‘But we hear terrible things. They told us that Ravensbrück was clean and healthy. Now we hear about disease, starvation, torture. And there is more. They say that the Nazis are systematically killing prisoners. A policy of extermination. Thousands – millions – gassed, and the bodies thrown into incinerators.’
She didn’t know how to comfort him. ‘We’ve heard the same thing. At first we couldn’t believe it.’
‘I believe anything of the Nazis. One will never forget their unique flavour.’
She continued her exploration while he cooked. He’d done up the apartment tastefully, but – she guessed – on a shoestring, using ingenuity rather than spending money. He’d created an impression of richness that was rococo without being exactly feminine. She noticed a delicate, yellow-silk Chinese screen, behind which was hidden an erotic bronze male nude. That made her think of Amory. Where was he spending the night? With the cockney? Or with someone even newer? She didn’t want to dwell on that.
‘Is this your mother?’ she asked, picking up a silver-framed photograph of a woman in Edwardian dress.
‘Yes, indeed. Don’t you love the hat? Look at the ostrich feathers.’
‘You must miss her greatly.’
‘I do. It’s been twelve years.’
‘My mother died young, too. My father never remarried. He was a factory worker born in Ireland. He worked his way up to foreman, but we never seemed to have enough money. And he was passionate about working conditions. When he started, people worked a sixty-hour week for pitiful wages. The factories were so dangerous that machine operators often lost limbs or were burned to death. He led the fight against all that. But it cost him. He died of a heart attack a few weeks after Amory and I were married.’
‘My father was the opposite of yours,’ Dior told her. ‘He was a rich man. He had a big factory. He wanted me to follow him into the family business. He was furious when I chose a career in art. Then he went bankrupt. Now I’m the one who supports him and my two brothers with my art.’
‘How ironic.’
‘Perhaps. But it’s partly my fault that he lost everything.’
‘How?’
‘When he saw that neither I nor my brothers were going to take over the company, he took money out of the business and invested heavily in the stock market. The Great Depression wiped him out. I managed to buy a little farmhouse and he lives quietly there in the zone nono.’
‘Nono?’
‘Non occupée, you understand. They called us ja-ja France; they accused us of living under the Germans because we liked it. But I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that without the work I have here, my father and my brothers would have starved.’
‘You’re a good man, Monsieur Dior.’
‘I am so-so. Neither ja-ja nor nono.’ He emerged smiling from the kitchen in a fragrant cloud of steam. He was carrying a platter, on which was a large, crimson lobster.
‘Holy Toledo,’ she exclaimed.
‘Sent to me from Granville, my home town,’ he beamed. ‘Don’t you think it’s most appropriate? A denizen of the sea that links your country and mine. And look what a magnificent ensemble she’s wearing. What colours! What frills and bows! And look at her skirts. Not even Schiaparelli could dream up a costume like that.’
‘How do you know it’s a female?’
‘My dear, I grew up next to the sea. I know my lobsters.’
The lobster was a gourmet feast. There was even a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé to go with it. She hadn’t eaten so well since leaving the States. But halfway through, she started crying again.
‘What’s the matter?’ Dior asked in alarm.
She put her knife and fork down and grabbed her napkin to blot her eyes. ‘Everyone tried to talk me out of marrying him, but I just wouldn’t listen.’
Dior patted her hand. ‘But then, you know, there is the next one to look forward to.’
She laughed painfully through her tears. ‘I’m not planning any others, Monsieur Dior. I think Amory was my first and last.’
‘That is how you feel now. But you’re young. Love will come along soon enough.’
‘Is that the way it is with you?’ she ventured. ‘One ends and another begins?’
The corners of his mouth drooped. ‘Well, I don’t think you should take me as an example. I am not exactly – typical.’
‘Nor am I. So what do you do – when you set off along the tightrope and you find it’s wobbling like mad, and you can’t stop or turn back?’
‘As you said earlier. One falls.’
She looked up at him with solemn grey eyes. ‘Then behold a falling woman, Monsieur Dior. It remains only to be seen how far, and how many bones will be left intact.’
His fingertips stroked her wrist gently. ‘You’ll see, ma petite. A parachute will pop open like a white cotton ball and you will drift safely to earth.’
‘That’s consoling,’ she said, unconvinced.
