The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  He shrugged. ‘You do now.’

  ‘Where did you fight? Normandy was it?’ It was a hostile question. This loafer had never felt the inside of a uniform.

  ‘Bad lungs.’ He coughed thickly to prove it. ‘I’ve joined the Passive Defence Force. I’ll come and check your blackout curtains any time.’

  ‘Thanks but no thanks.’

  After that, conversation stretched so thin, Coralie was forced to mention the weather. ‘It’s stifling.’

  ‘What do you want in June? Snow? What’s your friend up to?’

  Una had changed partners for one of the Germans from Dietrich’s table. Coralie hid her exasperation with a shrug. ‘She’s dancing. This is a nightclub, it’s allowed.’

  ‘Knows where her bread’s buttered.’

  ‘Buttered?’ Coralie hit back. ‘There’s no butter.’

  ‘That lot are Luftwaffe officers. I told old Félix to give them free drinks because they downed two hundred and fifty British bombers over France last month.’

  Only self-preservation stopped Coralie throwing her wine into the man’s face. Donal flew bombers. Light ones, whatever ‘light’ meant. He was a navigator-something, she’d always regretted not listening better. Two hundred and fifty down. Not Donal’s. Please not his. ‘You’re glad they shot down those planes?’

  ‘Sod the British. They left our troops high and dry in Normandy.’

  ‘They took thousands of French boys with them. It was go or die.’

  ‘What does any woman know?’

  ‘Go to Hell!’

  He walked away, stopping to call back, ‘If you ever want a good seeing-to by a proper man, you know where I am.’

  She held her tongue. If he’d rather see France under German rule than continue the fight, well, he’d got his wish. Dammit, she was stuck at the bar now. She couldn’t find her table without passing Dietrich. She was damned whatever she did – wallflowers sat alone at tables and prostitutes sat alone at bars.

  She was wearing her coral bracelet, its spiny edges bit as she pressed it into her flesh. Una was dancing with Dietrich. Her man. Bitter she might be, but he was still hers. In her mind, at least.

  When Una finally joined her, Coralie snapped, ‘Six partners one after the other.’

  ‘It’s called co-existence.’

  ‘It’s called “selling your wares”.’

  Una perched on a bar stool and fitted a cigarette into her holder. Her hands weren’t entirely steady. ‘Shut up and listen. When I was dancing with the first, I heard his colleagues chatting. One of my grandmothers was German and I have a smattering of it.’ She put her elbow on the bar and used her lighter to shield her lips. ‘As of three days ago, all refugees who fled Germany for whatever reason are to be surrendered for deportation. A special camp has been opened in Poland to receive them. Pétain’s government agreed to hand them over as part of the armistice terms.’

  ‘Isn’t that against some convention?’

  ‘I have no idea, but it won’t help Ottilia.’

  ‘Is Tilly a refugee? I mean, technically, she came here from London.’

  ‘Which is enemy territory. Did you know that her brother Max sent years of valuable research to competitors in America? Something to do with paint chemicals. The Germans were incandescent, so I’d say that Tilly’s on every list going.’ Una turned to get a clear look at the stage. Perhaps in deference to Florian’s rusty technique, the Vagabonds were playing a dreamy ‘Mood Indigo’. ‘Anybody could betray her. Friends, neighbours, jealous shop girls – what?’

  ‘Imminent peril at nine o’clock.’

  ‘Nine o’what? Oh, we’re being navigators.’ Two Luftwaffe officers were coming over, followed by a waiter with wine and a silver ice bucket. Turning to glance at them, Una murmured, ‘That’s your Dietrich, isn’t it, headed this way? If anyone could help Tilly, surely he would.’

  ‘No! If anything, he’s got a vested interest in turning her— Talk later.’ The men were upon them.

  Una pouted around her cigarette holder, exhaling smoke in her very particular way. ‘Why, gentlemen, chilled champagne. How blissful.’

  ‘Ice for the lucky few, then,’ Coralie muttered.

  Dietrich asked her to dance and she accepted, as if he were a vague acquaintance and she bored enough to want the diversion. ‘Mood Indigo’ had given way to ‘In A Sentimental Mood’ but there was no melting into arms. She didn’t want to touch his uniform. All she could think was, Two hundred and fifty British bombers down.

