Wild Lavender

by Belinda Alexandra

  But my greatest fear was that Aunt Augustine would find out where I was going each evening and forbid me to walk Bonbon any more. I was not a natural liar and the double life of deception took its toll. I was fearful of getting home late, and as evening approached I never knew until the last minute if Aunt Augustine was going to give me an errand to do and a whole day’s anticipation of going to the music hall would come to nothing. If I ever wanted to work in show business, it was clear that I would have to leave Aunt Augustine’s first.

  It was in this matter that Albert came to the rescue.

  ‘Madame Tarasova needs help with the costumes,’ he said. ‘Go see her.’

  I pinched my wrist to make sure it wasn’t a dream and found my way to the backstage area where the wardrobe mistress was stacking headdresses on a shelf.

  ‘Bonsoir, Madame,’ I called out. ‘Albert said you need help. And I need a job.’

  Madame Tarasova was a Russian émigrée who always wore a loose corduroy dress and a scarf fastened at her throat with a brooch. She smiled at me and cooed to Bonbon. ‘What a beautiful doggie,’ she said, stroking Bonbon’s chin. ‘We must make sure we don’t put her on someone’s head instead of a wig.’

  We both laughed.

  A blonde girl, a few years older than me, appeared with some dresses on hangers. She nodded to me and hung the dresses up behind a curtain.

  ‘That is my daughter, Vera,’ said Madame Tarasova, pulling some needles from a cushion and pinning them to my blouse. She slipped a spool of cotton and a pair of scissors into my pocket. ‘Can you sew?’

  I told her that I sewed well because on my family’s farm that was one thing that I could do.

  Madame Tarasova nodded. ‘I need you to do repairs quickly,’ she said, gesturing for me to follow her up the staircase. ‘And to help set out the costumes. The headdresses are too awkward for the girls to run up the stairs with, so we collect them as each performer comes off the stage, clean them, then pack them away downstairs. If you come earlier tomorrow, you can help Vera set them out for the first act.’

  We stopped outside a door with the number six painted on it. The chirping of female voices came from the other side. Madame Tarasova pushed the door open and a tableau of chaos unfolded before us. The chorus girls were perched on stools side by side in the cramped room. They were staring into mirrors and rubbing their faces with greasepaint sticks and rouge. The air reeked of eau de cologne, brilliantine and sweat. Madame Tarasova took Bonbon from me and placed her in a hatbox on a chair, where someone discarded a kimono on top of her. Bonbon peered out from the material then slipped under the chair to watch the goings on from behind the safety of the legs. The redheaded girl I had seen before recognised me. ‘Hello again!’ she called out, smearing her eyelids with purple shadow. ‘Helping out Mama Tarasova?’ It was then I realised why her French had sounded so strange; it was because she was English.

  ‘When the girls are on stage,’ said Madame Tarasova above the commotion, ‘you and Vera should come up here and straighten out the room.’ She stopped to help a girl with the ties of her Indian costume and shook her head at a dress lying on the floor. ‘They are good girls but sometimes they forget to hang up their costumes. Don’t they, Marion?’

  The girl grinned and continued rouging her cheeks.

  A bell rang. ‘Ten minutes until showtime,’ called out Madame Tarasova.

  The pace in the dressing room quickened. The girls flung off their kimonos and slipped on their costumes. Madame Tarasova and I ran between them, helping to straighten tights and smooth down wigs.

  ‘Look,’ said a pale-skinned girl, whom I recognised as the one who had complained of hunger the first night I had watched the performers arrive at the stage door. She pointed to a tear under the arm of her smock. ‘I’ll fix it,’ I said. She tugged off her costume and handed it to me. I tried to ignore her bare breasts and mound of pubic hair jutting towards me and threaded my needle. I wasn’t shy, but I wasn’t used to the sight of female nakedness paraded so casually either.

  I heard applause and the bell rang again. I helped the girl back into her costume and watched her flee after the others down the stairs. Madame Tarasova followed. The clamour of the chorus girls’ feet and the war cries they shrieked as they ran down the stairs made the floor vibrate and the walls shake.

