The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  For many months, the Allies had been landing troops in southern Italy, and an armistice had been signed with the Italians back in September 1943. The country that had been Germany’s main ally was now a battleground, casualties on both sides atrocious but the Germans in retreat. Every café-chair general agreed that Hitler could not win a war in the east and in the west. On one side or other, he would be overrun. Victory!

  The collection showed in just over an hour and applause greeted its end. As Solange posed one final time, Georges joined them and Coralie held her hand out. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Well done.’

  ‘Some credit at last? A bit late, but I’m honoured.’

  ‘I admit, I am the proud owner of a big, stupid gob—’

  He walked on, saying, ‘I shall take my break now. I’ll be back in time for the second show.’

  He cut it fine. At two fifteen, she saw him hurrying in, limping hard. He must have gone further afield than usual. Why, on such an important day? The afternoon audience was ready, the German language filling the salon. Old Félix was serving champagne, complimenting every woman present on her beauty – even the cross old dragons. There should be a medal struck for Félix, Coralie thought.

  She tried to catch Georges’s eye, but he ignored her. All his attention was on the street door. Who was he looking for? A moment later, the answer walked in.

  No. Georges Blanchard and Lorienne Royer could not know each other.

  Dashing into the corridor, Coralie tried to master her panic. Any suggestion that the Allies were winning the war was treasonable. Even being caught painting Victory signs on buildings was punishable by imprisonment. Coralie had once caused Lorienne to be put in jail, and here she was, sharing a Judas glance with Georges, making a V sign with her fingers. Had the woman recruited Georges to settle the score?

  ‘Are you sick?’ Solange came up to her.

  ‘I’m thinking of cutting all these hats to pieces.’

  Solange nodded dreamily. ‘Monsieur Javier used to be the same. Each collection, he would lose confidence and threaten to rip everything to shreds.’

  Coralie bit her thumbnail, almost to the quick. Solange didn’t understand: this was no creative crisis. She had to decide what to do, now.

  ‘Fight.’ The word rang out in the empty stairwell above. Last time she’d heard a discarnate voice, in her father’s tin shack, she’d run for her life. Nowhere to run this time – but she could stand her ground. ‘Solange, can you speed up this next show? Don’t stand and pose, keep moving.’

  ‘Surely you wish for people to take notes.’

  ‘Flick your hem, look angry. It’s about you this time, not the hats.’

  ‘All right.’ An incurious nature was one of Solange’s virtues. Coralie thought, If we’re both arrested, she’ll wake up fast enough. Oh, God, what am I doing?

  Reticent applause lapped over the end of the second show but Coralie was attuned to the nuances of clapping. They liked what they saw, this audience, but their confidence had deserted them. No more finger clicking. No more ‘Fräulein, here, quick.’ These women had come to Paris in triumph and Paris had curled its lip. In their homeland, unthinkable carnage was taking place. In desiring glamour still, they were hanging on to an illusion.

  Félix Peyron tapped her. ‘Over there.’

  Across the salon, beside Lorienne Royer, Major Reiniger.

  Félix heard her murmur of horror. ‘What have you done, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘Didn’t you see my hats?’

  Félix nodded. ‘Vive la Victoire! But V can stand for other things. Du vin, for instance.’ He put a glass in her hand. She downed it in one, scooped a breath and tinkled a bell. Chatter died down. ‘Gnädige Damen und Herren, I will be delighted to discuss this collection with you and make appointments in the diary. Meanwhile, allow us to serve you another glass of wine.’

  Lorienne launched her attack at once. ‘Perhaps Mademoiselle de Lirac will explain the significance of the letter V, which is a feature of every hat shown.’ Lorienne’s German came with a strong French accent, but it brought the room to absolute silence. People stared at Coralie, wanting the answer.

  Coralie put down her bell because it was tinkling her fear. ‘I’m glad you asked that, Lorienne.’ Not ‘Madame Royer’ or even ‘Madame’. Lorienne’s air of patrician superiority was as fake as her hair colour. ‘What if I wove a V into all my designs as a tribute to a friend?’ Fight.

  ‘Violaine Beaumont, you mean? Or should I say Bermanski? A Polish Jewess.’ Lorienne used the German Jüdin. ‘Illegally sheltered and employed by you.’ Her tone implied, Got you!