  He broke the silence. ‘I bought you this dress, I think.’

  ‘Yes, when we first arrived . . .’ She stopped.

  ‘Straight into the trap. I had told myself how well you held up to questioning the other day. Your answers fitted with the details on your identity card, at least.’

  ‘Why did you do it, Dietrich?’ She battled the urge to claw his face. To tear off his uniform, beginning with that swallow-tail cross. Tear it off, find the man he’d once been, the friend, the lover . . . then spit in the face of the man he’d become.

  ‘Question you?’ He sounded more German than she remembered, his fluency diminished. Not surprising in three years. ‘To discover if, under duress, you could keep to your story. You need to polish your answers. Had I been a professional interrogator, your stumbling would have aroused suspicion.’ He tilted his head to examine the headpiece of flowers and ribbon she wore in her curls. ‘I had not expected to find you a fashionable milliner. A wife and mother, too. You have been busy.’

  ‘So have you, rising up the ranks, polishing your medals.’ Returning to Paris . . . with what in mind?

  ‘Tell me about this Ramon, whose ring you do not wear. It was a short marriage?’

  ‘Elegantly brief.’

  ‘But fruitful.’

  ‘My daughter isn’t Ramon’s child.’ She felt his shudder. His expression changed and understanding dawned. ‘Dietrich, she’s not yours.’

  His hands dropped away. ‘Let’s go to a table.’

  He selected one at the edge of the room where he ordered their favourite wine of old, Pissotte. ‘Tell me about your daughter.’

  Usually her favourite subject, but telling him about Noëlle felt like a violation. ‘Just a normal child. She’ll be three come winter and then I’ll be thinking about nursery school. If there are any open, of course.’

  ‘Is that a dig?’ He twisted the stem of his glass. ‘Just tell me the facts.’

  All right, she thought, here goes.‘D’you remember, we were here having dinner once and you asked me the name of my first lover? I ducked the question. You want the truth? It was a sailor. Rishal. From the island of Mauritius.’ She wove a few strands: Coronation night, fireworks tearing the sky, drink running freely. She’d really liked him. ‘Though, to be fair, back then I was ready to run away with anybody who showed me a bit of love. We passed a few intimate nights, then he sailed, leaving me pregnant. End of fairytale.’

  Dietrich seemed lost in the reflections in his wine glass, giving her a chance to study him properly. At first he’d seemed no different from before, but she saw that lines, like sparrow’s feet, ran deep from the outer corners of his eyes. Leaner, too. It grazed her mind that he, too, might have suffered at their parting.

  ‘Why did you leave me, Dietrich?’

  ‘I had to get back to Germany.’

  ‘Why make a fuss of me for two months, then drop me cold? I was destitute, homeless. I hated you.’

  He shook his head, distaste in his manner. ‘Why should you be destitute with twenty thousand francs, and your suite paid for two months? I may have left you, Coralie, but not to perish.’

  ‘You paid for another two months? They told me to go! Out by eleven sharp.’ Memories of that horrible day brought acid to her throat. ‘You left no money. I had just enough to keep me from starving.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar? I left twenty thousand francs, in cash, for you.’

  ‘Wh
o did you give it to?’

  ‘Brownlow, with a letter explaining why I was going and what I had learned of your conduct.’

  She flushed, imagining that conversation, imagining the paintwork Brownlow had applied to her good name. Gold-digger, good-time girl. ‘Brownlow hated me. He wasn’t going to hand over a nice fat wad of cash. Straight into his own pocket, I should think, your gentleman’s gentleman. I bet the desk clerk took the money you paid for my suite, too. And you,’ her voice throbbed, ‘you hurt me when I did nothing but love you.’

  ‘Nothing? Your conscience is clear?’ The hard, upward inflection thrust another picture at her: of herself trespassing where she’d no business to go.

  Taking a draught of wine, she continued, ‘I did do something – I took a letter.’

  Cold savagery came to his face, and she felt a familiar panic, legacy of her life with her father. ‘You took more than a letter, Coralie. You took a life. I can never forgive you, and in my dark hours, I dream of inflicting the same pain on you. I have great power here . . . and you, a mother, an undreamed-of opportunity.’

  ‘What are you saying? Dietrich? What’s my being a mother got to do with anything?’

