The Lost Girl

by Carol Drinkwater

  ‘What in Heaven’s name?’

  She craned her neck to take in more of the scene. La Belle Équipe seemed to be surrounded.

  ‘What on earth …?’

  Bodies were being dragged, bagged and rushed away in ambulances and fire engines. Had a bomb exploded? Was there a fire? Should she take the lift back downstairs and see what she could do to lend a hand? Marguerite felt her old body, thin as a wheat stalk, begin to shudder. She staggered to the television and switched it to the third channel. There she read, at the foot of the images: Paris sous siège.

  Paris is under attack?

  The sirens cried out from the screen, counterpointing those wailing beyond her windows, homing in on the quartier.

  An image of Hollande flashed up. He had been called out from the football stadium, one of two anchormen was relating. There was a note of real urgency to his commentary. An attack on a restaurant. No figures yet of the numbers injured or possibly dead. A young man with a voguish trace of beard was burbling into a microphone. He was speaking directly from the scene of the attack. The tenth arrondissement. In rue Alibert. Not here, not rue de Charonne. Marguerite was confused. On the screen, behind the tense young man, clusters of stationary fire engines, striped yellow and red. Dark-clad police officers with firearms and helmets were striding to and fro.

  She shuffled backwards, grappling for a chair. ‘Are we at war?’ she muttered. If so, with whom? Where would she go? Was there to be a mass evacuation? What could she, a defenceless old lady, do to protect herself? She had known the horrors of war as a girl.

  Rue de Charonne, her own street with its façades so familiar, was not mentioned on the television, yet what was going on beyond her own apartment? She hobbled back to the window and pressed her hands to the glass. The devastation below was horrifying and real. People bent double, sobbing, on their knees howling. In pain, in grief. She must go down. She must offer her home as refuge to those who needed solace, alcohol, tea. Had they confused the address? Reporting rue Alibert when in fact the destruction was right here in rue de Charonne?

  Back on the screen, a news update.

  ‘We are receiving incoming bulletins that suggest there has also been an incident at the Bataclan concert hall, in the eleventh arrondissement, boulevard Voltaire. Unidentified men, three or possibly four, have entered the concert hall by the bar area, it has been reported. It has been described to us as a “hostage situation”. A number of accounts are emerging from within the theatre, audience members in hiding, sending messages of distress from their smartphones, calling for assistance. This is a developing story and we will be back to you with news on it as soon as we have more.’

  Dear God, the Bataclan. Marguerite had been reminiscing about that building, the horrid old carpet upon which she had inadvertently dropped cigarette ash, only this evening.

  But wait … Hadn’t her companion at L’Armagnac mentioned that her family was attending this evening’s concert? Marguerite’s mind was growing befuddled. These events were too shocking. She rubbed her hands together, one over the other, rings scratching flesh. Her fingers were becoming numb. A circulatory problem. She must not forget to take her bedtime pill. She was so lax about it.

  Yes, she was convinced of it. The woman’s daughter and husband were at a rock concert at the Bataclan. She must return downstairs, no question about it. It was her duty to hurry to L’Armagnac, seek out the lady and warn her. Marguerite was crossing the carpet in her stockinged feet, rooting out a pair of shoes from the cupboard. Not her boots – they were fiddly to zip up and took too long. She was all of a fidget, drawing her mink back off its hanger. Where were her keys? She must go down and warn that poor Englishwoman.

  What a terrifying business.

  Only an hour or two earlier she had been sitting comfortably with a Ricard between her fingers, rings tapping against the cool glass, chatting amiably to the young photographer while recalling her own post-war Bataclan days. All those years back, decades and decades ago, when it had been a picture house, when she had first set eyes on Charlie. How naive she had been. ‘“In my salad days when I was green in judgement …” Oh, yes, and so puffed up with my own importance.’ She shook her head at those hazy memories of herself, of the handsomeness of that young Charlie. Charlie, to whom she should have been more loving. She had been too young and damaged to know better, wrapped up in her own self-centred concerns.

