back to the empty workshop. “We’ll have to get this door fixed tonight,” Judy said. “We can’t leave the cloth here for anyone to take.”

  “I’ll sleep here tonight,” Guy said wretchedly. Then the telephone rang and they both jumped. A man’s voice asked for Judy.

  Surprised, she took the receiver from Guy. “Judy Jordan here.”

  “If you want your clothes back by Friday it’ll cost his dad eight million francs in cash,” the man said in French.

  The line went dead. Judy looked at Guy. “It’s blackmail!” She repeated the man’s message and added with awe, “That’s nearly twenty-nine thousand dollars they want.”

  “How does he know we’re showing on Friday?”

  “Plenty of people know we’re showing on Friday; everyone we’ve invited, in fact. Better call the flics again.”

  They spent the rest of the evening with the police. Only Parisian police could appreciate the disaster that would result to a couturier from the absence of the forty-two missing garments that constituted Guy’s entire collection. If he didn’t show his clothes when the buyers were in Paris and buying, then he wouldn’t get any orders for them. Apart from that, there was the question of Guy’s prestige. Without doubt, all the important buyers and all the important press would be turning up at Guy’s next show; Guy would look like a careless amateur to a group of important people with not a minute to waste during the fortnight of the collections. And—most important of all—there was the vital question of Guy’s reliability. If he couldn’t produce his own collection on time, then the buyers certainly wouldn’t risk his being unable to deliver their orders on time. The rumour that he was “unreliable” would be Guy’s professional death knell.

  Again and again, the police questioned Judy. Was mademoiselle sure that she had heard correctly? Could she describe the voice? Did either of them have any enemies? What was the business value of the collection, as opposed to the value of the clothes? And so on.

  Eventually Judy and Guy returned to their hotel. A shopping bag hung on Judy’s white china doorknob; inside was a geranium taffeta blouse slashed to ribbons. Horrified, she was holding the rags in her hand when the telephone by her bed rang.

  “Got the red blouse? Good. Be at the café Rubis, by the meat market, at four tomorrow afternoon. They’ll have a parcel for you.”

  Two floors down, Guy had also found a shopping bag hanging on his door handle. Inside was a pair of saffron velvet pants roughly bisected.

  “Do we tell the police?” asked Guy.

  “Not yet,” Judy said, “they’ll only give us another hundred forms to fill in. Anyway, I think I’m their chief suspect. Let’s try and get more information before we go back to the police. Let’s try and analyze what little we know.”

  Suddenly, she shook her head. “Both telephone calls were for me. Why not you? Everyone knows when you’re showing your collection, but very few people have heard of me or know where I live. Besides, I’m a foreigner—I can’t describe a French telephone voice except to say whether it’s a man, woman or child. So it must be someone we know! Someone in the workshop, or a buyer, a journalist perhaps, or even one of our suppliers. . . . Let’s make a list of them from the order and delivery books and the press addresses.”

  The next morning outside the workshop door was a parcel penciled “Judy.” It contained a topaz silk shirt ripped across the middle.

  Guy was distraught. “They’re only showing us they’re tough,” Judy reasoned. “They won’t cut up the whole collection or they won’t have anything to sell to us. They’ve only destroyed two blouses and a pair of pants, not jackets. Maybe we’ll have time to remake them. They’re all made by Marie, aren’t they?” She paused for a moment. “Now that’s interesting! Not one of these three garments was made by José. Perhaps someone who sews as exquisitely as José couldn’t bear to slash her own work.”

  Guy refused to believe that José, who had been with him since he started, would rob him. “How about the cutter?” asked Judy, but Guy refused to believe that he could have been betrayed by any of his tiny staff, all of whom had seen how hard he worked, how much he worried and how careful he was not to be overdemanding of them.

  Then Guy suddenly remembered, “José’s husband is a meat porter and the café Rubis is near the meat market! I once gave José a lift there to meet him. I took her in the delivery van. I don’t suppose she’d remember.”

  “Hardly a coincidence with the whole of Paris to choose from.”

  At four o’clock that afternoon they walked into the café Rubis. As the door swung open, a blast of steamy noise hit them; violet neon lighting glared down from a ceiling supported by slim iron columns. Against a zinc bar leaned hennaed whores, bloodied, white-aproned butchers and meat porters with leather-bound wrists.

  Without being requested, a plate of appetizers was put on the table before them—thick slices of aromatic spiced sausage, chunks of fresh ham and large green aspic cubes containing smoked tongue. For the next three hours they dawdled over black coffee, but nothing happened and no parcel was delivered. They grew increasingly anxious, nervous and depressed until Judy said, “I’m going to telephone Aunt Hortense and ask her advice.”

  Luckily Aunt Hortense was at home. Quickly, Judy told her story. There was a silence, then Aunt Hortense said, “Wait until ten o’clock, then telephone me again and if nothing has happened, come around here.”

  But at nine o’clock the waiter said, “Vous-êtes Americaine, Mademoiselle Jordan? Téléphone.”

  She went
to the phone booth at the back of the café, an upright, coffin-sized wooden box that smelled of old sweat and dead cigarettes. She grabbed the old-fashioned earpiece off the wall and crisply said, “Judy Jordan.” Concentrate, she thought. Listen for the sound of his voice, write down the words as he speaks them. But there was no writing surface and one-handed she couldn’t hold her notebook against the wall.

  “Get the money tomorrow morning and put it in a plain white envelope, the sort that’s used for letters. Then wait in your office. Make sure the money is unmarked because we’ll check it. If you try any tricks with the cops, you won’t hear from us until Thursday because we’ll be busy with the shears.”

  Judy left the foul-smelling booth and repeated the message to Guy. The voice had been fairly deep, a man’s voice, a rough bark. She couldn’t tell more, couldn’t even guess if the voice were disguised.

  “He said ‘shears,’ not ‘scissors’? Are you sure? Only workshop staff would do that,” said Guy, grim.

  They hurried to Aunt Hortense’s apartment. She was waiting in the library and to their astonishment Maurice, the chauffeur, was sitting back in an armchair, legs comfortably crossed, sipping a whiskey and soda. Guy and Judy both refused a drink. “Then let’s have some black coffee to keep us awake,” said Aunt Hortense. “The staff have gone off for the night so I’ll make it myself—the Nescafé, so practical.”

  “I’ll do it,” Judy said, and moved down the gloomy corridor that led to a kitchen.

  When she returned with the tray of coffee, Judy was made to repeat her tale. Then Guy was asked to repeat the whole story, in case there was any slight difference that might provide a clue. After a thoughtful silence Aunt Hortense asked, “Do you know where your staff live? Do they have the telephone? No? That’s good. Let us visit this young seamstress, Marie, immediately. Guy can demonstrate agitation and pretend that he wishes to know how long it will take her to sew two replacement blouses and the pants. Any excuse will do; the point is to catch her by surprise at home.”