  Coralie felt the mood in the room shift. ‘Violaine was – is – my friend. She was also the best milliner I ever met.’ She remembered the games of ‘chicken’ she and Donal had played. Every time she’d turned back, coward that she was. But she wasn’t the only coward in the world. Singling out one figure, she admitted, in French, ‘Without my technicians I am a second-rate milliner.’

  ‘That’s your secret out, then, isn’t it?’ Georges’s voice peaked disdainfully, but he was sweating under her gaze. Or perhaps he was feeling Major Reiniger’s clerical spectacles on him more than was comfortable. Perhaps Georges was realising that bringing in the Gestapo was like unchaining an attack dog in a walled yard. The dog’s teeth were suddenly in reach of everyone.

  ‘I could never have created this collection without you, Georges. Agreed?’ She repeated the question in German.

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Georges agrees. So Georges can explain what the V stands for.’

  Giving Georges fair time to think of an answer, Coralie climbed on to a chair so that everyone could see her.

  ‘What does V stand for?’ she said in a clear voice. ‘Let me tell you something that I hope, in future years, you will remember when somebody says the name “Coralie de Lirac”. Gnädige Damen, Major Reiniger,’ she steeled herself to look straight into those glinting discs, ‘I am not beautiful, but I have learned how to make others believe that I am. I do it with a hat. I wear one of my own creations every day, even in the bath.’ She allowed the titters of amused surprise to die down. ‘What is a hat? Is it just moulded felt, steamed straw, or gauze thrown over wire? Yes, it is all of these. But add to that a je ne sais quoi. A sprinkle of magic. For every woman there is a hat waiting to transform her. A hat to make a plain face interesting, a sweet face lovely. A hat to hold a straying husband . . .’ She paused for effect. Even Reiniger was hanging on her words, though that was not necessarily a good thing. ‘A hat to catch a fresh husband if the old one’s not worth hanging on to. Pink silk water-lilies to send the blues away. White gardenias to blow away the shadows of time. There is a hat for joy, a hat for sorrow. We are what Nature made us and we cannot send the hands of the clock backwards, but the right hat, a clever hat, a wicked hat, can change a face – like that!’ She clicked her fingers and the ladies nearby jumped. ‘So, what does V stand for?’

  Well? Vichy? Veronal? Vick’s VapoRub? Always a good idea to know the punch line before you start the monologue. ‘V stands for everything a hand-made, personally designed hat should be. Vivace. Vibrant. Valeureux. Vivant. Originale, mais toujours en vogue.’

  ‘I was hoping it stood for “Vaugirard”.’

  She would have fallen off her chair, had she not grabbed the speaker’s shoulder. ‘How did you get in here?’ What she meant to say was, ‘You’re back at last!’

  ‘I knocked at the side door. Solange, is that her name? She let me in.’

  Sunlight between the blinds delineated a scar that ran the length of a lean cheek. She couldn’t stop herself looking at it, in shock, in pity.

  ‘Have I changed so much?’

  ‘No. Just . . . why Vaugirard?’ Everyone else wanted to know, it seemed. Fifty faces were turned to them. Including Reiniger’s.

  Dietrich helped her down, but when he spoke, it was for her ears only. ‘Vaugirard is where we became lovers the second time, where we forgave each oth
er. Where we recognised that we are navigating the same river. Do you realise we have been apart for more than a year? Another fifteen months, wasted. Hiltrud attacked me on March the eighth last year.’

  Touching the scar, she noticed he wasn’t wearing his Pour le Mérite.

  ‘You find me underdressed? I arrived back in Paris yesterday, late.’

  ‘You’re back at Vaugirard? And only just better? Those wounds must have gone very deep.’

  He nodded. ‘It was a shock, finding traces of my own blood still on the stairs. They took Dietrich von Elbing in an ambulance car to Germany but I am not sure who has come back.’ He turned to face the audience. ‘None of these hats is for sale, ladies. I intend to buy them all.’

  Immediately, there was a scraping of chairs and, within seconds, Coralie was surrounded by women demanding to try on the models and reserve one for themselves.