  She put on her fur, ready to brave the cold for the second time that evening. Better to put aside the past and help those suffering now in the street beneath her. There was nothing to be done about poor, long gone Charlie.

  Marguerite and Charlie, Paris, March 1947

  Marguerite scanned the steel and glass interior hall of the Gare de Lyon, eyeing people’s passage, the preoccupied or harassed faces of travellers, the mass of unknowns who were waiting for trains, for loved ones, departing or arriving. She was faint with hunger, dizzy from lack of sleep, dragged down by defeat. Four strangers had refused her plea for assistance, her request for a franc or two, while others had simply walked on, ignoring her approach with stuck-up expressions as though she were nothing better than a vagrant. Her confidence had taken a belting, more so because she was so tired and hungry.

  The place was heaving with others, Europeans speaking foreign languages: Polish, Hungarian, Croatian. These were the ‘displaced people’ all the newspapers were writing about. Eyes that were glassy and hollow, hanging arms, bony fingers with tattered suitcases. Were they Jews? There were ragged families of them in the rundown pension where she had stayed. She had tried hard not to look at them, never to meet their gaze.

  She had to find help soon. She needed a square meal but, most importantly, a railway ticket to the south. She would not give up on this. Her open-toed sandals were scuffed, dusty, and the straps were biting into her ankles, swollen after the three-kilometre trek across the eastern streets of Paris. She turned slowly in a circle, her worn beige raincoat hanging limply between her clasped hands, a travel bag containing all her worldly possessions slung over one shoulder. That was all she could claim as her own since she had pawned her watch to feed herself and sold her leather gloves for a paltry few francs to pay for the last of her drama lessons a few weeks earlier. The evening before, that bastard of a landlord had confiscated the suitcase containing all her gorgeous frocks. She silently cursed the manager at the Bataclan picture house for denying her those hard-earned wages and leaving her with nothing. Not a sou. Her weary eyes were darting this way and that on the hunt for a potential target when she suddenly became aware that a teenage boy with a soft clean-shaven face was watching her, spying on her.

  Half hidden, peering from behind a pillar, he was wearing a bedraggled fawn cap pulled down over his eyes. It made him look gormless. She might have attempted to charm him, fall upon his mercy, but he looked menacing as well as daft. A pick-pocket, perhaps. There were so many of them about. He did not resemble someone she would feel easy to sit with over a café au lait. She turned her attentions elsewhere, making certain that the boy’s gaze did not meet hers. Was he a thief or might he have the same purpose in mind as she? Begging. He was possibly after money while she required a ticket on the night express to the south. She had dreamed of travelling first class in a fine new hat and high-heeled shoes – she had dreamed so many dreams throughout her adolescent years. Now she would accept a seat even in the recently installed third-class carriage. But how to obtain one without a single miserable sou left in her pocket?

  Just when she was beginning to think she would be forced to spend another night on a bench out in the open and, if so, miss her rendezvous in Nice, which was drawing ever closer, her attention was caught by a man wearing a black astrakhan coat, black Homburg hat and shoes as polished and shiny as one of those newly minted five-franc coins. He strolled at a leisurely pace – not in a hurry, time on his hands, time to offer a kindly ear to her plight perhaps – as he ascended the stairs to the station restaurant. Maybe she could beg a meal
off him. Hot food. Her stomach growled. He pulled out a silver pocket watch, slowed down to read the time, then continued up to the restaurant’s doorway. He looked very rich and was unaccompanied. Marguerite was desperate. Why not him? He was a bit wrinkled, puckered skin, but as good a choice as any on this friendless afternoon. Somewhere close by an organ-grinder started to play ‘Blue Skies Are Round The Corner’. She flashed a look behind her and caught sight of a scrawny, ring-tail monkey in a scruffy red military-style coat. The creature was collecting coins in a tin cup for its owner, who wore a scarlet shirt and kerchief to match the monkey’s costume.