  ‘Simone!’ Madame Tarasova called over her shoulder. ‘Come back tomorrow night. I will go to the office tomorrow and sign you up for the payroll.’

  I guessed that meant I was hired.

  Madame Tarasova said that I could live in the backstage area until I found a room of my own. Monsieur Dargent had let her and Vera stay there when they first came to Marseilles after fleeing Russia, and I understood why they were so loyal to him when they could have got better jobs elsewhere. The day after I was hired, I couldn’t wait to get my things and tell Aunt Augustine that I was leaving. It was only when I had gathered my belongings and bundled up my clothes that I noticed Bonbon sitting by the door of my room with her ears drooping.

  I picked her up. I had forgotten that if I left I would not see her any more. I climbed the stairs to Camille’s room and knocked on the door. Camille opened it, dressed in a kimono. Her pretty face was ethereal without her stage make-up.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ I told her. ‘I’ve got a job at Le Chat Espiègle.’

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘But I’ll still take care of Bonbon if you bring her to the theatre with you. For free.’

  ‘Take him,’ Camille said, yawning. ‘What am I going to do with a dog?’

  Bonbon’s ears pricked up and she wagged her tail. She must have sensed the happiness that ran through me. It was a good start to a new life: my little companion could stay with me.

  Aunt Augustine was sitting in the parlour, reading the newspaper. I’d already sent a letter to Aunt Yvette that morning, telling her and my mother that I was leaving and that I had found work as a seamstress with a music hall. I had to contact them first, because who knew what lies the old woman would tell my family if I didn’t. I could not think of one redeeming quality that made me feel sorry for Aunt Augustine. She had not shown me any kindness. She had not ‘taken me in’ after my father’s death. She had done nothing but exploit me.

  Aunt Augustine’s face turned red and her nostrils flared like a maddened bull when I told her I was leaving. ‘You ungrateful little hussy!’ she screamed. ‘Have you got yourself pregnant?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve got another job.’

  Aunt Augustine was stunned for a moment but quickly recovered. ‘Where?’ she asked, then her eyes fell to Bonbon who was sitting by my bundle. ‘So you’ve joined with that slut upstairs, have you?’ she spat. ‘Well, let me tell you this. She’ll have work as long as she is young and pretty but then she’ll end up like those women next door.’ She nodded in the direction of our neighbours. ‘But you,’ she laughed, ‘you’re not even pretty enough for that now.’

  Her insult stung because there was truth in it: I was not as pretty as Camille. I would have done anything to have her hypnotic, catlike blondeness, but I was a black-eyed giraffe. Before Aunt Augustine could say anything else to discourage me, I swept up Bonbon and my baggage and walked out the door. In the end, what kind of looks did a seamstress need?

  Aunt Augustine rushed to the doorstep after me and the women next door stepped out onto their balcony to see what the commotion was about.

  ‘Simone!’ Aunt Augustine shouted. I turned to see her pointing at the prostitutes. ‘That’s what happens to plain girls without talent who try their luck in the music hall. Look, Simone! That’s your future staring back at you!’

  I tucked Bonbon under my arm, slung my bundle of clothes over my shoulder and fixed my eyes firmly in the direction of Le Chat Espiègle.

  A few weeks after I started work in the wardrobe department at Le Chat Espiègle, a neighbouring music hall called The One-Eyed Sailor closed down and Monsieur Dargent bought some of the sets and costume
s from the debt collectors. He created a new show titled ‘On the Seas’. The first act was a sketch about three sailors who find themselves shipwrecked on an island of Hawaiian beauties.