‘You shall stay here for as long as you like,’ he said, with a little pressure of his fingertips.
‘You’ll get sick of the sight of me.’
‘I doubt it. You are very ornamental.’
He had made a compote of winter berries for pudding, apologising for the absence of cream, sugar and butter. There was also a tiny cup of coffee each, made from what she guessed was a long-hoarded store. She determined to get some fresh coffee for him as soon as she could.
Shortly after they had finished their drinks, there was a knock at the door. ‘I hope you don’t mind a few of my friends,’ Dior said. ‘They always drop in after dinner.’
An apparition came through the door in the form of Suzy Solidor in a lustrous, full-length sable coat. The sable was unfolded to reveal that the singer was sheathed in a shimmering, silver lamé dress. She looked like an art deco sculpture in gleaming platinum. Almost ignoring Dior, she made for Copper with both hands outstretched. ‘My little Copper. They tell me you have been bathed in blood.’ Her strong, icy fingers grasped Copper’s, and her chilled lips kissed her cheeks. She drew back to inspect her like a bird of prey judging a dove. ‘It has made you immortal. How charming you look.’
Close behind her, and no less alarmingly, appeared a fat man with wild hair and a huge, tangled beard surmounted by two cheeks like cooking apples, and a pair of protuberant blue eyes that fixed on her brightly. ‘So, this is Christian’s little pet,’ he boomed, a lighted cigarette bobbing between his lips. ‘My God! What a wolf he is. Does he keep you locked in the attic, my dear? And the key on a chain around his neck?’
Dior seemed undisturbed by these extravagant salutations. ‘You know Suzy, of course,’ he said to Copper. ‘And this is my dear friend and namesake, Monsieur Christian Bérard.’
‘No “Monsieur”, please,’ Bérard said. He carried a small white dog under his arm. He extracted the cigarette, stooped over Copper’s hand and snuffled it like a boar rooting for truffles. ‘They call me Bébé. Like Mimì. I don’t know why. And this,’ he added, presenting the dog, ‘is Jacinthe.’ He peered into Copper’s face. ‘How charming, that youthful complexion.’ He showed stained teeth in a carnivorous smile. ‘And you have left your husband, they tell me?’
‘Bébé!’ Dior hissed. He had obviously instructed everyone to avoid the subject of Copper’s marriage.
‘I can’t stay long,’ Suzy announced, smoothing her silver scales like a mermaid. ‘I must be at the club in an hour.’
‘Are you going to throw “Lili Marlène” in their faces again?’ Bérard asked.
‘Tonight and every night.’
‘Until they string you from your lamp post?’
‘Let them try,’ Suzy replied. ‘I’m not afraid of that rabble.’
‘You should be. They’ve got it in for you.’
‘You want me to run to Switzerland like Chanel?’ Suzy Solidor made a contemptuous face. ‘I never knew she was such a timid old bitch.’
‘Chanel is a genius,’ Dior said. ‘I won’t hear a word against her
.’
‘Nevertheless, something of an old bitch, I agree,’ Bérard put in. ‘I should know, I worked for her long enough.’
‘She adored you.’
‘Oh, everyone adores me,’ Bébé replied loftily. He sniffed the air. ‘I smell lobster. That means a little package from Granville has arrived. Was there, by any chance, also a bottle of Calvados, my dear boy? It’s as cold as hell out there.’
Smiling, Dior produced an unlabelled bottle. The spirit was fiery enough to make Copper’s head spin, but Bérard swilled it down without wincing. They huddled around the stove, into which Dior carefully fed a couple of small logs.
‘I don’t know why everyone is so anti-Chanel,’ he said. ‘She did exactly what the rest of us did.’
‘Not exactly,’ Bérard replied, lighting a second cigarette from the stub of the first. ‘She spent the war cosily tucked up in the Ritz with her Nazi lover, toasting the German victory in confiscated champagne, and now she vanishes in a cloud of Number Five. You, of all people, should resent her, my darling.’
‘Chanel did not arrest my sister,’ Dior said simply.
‘No, her boyfriends did. And Coco didn’t lift a finger to help.’
‘Why should she help me? I am nobody.’
‘Nonsense. She’s jealous of you. Jealous of all the young designers. Besides, she looks like a superannuated monkey these days, and that is unforgivable, even if nothing else is.’