  Later, clutching a pencil worn to a stub, Coralie asked Dietrich, ‘Did you know I was in a fix?’ Reiniger and Lorienne were still in the salon. So was Georges Blanchard. She had a feeling they were waiting for some kind of climax.

  Dietrich nodded. ‘On my way home last night, I made a detour by the Rose Noire. I wanted to hear some music that wasn’t military anthems or Wagner. Félix told me he was helping you today, but that is not why I am here. I have to warn you of something.’

  People were leaving. Good. She was exhausted, wanting only to close up and go home. When Reiniger clashed eyes with her, she said nothing. A moment later, he left. When Solange came to say goodbye, Coralie said, ‘Got your hat?’

  ‘The white silk jersey, yes?’

  ‘A good choice.’

  When Lorienne arched her eyebrows at her, she raised hers back. When Georges Blanchard shuffled forward and said, ‘I will collect my things,’ she said, ‘No – I’ll drop them outside Lorienne’s place. Get out and stay out.’

  When Félix had been paid, and it was just herself and Dietrich left, she locked the door and pulled down the blinds.

  There was pain in the way Dietrich stood with his weight planted evenly on each foot. His hair had yielded a little more to grey and, in the fading light, his scar looked like a badly stitched seam.

  In the corridor, she surveyed her hats.

  Dietrich came and stood behind her. ‘V for victory? A little premature, I think.’

  ‘Help me put them away.’

  They boxed them up. Surveying them, piled high on the workroom shelves, Coralie brushed away a tear. Sometimes you saw betrayals coming. Other times, they pinged up, like a rogue bedspring. Georges and Lorienne . . .

  She found a card and a pen. Telling Dietrich not to look over her shoulder, she wrote a few lines, which he then read aloud. ‘“With regret, La Passerinette is closing. Mademoiselle de Lirac thanks her many clients and friends for their support over the years.” Coralie, you cannot give up.’

  ‘I keep being pulled down. I lose people, or they cheat me.’

  He pinned the card into the soft board behind her workbench. ‘Do not let Lorienne Royer grind you down. You are too good at what you do.’

  She promised to sleep on it. ‘So what bad news have you brought me?’

  ‘The worst.’

  Back in the salon, he drew her down beside him on the sofa. ‘A few days ago, your husband was part of a gang that blew up a railway tunnel near Auxerre – you know where that is?’

  ‘A morning’s journey south of here.’

  ‘On the main Paris to Lyon line.’

  She waited for the ‘and’.

  ‘A train was caught inside. Over a hundred troops died, and many civilians. Some of the troops were injured soldiers being evacuated to Germany.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She took a breath. ‘For the civilians. Your soldiers had it coming.’

  He flashed anger. ‘You believe that? Seventeen-year-old boys, dying under a fall of rock, their flesh burned black in the inferno? Had it coming?’

  ‘Blame your bloody Führer.’

  He expelled a breath. ‘Coralie, no child in any corner of this earth is born to such a death.’

  Tell that to the men who took Amélie and her child. ‘Is Ramon in trouble?’

  ‘He was seen with other saboteurs and he caught a bullet.’ Injured? Dying? Dietrich didn’t know or care. ‘The Gestapo will sell their souls to catch him. If you’re found with him, or near him, I can’t help you.’ He forced her to look at him. ‘If I see him, even with you, I will turn him in.’

  ‘Revenge, because of what I wrote in that letter? I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Because he set explosives regardless of consequence. That is not war.’

  ‘Warning heard and understood.’

  ‘Why do I doubt that?’ He laid his forehead against hers. ‘Will you come to my flat?’

  ‘Not if your barmy wife is there.’

  ‘Hiltrud is in a secure hospital.’

  As Coralie locked up, it came to her mind that Georges still had a key. Maybe she should call in a locksmith. But Dietrich was leaning against the outside wall looking haggard. Chances were, if Georges was planning to come back and strip the place, he’d choose tomorrow, Sunday, when the streets were empty. And she would be waiting for him.

  They took the lift up to Dietrich’s flat. In the bathroom, she helped him undress, flinching at the scars on his leg. He’d been lucky. A hair’s breadth deeper . . . ‘I thought you and she had patched things up.’