  Blue skies are round the corner, indeed! Well, let this be the change in the weather. Heart palpitating, Marguerite began to hum, biting back her nerves, bracing herself as she stepped forward with her most confident stride, ascending the stairs to the posh eating house, delicious aromas wafting her way. A simple act of kindness was what she was after but, dammit, she had not expected a waiter, some Cerberus at the door, to bar her access. He looked her up and down, disapproving of her down-at-heel appearance. ‘Oui, Mademoiselle? What can we do for you?’

  Marguerite’s heart was racing faster than the thud of galloping horses. She was thinking on her feet, glancing into the golden-domed room with its ornate statuettes and painted ceiling, overwhelmed by its sumptuousness, eyes scanning for the stranger in the black overcoat. Several tables were occupied by large groups – some were families, no doubt, off on their holidays by the sea. All were laughing and quaffing. Such familial ebullience stung her when she was so adrift, so alone in the world, and still grieving her lost brother. In her desperation she was pinning her hopes on the hatted stranger. She spotted him. Thanks to the heavens, he was seated at a solitary table.

  ‘I have been asked to deliver a message to that gentleman over there,’ she lied, in her finest accent. She was not an actress for nothing.

  ‘Allow me to do that for you, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘Oh, I am afraid not. It is of a rather personal nature and the news is not as rosy as he might have hoped. It needs to come directly from me, broken to him tactfully. I am sure you will understand, Monsieur.’

  The waiter was confused. Uncertain of the protocol, his white face twitched. A bead of sweat popped out on his temple. His role was to keep the riff-raff out, not invite them in. He had a wife and a young child to feed. He didn’t need trouble or to lose his job in these struggling times.

  ‘Sir, I am sure you wouldn’t want anything untoward to happen to a member of the gentleman’s family because he hasn’t received vital news and cannot react to it, now, would you? It could be a matter of life and death. How could you live with yourself if you were held responsible –’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ the waiter conceded, ‘but please be quick about it. This is most irregular.’

  Marguerite shuffled across the dining room as fast as her swollen feet would carry her, attempting not to lose all dignity. She sat down at her portly redeemer’s table, shot a glance back to the entrance where the black-and-white-clad waiter stood worrying, and set to work.

  ‘Cher monsieur,’ she began, almost before her companion was aware of her presence.

  ‘Que diable se passe-t-il? What the dickens …?’ He glanced about him, evidently fearing someone might spot him in the untidy girl’s company, attempting a little nervously to keep his surprise in check. His anxiety seemed to temper hers and she snatched the opportunity to take control of the situation. Marguerite gave the stranger a smile of such intensity – her most winning smile – while her lilac eyes begged him for a little consideration, a dollop of human kindness. She saw now that the man opposite her was even older than she had at first surmised, perhaps as much as fifty, and he wore a light coating of powder on his jowly features. His moustache curled at its two extremes and was greased and shiny as though coated in a blue-black boot polish.

  Might he be an actor too? Unlikely, if he could afford to dine in the fancy Buffet de la Gare de Lyon. She had no choice but to keep going.

  ‘Do you know anything about cinema, Monsieur?’

  Bemused, he shook his head.

  ‘Talking pictures, sir.’

  Again he showed not a flicker of interest. This was not the reaction she had anticipated. She had hoped the gentleman might be impressed, overawed at the notion that a future film star was sitting across the table from him. ‘But you have been to a picture house in your time?’

  ‘Why this ridiculous quiz? What the devil do you want?’

  ‘Sir, please, don’t be impatient with me or raise your voice. The fact is I am on my way to Nice,’ she was losing the advantage and quickly continued, ‘where I have been invited to perform in a screen test. Odds are I am to play the leading role in a major new film …’

  At that moment a large round plate of oysters arrived and was placed on the table between them while over the gentleman’s other shoulder stood another waiter in an ankle-length, starched white apron. This fellow was bearing a tall glass of chilled beer. Chunks of baguette appeared. Marguerite’s stomach began to howl, like a dog chained to a post. An orchestra tuning up. Her head was light and she was overcome with a spinning giddiness. She was clutching her hands tightly in her lap, holding fast to her raincoat for fear she would seize the bread.