  ‘Your child for my child.’ He rose, scraping his chair, and she reached across the table to stop him but he avoided her grasp.

  ‘You’d hurt my daughter? Why? What happened to your child? Dietrich, tell me!’

  He was taut with emotion. ‘Go. I will have a car drive you home to rue de Seine. See? I know every detail. Even that your last hat collection at La Passerinette was predominantly pink.’ He gave a deformed smile. ‘I never cured you of pink.’ He came to the back of her chair and she flinched before she realised that, in spite of everything, habits of politeness had not deserted him.

  ‘Have you heard from Ottilia since we spoke last?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. I mean, no. She went south. Cap d’Antibes.’ That was Una’s favourite holiday spot and she often described its white villas and azure bay. ‘Baronne von Silberstrom took a villa.’

  ‘Cap d’Antibes, in summer? Ottilia burns like a lamb cutlet. Remember on Epsom Downs, how she wore a coat and gloves? You always were a poor liar, Coralie. She is in Paris, though not at rue de Vaugirard.’

  ‘Cap d’Antibes,’ Coralie repeated. ‘Send your fellows there for her.’

  ‘And you should know that whoever hides Ottilia risks arrest. No mercy, even for a beautiful, fast-talking milliner. When you wish to bring me information, find me—’

  ‘At the Crillon? Or the Lutetia? Or do you shuttle between the two?’

  He pulled her chair back for her, and then they stood face to face. An almost palpable current flashed between them. ‘Neither. I have rooms in a place special to both of us.’

  ‘The Duet?’ In spite of everything, she blushed, and for a moment she thought he was going to bend to kiss her. She whispered, ‘Dietrich, what happened to you?’

  He stepped back, clicked his heels and left her.

  Just after dawn the next morning, Coralie went out. She wore flat shoes and a plain, belted coat, a headscarf knotted under her chin. She needed to be incognito.

  CHAPTER 19

  She walked briskly, hardly aware of an apricot sun misting every surface. At rue Valdonne, a narrow street off boulevard du Montparnasse, she mentally reassembled the directions Arkady had given her late last night, after she’d waited up for him. Brown shutters, a plain house, middle of the street. Middle-ish. Trouble was, everyone seemed to prefer their shutters brown. She was looking for the safe house into which Ramon had taken Arkady and Florian when they first arrived in Paris. Their host, an elderly painter, had later created their identity papers for them.

  ‘Ramon calls him Bonnet. He paints the big pictures.’ Arkady had stretched his arms to imply a vast canvas. ‘But when he makes forgeries, he works with the touch of a butterfly. He is genius but . . .’ Arkady had mimed somebody downing a glass of liquor ‘. . . Ramon must always check for mistakes.’

  Should she be doing this? Commission a drunk to produce similar illegal papers for Ottilia? Brave people did that sort of thing. She wasn’t brave. As kids, she and Donal used to play ‘chicken’ on the railway lines at the end of Shand Street. They’d wait till the steel sang with the vibration of wheels, then perform their own special dare. Hop over the rails on one foot, touch the parapet on the other side, then hop back on the other foot.

  She’d never managed it, always pelting back to safety before she reached the far wall. Donal could, though. Funny, that. Hesitant and disaster-prone, he’d had the cooler nerve. Would he say she was doing the right thing, risking herself to help a friend? Or that she was being selfish, putting her child’s future in jeopardy?

  To get there, she’d walked down boulevard Raspail, her breath shortening at the sight of the Lutetia. The hotel was the headquarters of the Abwehr – military intelligence, she’d learned. Dietrich really had taken her into the wasps’ nest. A sensible person, having escaped once, would not seek to return. Would they?

  She walked along rue Valdonne until she smelt the bakery and her stomach rolled. You got used to hunger – or, at least, to suppressing it – but oven-fresh bread got through your defences every time. A queue of local women had already formed outside the shop, and when they saw Coralie, they passed hostile looks along the line. Their message was clear: ‘Our street, our bread.’

  Coralie stationed herself in a doorway a safe distance away. Even hard-drinking forgers liked fresh bread. Arkady’s ‘genius painter’ would emerge eventually. And, indeed, at a few minutes past six, a door bumped open nearby and a man came out. Stocky, with a grey beard and red-veined cheeks, he presented a convincing portrait of a drinker. Whether he was also an artist was unclear. That could be oil paint on his overalls or house paint.

