Wild Lavender

by Belinda Alexandra

  Despite the addition of curtains and rugs, my room in Montparnasse was still cold and Odette suggested that I move into a hotel with reliable heating. I found one on the Rue des écoles in the Latin Quarter. The manageress was Madame Lombard, a war widow. She checked my age twice on the reference Monsieur Etienne had given me. I was the average age for a Parisian chorus girl but I knew I looked younger.

  ‘Come this way,’ she said, handing back the reference and leading me down a corridor.

  The ground floor room was furnished with a single bed, a desk and a coat rack with bent wire hangers dangling from it. Although the curtains and walls were shabby there was a steam heater under the window and a shared bathroom on the same floor. All I really needed was a warm place to sleep and dress, and to hang up my expanding collection of clothes. The rent was only two hundred francs a month more than my current room and I was about to accept it when Madame Lombard mentioned that she had a nicer room upstairs.

  This one had a low ceiling that sloped down to a dormer window which looked out over the street, and as well as a bed and a heater it had a chest of drawers and an armoire. Although the rate was twice as much as the room downstairs—and well over my budget—I said that I would take it.

  ‘Good,’ said Madame Lombard, pleased but not smiling. Her gaze fell to my crocodile-skin shoes and silk stockings. ‘No men in the room at any time. Visitors can be met in reception.’

  ‘No,’ I stuttered. I was always taken aback when people assumed that because I worked in the music hall, I was a girl of easy virtue.

  One evening, Camille sent me a note: ‘Meet us back at the theatre after the show. Bentley is taking us out for dinner.’

  Although Camille had done me some favours, I couldn’t say that I found her a particularly warm friend. And yet I always accepted her invitations with the dutiful obedience of a mousy younger sister. I was fascinated by Camille and drawn to her because I saw her as possessing something I never would: the power of perfect beauty. On top of that, I was alone and adrift without my family and ready to cling to anybody for company.

  I arrived at the Casino de Paris as Camille, Bentley and François were coming out of the stage door. I was surprised to see that Antoine wasn’t with them; I had formed the impression the last time I saw them that François and Antoine went everywhere together. Bentley’s driver stepped out of the idling Rolls-Royce to open the doors for us. Unlike the taxi, there was plenty of room in the back.

  Bentley had booked a table at Fouquet’s on the Avenue des Champs élysées. One smile from the tuxedoed maître d’hôtel and a glimpse of the tables with their white cloths bathed in amber light from the chandeliers, and it seemed ridiculous that I had ever thought of the Rotonde as ‘fine dining’. The chain of command for the floor staff was like a choreographed ballet: the coatroom girl swept away our outer garments; the maître d’hotel glided between the other guests in their evening suits and diamonds to show us to our table, before reading out a menu that included ratatouille, salmon terrine and wild boar served in pepper sauce; when he left, the sommelier arrived to take our order for pre-dinner drinks; the waiter followed, wanting to know if we had decided on our dishes; after we made our selection, the dining room assistant lurched forward to fill our water glasses and dish out the bread rolls; then the sommelier returned to recommend wines to go with our courses; once that was taken care of, the waiter reappeared with new cutlery to add to the impressive array of knives, forks and spoons already surrounding our plates; then the sommelier came back with his assistant to pour the champagne. And yet, despite all the activity, the restaurant was several decibels quieter than the Rotonde. The other customers chatted quietly or didn’t speak at all.

  I stared at the new knife the waiter had placed before me. It resembled a letter opener and was as much a mystery to me as the small fork on my left. I assumed that the two extra goblets on my right were for red wine and white wine. I would have been confused to see four glasses on my right if two had not already been filled with water and champagne. The time we had eaten at Le Boeuf sur le Toit, I had worked out the difference between the salad fork and the meat fork, the soup spoon and the dessert spoon, the butter knife and the cheese knife, by sneaking glances at François or Antoine. But the display of cutlery at Fouquet’s was overwhelming.

  I was conscious of François’s eyes on me. I looked up and smiled, determined to show him that I wasn’t ill at ease in such opulent surroundings. Hadn’t Madame Piège said that I was quick to pick things up? His gaze fell to the rhinestones around my neck. I shifted in my chair and crossed and uncrossed my legs. Of course the stones were only glitter; they weren’t real diamonds like Camille’s bracelet. But why did he have to stare at them like that?

  Fortunately the hors-d’oeuvre arrived and François turned his attention to his plate of snails. Watching him extract them from their shells with a pair of miniature tongs and a fork made me glad that I had ordered the foie gras.

