The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris

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The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris Page 23

by Natalie Meg Evans


  By contrast Violaine, propped against pillows, her curls lank, her spectacles keeping her place in a large-print book, was a pitiful sight. ‘Violaine, it was my fault!’ Coralie exclaimed, grasping her hand. ‘I’d have found you earlier but I chickened out of coming. Got as far as place de la Concorde, then legged it. All that time you were locked in by that scum-of-the-earth—’

  Violaine cut through Coralie’s emotion: ‘It was Lorienne.’

  Coralie studied Violaine, wondering if her marbles had come loose during the ordeal. ‘Lorienne left Paris ages ago. Went to Dijon, I heard.’

  ‘She did not leave. Good day, Madame la Baronne.’ ­Violaine gave her hand to Ottilia who, until that moment, had been ­concentrating on removing her skin-tight gloves. Coralie felt something flit between the two women. Sympathy?

  Violaine repeated that Lorienne had not left Paris. ‘The Dijon story was to save face. You terminated her tenure, Madame, did you not?’

  Ottilia bit her lip. ‘Dietrich assured me she was understating her profits to cheat me. So distasteful, dismissing people, and in the end, I had my London solicitor write the letter. Lorienne replied in the vilest terms, calling me a . . . I won’t say it.’

  Violaine nodded, seemingly unsurprised. ‘She took a job in another milliner’s – with Henriette Junot, in fact. One of our customers saw her there. She has some kind of role as Henriette’s deputy. She calls herself “directrice”.’

  ‘What can you remember about the day she came back here?’ Coralie asked.

  Violaine made a face. ‘It was the twelfth or thirteenth of July. The streets were in turmoil and I feared the shops would close and I’d be left without food. I couldn’t cross the road at my usual place – so many cars nose-to-bumper, honking their horns. Finding a fishmonger and a grocer’s that had anything left took me hours. Back home, I unlocked the street door and someone shuffled me inside.’

  ‘Lorienne?’

  ‘That white-blonde hair is unmistakable, I should think,’ Ottilia murmured.

  ‘She had two others with her.’ Violaine closed her eyes. ‘Lorienne wanted to know why the hats were gone from the window. I told her they were locked away, that we’d closed for the duration. She said, “The hats are mine now. Mademoiselle de Lirac sold them to me.” I didn’t believe her, but she pushed me to the workroom and flattened me against the door until I gave her the key.’

  ‘You said three people?’

  ‘Three women. One,’ Violaine’s lips bent in disapproval, ‘wore trousers. She had short hair and a gruff voice.’

  Henriette – who else? It stank of revenge. Coralie asked, ‘They cleared the shelves?’

  ‘In laundry bags that they brought with them.’

  ‘And shut you in deliberately?’

  ‘I’d bought peaches and apples at the shops, and there was water in the kettle. Otherwise I would have died.’

  ‘Didn’t fancy those fish, then?’

  Violaine turned unfocused eyes to Coralie, but proved herself equal to a joke. ‘Oh, no, not raw.’

  Noëlle, who so far had sat quietly beside Ottilia, pointed to the basket containing Coralie’s cake and lisped, ‘Oh, no, not raw.’

  Everyone laughed, chasing away tension. Madame Thomas went to make tea, Coralie accompanying her. As the water boiled, Madame Thomas spoke of her pleasure at having somebody to care for again. She’d given up her work as a bookkeeper during her late husband’s illness, she said, nursing him until his death five years ago. ‘And after that, a silence descended.’

  Coralie heard herself asking if Madame Thomas would care to take on La Passerinette’s accounts. ‘I was going to put a notice in the window. I’m reopening in October, and I need to run things more professionally. I’m all right with figures, but I’d rather make hats!’

  ‘October?’ Violaine cried, when Coralie repeated her plan over tea. ‘Why so long? We may be struggling, but it’s not the same for everyone. Fine goods are flying off the shelves. Madame Thomas, tell her!’

  Ottilia got in first. ‘You can’t buy stockings or lingerie because the shelves are stripped bare by German soldiers, sending gifts home to their wives and sweethearts.’

  Madame Thomas pursed her lips. ‘Or buying them for a certain kind of girl here. It’s the old story. If you’re prepared to shame yourself, you’ll do all right.’

  Very well, September, Coralie conceded. Two and a half months in which to find a workshop’s-worth of new tools and make new stock. ‘What’s gone is gone.’ She could barge into Henriette Junot’s and demand the return of her property but she’d be met by innocent faces, laughed out on to the street.