  The man lifted an oyster between podgy fingers to his pursed lips.

  ‘Please, sir, listen to me, I need help,’ she begged.

  He slurped the shiny grey mollusc noisily, slurped and sucked until it disappeared, sliding down his gullet. The shell was replaced on the plate. Marguerite feared that her presence, her company at this table, had been upstaged by the food. She had never tasted an oyster but they looked lustrously delicious surrounded by quarters of lemons, all packed on ice. What a repast!

  ‘Sir, may I, please, have a piece of bread?’ She did not wait for his response but snatched at the loaf – her hands had a will of their own – stuffed a morsel into her mouth and munched greedily. Midway to his lips, the second oyster hung. If he was not interested in helping her, she would at least have appeased the direst pangs of her hunger.

  And then, most unexpectedly, he returned his uneaten shellfish to the table, watched her chewing, almost choking, on the bread and started to laugh. ‘Have you come hoping to beg money from me?’ The mirth just as instantly disappeared. ‘Well, we’ll see about that!’ He was looking about, shifting and snorting, agitating in his seat. Seeking the management, Marguerite supposed. He would have her kicked out, like a mongrel, a beggar. Or, worse, arrested for theft.

  ‘No, sir, I’m not begging. I want to make you an offer.’

  ‘Oh, dear God!’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. The price of a ticket on tonight’s express train to Nice – any class, sir, I’m not fussed – as a loan. Only a loan. Paid back in full as soon as the role is mine and, as well, a ticket for you, two if you wish, a second for your wife –’

  ‘Wife!’

  ‘Two tickets to the première of my film, which will most certainly screen and be applauded in Paris. What do you say? Please, God, help me. My intentions are honourable. You’ll see. I’m a really good actress. I just need a break.’ She was gabbling, nineteen to the dozen. Staff were approaching, bearing down upon her. She would be out on her neck if she didn’t think fast.

  The waiter from the entrance had appeared at her companion’s side. He who had previously obstructed her. ‘Is there a problem, sir?’ Before another word could be said or any harm done, before the situation grew out of control and she was apprehended, Marguerite was on her feet, snatched up her flimsy travel bag, grappled with grubby fingers for one more chunk of the freshly baked bread and took flight, crumbs trailing, heels clacking against belle-époque tiles, hair flying wild.

  Back on the station concourse, out of breath, she found sanctuary on an empty bench and threw herself down, leaning back, legs in the air. Her heart was beating like the pendulum of a long-case clock, similar to the one at her parents’ home, and she f
elt a whizzing in her brain. During the kerfuffle upstairs, she had managed to grab not one but two more thick wedges of baguette and was stuffing them into her mouth, chewing ravenously, almost choking with a desperate appetite. The station clock read twenty past three. It was now Wednesday. Time was running out. If she did not board this evening’s Mediterranean-bound blue train, she would not be in Nice for her screen test at the Victorine Studios on Friday.

  She sighed, battling tears, which would mess up her mascara. She wasn’t very good at begging. But what alternatives were left to her besides returning whence she had come, to her parents’ bakery, admitting defeat? But she would never, never do that.

  Her brother, Bertrand, had left for the front and never returned. She’d hated life at home without him. He’d been her best friend and had encouraged her ambition. The sight of him in uniform going off in a lorry had lit a fire within her. How could her parents accept the loss of him with such composure, never a word, never complaining? She’d wanted to run away. So, one afternoon when they were at the mill purchasing bags of flour, she’d slipped out and taken the road to Paris. Sixteen years old, with a head full of dreams of moving pictures, of stardom. Her mother had always derided her, dismissing them as ‘castles in the air’.