  Because the costumes were simpler than those of the previous show, I could sometimes snatch a moment to watch the act from the wings. I began to understand the difference between the chorus girls and Camille. The chorus girls sang and shook their legs because they didn’t want to starve. Dancing in a music hall was better than working on the streets and the audience paid them more respect, if only slightly. It was a cut above working in a laundry or a bakery or in domestic service where the burden of their labours would soon wear out their greatest asset: their youthful prettiness. In the theatre they could hold out a little longer, hoping that some night there would be a rich suitor among the men hanging around the stage door after the show. It was well known among the chorus girls that Madeleine, after a liaison with the heir to a shipping fortune, had been forced by the young man’s father to have an abortion and that the previous year two girls had to leave the theatre after contracting venereal diseases. It was not an aspect of theatrical life that I had anticipated and it shocked me. I had not heard of La Belle Otero, Liane de Pougy or Gaby Deslys—women of the stage who were mistresses to kings and princes. Although the chorus girls did sometimes receive jewels and clothes for their favours, Madame Tarasova was quick to point out that no one at Le Chat Espiègle had ever been whisked away to matrimonial heaven by a prince, or even the manager of an olive oil company, and did her best to educate everyone on the benefits of les capotes anglaises, rubber sheaths that men wore over their penises to prevent conception and disease. But her advice fell on deaf ears; getting pregnant was still seen as a viable way of trapping a husband.

  But Camille was different. From her eyes down to the sway of her hips, she cast out magic over the floodlights and towards the hungry crowd. The audience clamoured and clapped for her, as if trying to grab hold of prime produce at the markets, while she stood remote in her mysterious beauty. When Camille exited the stage, she took the enchantment with her and left the audience longing for the taste of it again. Camille might not be interested in performing any more than the other girls, but I was certain that she would never starve.

  Sometimes, when the wardrobe area was empty, I would pout and pose in the mirror, trying to be Camille. I imagined slipping open my cape and letting it fall to the floor to reveal my ‘Garden of Eden’ glory. But I was as successful as night imitating day; as dusk pretending it was the dawn.

  One evening I returned from tidying the dressing room to find Madame Tarasova slumped in a chair and Vera standing above her, fanning her with a song script. Madame Tarasova’s cheeks were flushed and her arms hung by her sides.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

  The wardrobe mistress glanced at me. ‘I can’t take it any more,’ she whimpered. ‘I’m exhausted.’

  I was surprised to hear Madame Tarasova say such a thing. Her boundless energy had always made her seem indestructible. Even when Vera and I were dead on our feet, Madame Tarasova could keep going. ‘Sit there until you feel better then,’ I told her. ‘Vera and I can look after the girls tonight.’

  Madame Tarasova and Vera exchanged glances and laughed. Madame Tarasova sat up. ‘I’m not exhausted from the work,’ she said. ‘It’s that damn song.’ She slapped her knees and in an affected voice sang, ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’

  The song was the motif for the first act. When Monsieur Dargent bought the costumes and props from The One-Eyed Sailor, he’d used up his budget for a songwriter and so had to write the scores himself. The Hawaiian number wasn’t a hit. Members of the audience often shouted at the girls to ‘Get on with it!’, and on opening night someone had hated it so much that they’d hurled a bag of cement onto the stage, knocking over a palm tree and sending the girls into a panic.

  I couldn’t stop laughing at Madame Tarasova’s imitation even when she stopped. Then a girlish sense of joie de vivre overtook me. I picked up one of the leftover hibiscus flowers and tucked it behind my ear then flitted my way around the room, swinging my hips in a mock hula dance. ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’ I sang, flinging out my voice like a café-concert singer.

  Madame Tarasova and Vera laughed and clapped. ‘Belle-Joie!’ Madame Tarasova called. ‘Stop it! You’ll make me bust my girdle.’ Belle-Joie was her pet name for me. She said she called me that because I made her happy.

  Spurred on by their enjoyment, I raised my voice and danced more wildly, knocking my knees together and turning down my lower lip to make a silly face. ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’ I sang, twirling around the room and rocking my hips more violently.

  I glanced back at Madame Tarasova and Vera, but they were no longer laughing. Vera’s face was as purple as a grape and she was staring at something behind me. I whirled around to see Monsieur Dargent standing in the doorway. I stopped dancing and fumbled with my hands. He was not smiling. His eyes narrowed into slits and he tugged on the ends of his moustache.

  ‘Good evening, Monsieur Dargent,’ I said, my knees buckling. I thought I might faint where I stood.

  Monsieur Dargent did not reply. He merely grunted and walked away.