  Paris was teaching her the lesson she’d first learned in London – a working-class girl who dared to reach for her dreams found plenty of people ready to shove her back down. Down she must go . . . only to bob back up again, like a champagne cork. She watched Ottilia eating cake with a silver fork – Violaine’s kitchen drawer had yielded just the one and everyone else was eating with their fingers – and thought, I reckon I have problems, but Tilly has ten thousand enemies in Paris, and if she’s shoved under, she won’t resurface.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Six days later, on the last Friday of June, Coralie de Lirac and Una McBride sat at a table in a low-lit nightclub, dressed as if war belonged to a different universe. They’d left Ottilia at home, watching over Noëlle, and Coralie was looking forward to a few hours’ unfettered fun.

  The Vagabonds had been given a spot at the Rose Noire, and tonight was their debut. Nursing their drinks, because wine here was now shockingly expensive, Coralie and Una waited for the music to start. The electricity had just blown again. The lights were back on in Paris but supply was erratic up there in Montmartre.

  When the Vagabonds finally trooped on, Una whooped.

  ‘Last time they played here, they only just escaped with their limbs intact,’ Coralie reminded her.

  ‘Oh, those Corsicans are long gone,’ Una assured her. ‘They made hay while Martel was in prison, but now he’s out, they’ve melted into the free zone. It’s illegal to move currency from one zone to another, so professional criminals are having to choose. The Vagabonds of Swing are in business and the light of civilisation shines once more.’

  Looking round, Coralie couldn’t see much proof of it. And when she saw a party of six German officers sit down at a table nearby, she questioned her sanity in being there at all.

  Dietrich was among the group. Thank Heaven the lighting was so low, Serge Martel’s glass centrepiece having been turned off so as not to overload the circuit. ‘This wine’s too warm,’ Coralie complained, reassigning her anxiety. ‘We should ask for an ice bucket.’

  ‘Honey, we’d get an empty one. Who’s delivering ice?’

  ‘And we’re outnumbered by men. Lucifer’s mother would get a dance here tonight. I don’t want to talk to any bloody Germans ever, let alone dance with one.’

  ‘Too bad, because one of them is gazing at you most intently. Nice-looking, if you go for the frozen-warrior type.’

  So, he’d seen her. Coralie stared fixedly at the stage. The Vagabonds began with Edith Piaf’s ‘Ma Coeur Est Au Coin d’Une Rue’, a melancholy number. Arkady’s playing was as assured as ever, but Florian seemed tentative. He had returned alone to Paris and had a lost, neglected look about him His crimson shirt hung loose. At some point, he’d discarded his dulcimer for a rhythm guitar, and looked as if he was regretting that, too.

  After ‘Ma Coeur’, Arkady swung into a blistering ‘That’s A Plenty’. Coralie murmured, ‘Poor Florian can’t keep up.’

  ‘His fault for bolting to the country. All the proper musicians stayed put, got drunk and played “La Marseillaise” as the Nazis closed in.’

  ‘Did he and Julie marry?’

  ‘No. Even Florian can do better than that silly girl.’ Una sniffed.

&n
bsp; ‘Julie’s not silly, just young. Oh, Lord, brace yourself.’ Two men in badly pressed suits were stubbing out cigarettes, preparing to advance. They looked French, but that was all that could be said for them.

  ‘Dancing, ladies?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ Una allowed the taller of the two to lead her to the floor.

  ‘So?’ The other faced Coralie. She vaguely recognised him. She was sure he’d once been a doorkeeper here. Why wasn’t he in the army? He seemed to read her and said aggressively, ‘Something you want to say?’

  ‘I’d rather dance than talk,’ she said. A few circuits of the floor would keep the peace.

  *

  Afterwards Coralie accepted another glass of warm wine, and asked about Martel. ‘They say he’s out of jail . . . Really? After what he did?’

  All true, her companion said. Martel had been pardoned by the new regime. He’d have been here tonight, except he’d been sent to a holding centre.

  ‘Getting used to open spaces again?’

  ‘Being deloused, more probably.’ The man gestured over his shoulder. ‘He won’t like this lot.’

  At first she thought he meant the Germans, until he turned to glare at Arkady’s Vagabonds.

  ‘Third-rate foreigners. They only got the spot because they’re instrumentalists. Singers are too much trouble now that lyrics have to be vetted for anything anti-Nazi.’

  ‘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 t
wisted 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.’

  ‘Who 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.’

 

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