While the men wrangled, Suzy Solidor put a tanned arm around Copper’s neck and drew her close. ‘Come to the club with me tonight,’ she said in a thrilling whisper, close to Copper’s ear. ‘I have some divine hashish from Morocco. We’ll have such fun, you and I.’
‘I really couldn’t,’ Copper replied faintly.
The open mouth caressed her neck, sending shivers down her back. ‘Why not? Your husband isn’t here.’
‘Well, you know I – I’m actually in mourning,’ Copper stammered, aware of sounding idiotic. ‘My friend died only last night. The – the funeral is tomorrow.’
‘Did I hear the word “funeral”?’ Bérard said, turning.
‘Yes.’
‘Whose?’
‘George Fritchley-Bound’s. He was a journalist. A friend.’
Bérard brightened. ‘But I simply adore funerals. You must allow me to attend.’
‘Well, I’m sure George wouldn’t mind,’ Copper replied, nonplussed. ‘There’s certainly not likely to be a crowd. It’s at Père Lachaise Cemetery, tomorrow at noon.’
‘You’ll come too, my love?’ Bérard demanded of Dior.
‘Of course.’
‘I shall sing at the graveside,’ Suzy announced.
‘But not “Lili Marlène”, if you please.’
‘No, no. Something simple, but dignified. Perhaps “Chant des adieux”.’
Copper’s heart was sinking at the prospect. It wasn’t clear whether they were joking or serious.
There was another knock at the door and a dark, serious-faced young man in a beautiful camel-hair overcoat came in cursing the cold. ‘It’s like Moscow out there, damn it.’
Dior introduced him to Copper. ‘My colleague at Lucien Lelong, Pierre Balmain. Far more talented than I, of course.’
‘That’s not true,’ Balmain replied, shaking Copper’s hand. ‘Don’t listen to a word he says.’
‘We’re all going to Copper’s friend’s funeral tomorrow,’ Bérard announced. ‘Suzy will sing and I will make an oration. You must come, Pierre. It’s going to be quite an occasion.’
‘A funeral is hardly the place for your antics, Bébé,’ Balmain rejoined, raising his eyebrows. ‘My condolences on your loss, Mademoiselle.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured. Two more young men arrived, both gazelle-like and soigné. They were introduced as dancers from the Ballets des Champs-Élysées, and were evidently on excellent terms with Bérard and Dior, though she forgot their names a moment after she heard them. The room was warming up as it filled. The heat, the Calvados, the wine she had already drunk and Christian Bérard’s endless cigarettes were making her feel quite dizzy. Nor did it help that Suzy Solidor was now pressed up tightly beside her and caressing the nape of her neck with her fingertips. It had been a dreadful day and all she wanted to do now was get into her bed and sink into oblivion, but that was impossible.
‘Are you unwell, chérie?’ Suzy murmured.
‘I don’t feel too good,’ Copper admitted.
‘You are pale. But it suits you.’ Her eyes were a rich, luminous brown, set under strongly marked eyebrows. Her face was handsome rather than conventionally pretty. Her figure, too, was striking, with the athletic arms and shoulders of a swimmer or tennis player, yet with a rounded bosom and full, mobile hips. She wore a watch set with emeralds, and a single bright diamond on a platinum chain around her throat.
Dior had a gramophone and wound it up to put on a recording of Chopin nocturnes. These were dismissed by the others as too melancholy, but the Strauss waltzes he chose instead were decried as being too Germanic. He threw his hands up and invited them to choose for themselves. An argument arose around the golden trumpet of the gramophone as records were plucked from their sleeves and stuffed back in. Eventually, they settled on Milhaud’s Le Bœuf sur le toit. She felt a little daunted at finding herself in such exotic and opinionated company.
Bérard was still wrangling with someone over Coco Chanel’s behaviour, but Dior and Balmain had entered into a quiet conversation about work.
‘I don’t want to let Lelong down,’ she heard Dior say in a low voice. ‘He’s been very good to me.’
‘And to me,’ Balmain replied. ‘But we’ve given him five years apiece, Christian. Ten good years between us. And the war is coming to an end. Now’s the time to strike out on our own.’
‘All very well to say that, but where’s the money to come from? You, at least, have an obliging maman. I have nobody.’
‘You have genius. You could raise the money in a month if you wanted. Aren’t you tired of being told what to do and what not to do?’