  Bonbon and I cut sorry figures the following evening when we walked from Le Panier—where I now rented a room—to the theatre. I trudged along, barely able to lift my eyes to see where I was going, while Bonbon, sensing my mood, pattered along beside me, her tail at half-mast. Our air of unhappiness aroused the curiosity of some children playing in the street and they stared at us with open mouths. Even sailors and drunkards hurried out of our way, as if in danger of being tainted by our misery. I was sure that when I arrived at the theatre, Monsieur Dargent would fire me. He was the son of a respectable doctor who had defied his parents to become an impresario. Everyone had warned me that he was sensitive and did not like being mocked so I had brought disaster upon myself, prancing around the wardrobe space and making fun of his choreography. If he were to fire me, Bonbon and I would be in trouble. I had barely enough money for my rent as it was. The room I had found in Le Panier wasn’t much better than the one Aunt Augustine had given me, but I had been so happy at the theatre that I didn’t care. And even though the quarter was squalid, there were street musicians and artists on every corner.

  I found Madame Tarasova and Vera at work setting out the headdresses for the first act. They greeted me as if nothing were amiss. I had no choice but to go to the dressing room and set it up. On my way, I passed Monsieur Dargent running down the stairs. I froze on the spot but he didn’t notice me. He rushed by, shouting instructions to a stagehand, then disappeared down the stairs and onto the stage. I shrugged; maybe I was the one who was too sensitive? It seemed that I was going to live to fight another day at Le Chat Espiègle.

  A few nights later I turned up at the theatre to find the stage door open but no sign of Albert. It was unlike him to leave the door unlocked when he wasn’t at his post. A chill fluttered over my neck and back and I sensed something was wrong. Bonbon pricked up her ears. As I peered into the darkness, muffled sounds floated down the stairwell. I listened, but they were too faint to distinguish. They could have been anything from water running down a drainpipe to gagged cries for help. There had been a shoot-out at a music hall in Belsunce the previous day and it was rumoured that the Marseilles mafia was moving in on the theatres.

  ‘Albert?’ I called out. There was no answer. I hesitated, wondering if it would be wiser to go to the front entrance and see the cashier, but my anxiety won out and compelled me up the stairs.

  There was no sign of the stagehands or electricians who were normally busy with the sets. My feet creaked on the floorboards. The sounds I’d heard earlier were coming from the floor above: voices. A picture of Monsieur Dargent and the chorus girls tied to their chairs floated into my mind. I dismissed it. We weren’t that influential and our profits weren’t big enough to steal. I tiptoed to the stairwell.

  This time Monsi
eur Dargent’s pleading voice filled the air. ‘You can’t do this to me! The show starts in threequarters of an hour!’

  ‘I can and I am,’ a female voice answered him. ‘Look at my eye. You stand on stage and sing that stupid Hawaiian number you’ve come up with and see what it’s like to get fruit thrown at you!’

  Something clattered to the floor and I heard footsteps coming towards me. The English chorus girl, Anne, hurried down the stairwell, a bulging suitcase tucked under her arm. There was a dark smudge under her right eye and swelling near her nose. When she reached the landing she turned to me and muttered, ‘Goodbye, Simone. Good luck. I’m going back to London.’

  I watched her reach the bottom of the stairs and rush out the door. I was sorry that she was going; she had been my favourite chorus girl.

  ‘Things were all right until you introduced that stupid number,’ another female voice piped up. ‘It will ruin us all. The audience hates it!’

  I climbed the stairs to the third floor and was surprised to see all the cast and crew, except for Camille, assembled there. The chorus girls wore long faces. Monsieur Dargent was leaning against the door to their dressing room, one hand clenched by his side and his brow twitching in an effort at self-control. Albert glanced over his shoulder to where I was standing and waved me towards the group. I had never seen him looking so grim. ‘We might have to close the show,’ he whispered. ‘The lead chorus girl has just walked out. We are taking losses—the audience doesn’t like the first act.’

  I caught the eye of Madame Tarasova who held a lei in her hands and was fidgeting with its flowers. She sent me a nervous smile.