  ‘Monsieur Bonnet?’

  He jumped and Coralie thought he was going to scuttle back inside. But he pushed his hands into his pockets and looked at her sideways. ‘Who is asking for him?’

  She gave a name, not her real one. ‘I understand you can provide fake identity documents.’

  ‘Who says?’ The thick beard made it hard to gauge the man’s expression, but Coralie could see he had eaten soup very recently. He must live an upside-down life.

  ‘I’d rather not give names, but you can trust me.’

  ‘I trust only two things, Madame. Cognac and cash.’ He walked away towards the bakery.

  ‘I’m Ramon Cazaubon’s wife, all right?’ she hissed.

  ‘Ramon’s lady?’ He came back and a grin split his beard. ‘Quite a man, our Ramon!’

  ‘So, can you help? I have a friend who has to leave town.’

  Bonnet hawked and spat the results towards the gutter. ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘Woman. Can you also forge an Ausweis, a permit to travel? For five people.’

  Bonnet inflated his cheeks, letting the breath go slowly. ‘I suppose. But I tell you this. I won’t forge a police signature, French or German. Signatures you get for yourself, yes?’ He drew her into a dingy hallway, which smelt of gas and cooking oil. And something that took her straight back to Bermondsey, to the glue factory on Magdalen Street: decomposing rabbit. Maybe he was a proper artist. Her father used rabbit glue to prime his screens.

  Bonnet asked, ‘Your friend’s name?’

  ‘Dupont. Ottilie Dupont. Yes, I know.’ She’d seen the beard twitch. Using ‘Dupont’ was like booking into a hotel in England and calling yourself ‘Smith’. She and Una had gone through dozens of fake names, selecting Dupont because it had been the surname of Ottilia’s previous lady’s maid, which gave their friend a chance of remembering it. ‘Ottilie’ had been chosen with similar logic.

  Bonnet’s eyes creased. ‘Documents for Mademoiselle Dupont and an Ausweis. I’ll need the names of everyone travelling on it. How old is your friend?’

  ‘Thirty, and we’ll be using her real birthdate because she doesn’t remember new things.’

  Bonnet made a tu
t-tut sound. ‘You know what happens if she is caught?’

  ‘We know. How quickly can you do it?’

  ‘Two weeks.’ When she objected, Bonnet gave a dry laugh. ‘For Madame Cazaubon, nine days, but it will cost. A lot. For I am very good.’ They shook hands and Bonnet followed her out on to the pavement. Giving her an odd look, he asked, ‘You know where Ramon is now?’

  ‘No. He went to fight, and I haven’t heard a word.’

  ‘Why not? He’s back in Paris. He lives there,’ Bonnet pointed across the street, ‘with a . . . Sorry.’

  With a woman. What else?

  ‘If it’s any comfort, she’s nowhere near as nice-looking as you.’

  Coralie walked away, contemplating the pleasure she’d derive from booting Ramon’s backside down the stairs if ever he called on her again.

  One more stop to make, then home.

  Being a frump in a headscarf has its advantages, Coralie mused. She made it to the Right Bank without being asked for her papers once. She even passed the gun emplacements on place de la Concorde without the soldiers on duty looking up. Under her breath, she sang a revolutionary song,

  ‘“Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!’ It’s all going on . . .”’ All the way to Henriette Junot’s.

  CHAPTER 20

  Coralie still had a key to Henriette’s shop. In the emotion of her departure, nobody had thought to ask for it. The shop was dark. Not even the early-birds had yet arrived.

  Closing the door behind her, Coralie flicked a lighter she’d borrowed from Arkady, illuminating four marottes on the white satin plinth, angled as if in conversation. Dietrich might mock her love of pink, but if you avoided sugar-candy, it could be subtle. Intriguing that Henriette Junot should be displaying hats of the same fanée, faded, shade that she and Violaine had experimented with this spring.

  Bringing the lighter flame as close as she dared, Coralie read the hat’s labels. ‘HJ, Paris.’ So – they’d been unpicking La Passerinette labels and inserting Henriette’s, using the same stitching holes. Coralie could already anticipate Henriette’s defence if accused: ‘Prove they’re yours!’