‘It would be nice to be allowed to design what I liked,’ Dior sighed. ‘But I feel I’m still learning.’
‘You’ve learned all that Lucien Lelong has to teach you,’ Balmain replied. He had a forceful, emphatic manner. ‘You simply have to make up your mind to break free.’
‘The truth is that I’m too lazy to break free,’ Dior said with a slight shrug. ‘I don’t mind obscurity at all. I don’t have your commanding personality. I can’t see myself at the head of a business. I would feel dreadfully awkward impersonating an entrepreneur. Besides, freedom has a price, you know. If we were entrepreneurs, we wouldn’t be having this congenial evening with friends. We’d be brewing ulcers over the accounts.’
‘Well, I’m going ahead,’ Balmain said decisively. ‘The old guard have had their day – Worth, Lelong, Molyneux and the rest. The fashion business needs new blood.’
‘I shall miss you terribly when you leave,’ Dior said, and Copper saw that there were tears in his eyes.
Balmain gave his friend a kiss on the cheek. ‘You won’t be long behind me. You’ll see.’ He produced a notebook from his pocket, and the two friends were soon engaged in sketching and discussing designs.
‘When Dior went into couture, do you know what they said?’ Suzy murmured in Copper’s ear. ‘They said, “Christian has thrown himself away. He’s taken the easy way out. He could have been anything he wanted.” He’s one of the cleverest men in Paris and one of the most cultured. And one of the most popular. But look at him – as sensitive as a snail, drawing in his horns at every knock. He would rather grow old in Lelong’s back rooms than show his face in the street.’
Copper glanced at Dior. With his rosy cheeks, epicene shape and manicured hands, he resembled a parish priest more than a great couturier. It struck her as odd that such a conservative man should have such colourful friends, inhabiting a world where, as Amory had put it, the women were all men and the me
n were all women.
‘Doesn’t he have a – a friend?’ she asked delicately.
‘You mean a lover? From time to time. He doesn’t have the gift of keeping them. Even in love he’s too reticent. The insecure make bad lovers, you know.’
‘He’s so kind.’
‘He and his circle are all of a type, I’m sure you see that. But they don’t find love with one another. They fall in love with a different class of man altogether – men who are not like them and often don’t respond.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘He thinks you bring him luck,’ Suzy replied obliquely. ‘Apparently, your coming was foretold by that old gypsy soothsayer of his. Even down to the red hair and the gift. The foie gras, you know. Which, by the way, is the last thing he should be eating; he’s far too fat.’
‘Oh dear. I hope I do bring him luck. I’ve never thought of myself as a lucky person.’
Suzy brushed the hair away from Copper’s brow. ‘Do you think of yourself as a beautiful person?’
‘Oh, no. Not at all.’
‘Yes. One can see that. The day that you realise how beautiful you are, the world will get a surprise.’
Copper was discomfited. ‘I’ve never been pretty.’
‘With those eyes, that mouth? My dear, some women flower late. Some early, some not at all. The late flower is usually the finest.’ Her mouth, which could be tightly compressed, broke into a brief, fresh smile. She glanced at the little emerald-set watch on her wrist. ‘I must go. We’ll see each other tomorrow.’ She kissed Copper on the cheek, leaving a perfect lipstick impression, and went to get her sable.
After Suzy Solidor had left, Copper lapsed into a drowsy state while visitors came and went and the conversation flowed around her. Poulenc arrived and gave her his condolences in a rather formal way, but she barely heard his voice. No doubt she was missing sparkling repartee, but she was simply exhausted, her French was running out, and it was a relief when the last guests departed and Dior showed her to her tiny room.
She fell instantly asleep, but not for long. An hour later, she was awake again, shivering violently. For a moment she was confused, not knowing whether she was hot or cold. It was not that she was cold; Dior had piled bedclothes on to her and she was hot, rather than otherwise. It was an intense, nervous tremor that shook her like a rat in the jaws of a terrier. She couldn’t control it, no matter how she tried. Perhaps she had contracted a fever? She began to be afraid of the spasms that convulsed her and wouldn’t die away, no matter what she did. At last, she realised that it was an emotional reaction to her break-up with Amory. In fact, what she was facing was nothing less than a crisis in her life. She’d never felt so alone and so panic-stricken.
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