  ‘Did you see Cocteau in the audience tonight?’ Camille asked Bentley, picking at her plate of shrimps with her knife and fork. I noticed how she approached her food gingerly while Bentley poked and stabbed at his cold cuts with flair. She is as out of place as I am, I thought.

  After the restaurant we danced at Claridge’s, drank more champagne, then went to François’s apartment to listen to his jazz records and share a final drink. If I had been impressed with the luxury Fouquet’s offered, then I was astounded by François’s living arrangements. His apartment was on the Avenue Foch, near the Arc de Triomphe. The building was nineteenth-century cut stone with wrought-iron balconies, slanted roofs and a gilded elevator that lifted us to the fifth floor. A maid greeted us at the door and ushered us into a foyer as large as the floor space of the Dôme. The rose pink walls and chrome light fittings were a stark contrast to the decorative exterior of the building. A gold sarcophagus stood in the corner. So this is how rich people live, I thought, eyeing the polished stone replica of a sphinx perched in a fountain in the middle of the space and the Egyptian motifs on the tiles. And I thought I had gone up in the world with heating and a shared bathroom!

  I followed the others into a drawing room where an ebony piano gleamed alongside the leather chaises longues. Paintings of tigers and elephants hung on the walls. François opened a set of glass doors that led out to a balcony with carved tables and chairs and sculptured hedges in planter boxes. ‘During the day you can see the Bois de Boulogne from here,’ he said, sweeping his hand towards a dark patch amongst the sea of lights. He had directed this comment to Camille but his eyes drifted in my direction. Was he trying to impress me? I dismissed the thought. He was too rich and I was far too easy to impress for there to be any challenge in that.

  ‘It’s not so cold out tonight,’ said Bentley, stepping past François onto the balcony. Camille followed him. I was about to go outside as well when François placed his hand on my shoulder and let the door swing shut. ‘Why don’t you help me select the music?’

  He flung open the doors to a cupboard and pulled out a sliding shelf with a gramophone sitting on it. He set the needle and jazz music filled the room. Then, he stepped towards me and clasped me in position for the foxtrot, our fingers intertwined and his right foot interlocked between my feet. We started to move and François pulled me closer. When we danced at Claridge’s we had been a pair in a crowd of dancers. But dancing with François in his drawing room was uncomfortably intimate.

  He brought his face to mine. ‘You have been distracted all evening,’ he said. His hand slid from my shoulder blade to the small of my back, which was bare because of the cut of my dress. I stiffened and he removed it to my waist. The record ended but François made no move to put on a new one. His eyes fixed on my lips and his mouth twitched. I tried to wriggle away, but he gripped my shoulders and pressed his lips to mine. The kiss happened so fast that I froze. His tongue wormed into my mouth. I flinched when our teeth clashed but I could not make myself move until he slid his hand down my
neckline and brushed his fingers over my breast. I pulled away and fled behind a coffee table.

  ‘Now you understand,’ he said. ‘It is not too late for you to go home. Or you can stay and look at my pictures while I change my clothes.’

  He turned and left the room. I flew through the balcony doors and almost landed in Bentley’s lap. He and Camille were sitting at a table blowing puffs of cigarette smoke at the sky.

  ‘Where’s François?’ Bentley asked. ‘You’re not dancing any more?’

  ‘He is changing his clothes,’ I said. My heart thumped in my chest and my mind raced. Had I done anything to encourage François?

  ‘Well, he’s a fine host,’ said Bentley, stubbing out his cigarette on a saucer. ‘What’s he doing—putting on his pajamas?’ He rose from his chair. ‘I’ll find the maid and organise drinks for us. It was François’s suggestion we come here for a nightcap. Surely he can at least offer us a glass of port.’

  After Bentley left, Camille glanced over my dress. I looked down and realised that in my struggle with François the skirt had twisted around the waistline and one of the shoulder straps had slipped down.

  ‘François is besotted with you,’ she mused. ‘He thinks you’re beautiful.’

  ‘He hardly knows me!’

  It didn’t occur to me that I could just leave. For some reason, when I was with Camille I thought I needed her permission before I could do anything.

  Camille blew a stream of smoke into the air. ‘He is more than wealthy, you know. This is his city apartment. He has a château in Neuilly. He could do a lot for your career.’

  My mind slowed enough for me to study Camille. Her eyes were bloodshot. We’d had the same amount of wine at dinner and the same amount of champagne at Claridge’s, but Camille was drunk. I thought back to when I met her and the others at the stage door. Perhaps they had started drinking straight after the show.

  ‘You are a virgin, aren’t you, Simone?’ Camille asked, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘Well, you will have to decide whether you want to be a virtuous girl or a star. You can’t be both.’