  He shook his head. ‘When I was in Germany last, Hiltrud wanted me with her but it was not to whisper words of love. Rather, to void her soul of the cancerous hatred she feels for me. Hiltrud blames me for the loss of our children.’

  ‘Both children?’

  ‘Our daughter lives, but her choice of work has taken her from us. Hiltrud told her doctors that I had made our son a girl, and our girl a man.’

  ‘Will they let her out?’

  ‘Not until I allow it.’ He reached over and turned off the bath taps. ‘I wish this were big enough for two.’

  ‘I tried joining you in the bath once, and remember what happened? Get yourself washed so I can have some of that hot water.’ She perched on the cast-iron rim.

  He asked her, ‘Why did you leave me? That parting shot . . . To teach me a lesson?’

  ‘No, because I was scared. Before I met you, the worst thing in my life was my dad’s temper. Now the worst thing is the Gestapo. Every word is dangerous, every friendship. Even putting feathers on hats brings the buggers through the door! I was frightened for myself and for you.’ She frowned down at him, submerged in soapy water. ‘Did your mother have you circumcised?’

  He gave a shout of laughter. ‘What made you think suddenly of that?’ More gravely, he said, ‘It certainly wasn’t my father, the Graf’s, choice. But Coralie, didn’t we agree, here in this flat, to face every danger together?’

  In bed, she caressed him to hardness, to show him that his damaged body still excited her. His wounds were tender still, the nerve-endings still knitting even after so many months, and he joked that it was like two people dancing either side of a barbed-wire fence. But their climax was deep and in step and she told him not to withdraw. She wanted to prove that she trusted him and wanted to shape the rest of her life around him. She could think of only one way to do that.

  CHAPTER 36

  SUNDAY, 28 MAY 1944

  The Lancaster crew had no idea of it, but their bombs had just scored the last deadly hit of the war on industrial Schweinfurt. Ron Phipps, the pilot and a veteran of many tours, asked the navigator for a home course and was given a track south of Frankfurt. It would take them over Luxembourg and onward over France. The navigator advised crossing the sea off Brittany where coastal defences were lighter.

  Phipps agreed. ‘We’re flying too low to risk the Normandy guns.’

  They’d been on three engines since being hit by flak on the approach to Schweinfurt and, at just twelve thousand feet, were in danger from a direct strike from the ground. Or from attack by en
emy night fighters, as a brilliant moon would be making a silhouette of them against the darkness. The maimed Lancaster bucked and tilted as if maddened by the loss of an engine.

  For the crew, it was like being on a fishing boat in heavy seas. The navigator saw the wireless operator clamp his hand to his mouth.

  Thirty churning minutes later, the pilot’s intercom clicked on again.

  ‘Location, Irish?’

  Always ‘Irish’ to his fellows, for all he kept telling them he was a Londoner, the navigator answered, ‘We’ve just clipped the corner off Luxembourg. We should be over the Moselle river – French side. Keep a course south-south-west and presently, we’ll see the Yonne, then the Seine.’

  ‘Roger, understood. Sorry to roll you about, boys. Everyone in one piece?’

  One by one, the other six members of the crew switched on their microphones and answered positive.

  Irish put his hand into his flying jacket and touched his good luck charm – a scrap of gold braid that had come from a girl’s evening gown in Paris, four-and-a-half years ago. Alone in the skies, separated from their squadron and escort, they might just slip home unnoticed. He hoped so. He so wanted to live, to experience civilian life as the mature man that five years of bombing ops had made him.

  As they progressed over France, the wireless operator reported a lessening of jamming signals, and was at last able to give Irish some bearings. Wing Commander Phipps was expressing his satisfaction at this when, from the ground far below, came a burst of coloured flares. Anti-aircraft fire from defences on the river Yonne. A second later, the plane shuddered. Flame swept over the Perspex turret and a horrible guttering sound suggested a shell had struck one of the remaining engines.

  The Lancaster dropped sickeningly, levelling out after a minute or so. Irish checked his maps and called feverishly for new bearings. If his reckoning was right, they’d shortly be over the Fontainebleau forest. Squeezing crabwise up the fuselage, he stared out through the cockpit cupola at the landscape. He saw the confluence of two rivers, strands of shining ribbon under the moon, and beyond, the dark mass of trees.