  I glanced over my shoulder; I had felt safer with Bentley there. ‘What do you mean?’

  Camille leaned back and squinted at me. ‘Do you think I could have got where I have without Bentley? Or Monsieur Gosling for that matter? Do you think girls from our background can become anything without some assistance?’

  I didn’t answer; I was too surprised by the tone of her voice. The way she spat out Bentley’s and Monsieur Gosling’s names, it sounded as if they disgusted her. I knew that she used them but I couldn’t see what there was to loathe about them.

  ‘I was discovered by a theatrical agent. I came to Paris on my own and I have two prestigious singing positions,’ I said. ‘I did all that without a man.’

  Camille lit another cigarette and looked at me gravely. ‘Yes, but you have only yourself to worry about,’ she said. ‘Do you think I do this for my health? I have a child to think of.’

  This piece of information stunned me. I stared at Camille, waiting for an explanation.

  ‘She is in a convent. In Aubagne,’ she said. Her voice was so full of controlled emotion that a lump formed in my own throat. ‘She will have no more of a chance than I did as an illegitimate girl if I don’t make a fortune.’

  Suddenly I had a different perspective on Camille’s way of life. My cheeks burned with shame that I had ever thought of her as an opportunist.

  ‘Her father was a coffee merchant who didn’t even stick around for her birth.’

  ‘What about Bentley?’ I asked. ‘He seems taken with you. Won’t he make you his wife?’

  Camille lifted her eyebrows and laughed. She seemed to enjoy my naivety. ‘Simone, men like that don’t marry girls like us! We have to take from them what we can and then make a life of our own. Besides, I don’t think his wife would approve of me marrying him.’

  ‘Is Bentley married?’ I realised that I had assumed he was a young bachelor about town, seeking out amusement and life. And possibly love.

  ‘Of course,’ Camille sniggered. ‘His wife is in London, organising charity balls and calling on society dowagers and doing all the things required of a good married woman.’

  She was about to say something else when Bentley returned with the maid and a tray of drinks. François shuffled along behind them, now wearing a smoking jacket and a cravat. His amorous mood seemed to have passed and he smiled at me before reaching into his pocket and taking out a small bag. ‘Leave the tray,’ he told the maid after she had served the drinks.

  When the maid had gone, François removed the bottles and wiped the tray dry with a serviette. He opened the bag and tipped a pile of cocaine onto the mirrored surface.

  ‘Ah, a deck of snow,’ laughed Bentley. ‘You’re a better host than I thought, François.’ He reached into his pocket and opened a silver case, took out a calling card and handed it to François.

  ‘Most appropriate,’ said François, using the card to divide the powder into four lines. When he was finished he reached back into his pocket and pulled out four straws, handing us each one.

  Bentley pushed the tray towards me. ‘The first one to greet the dawn wins,’ he said.

  ‘You go first,’ said Camille, sliding the tray back towards Bentley. ‘I’m sure Simone hasn’t done this before.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Bentley, bending his head to the tray. ‘Then she hasn’t lived.’

  He put the straw to one of his nostrils and, sealing the other with his finger, snorted the powder like an anteater sucking up insects. He sat back in his chair and blinked his watering eyes. Camille inhaled next, followed by François. Camille started to laugh but clenched her fists so tightly that a trickle of blood threaded out from where her nails dug into her palms. François moaned and pushed the tray towards me, but all I could think of was the man outside Le Chat Espiègle screaming that he had cockroaches crawling under his skin. I slid from my chair and opened the door to the drawing room.

  The maid helped me with my wrap and gloves in the foyer. ‘Would Mademoiselle like to leave a message for Monsieur Duvernoy?’ she asked. I shook my head.

  Out on the avenue, the morning was already breaking. The sun glistened on the roofs of the buildings and the branches of the tallest trees. There wasn’t a taxi in sight so I set off on foot towards the Arc de Triomphe, looking for a métro station.

  THIRTEEN

  When Monsieur Volterra began planning the next show, Monsieur Etienne negotiated a better singing and dancing part for me—modern rather than comic. Most of the theatres in Paris, including the Casino, closed in August with rehearsals for the new shows starting in September. I could have joined one of the troupes touring the provinces over summer or expanded my nights at the Café des Singes. I chose to do neither, and gave up my job with Madame Baquet’s nightclub. I wanted to make a trip back to the farm for summer. I was lonely. Because of my age and what I did, I was isolated from normal life and even the other performers around me. The chorus girls didn’t want to know me and I wasn’t a big enough name to hang around with the stars. As my night at François’s apartment had shown, Camille and I were worlds apart. Odette was my only true friend, but because of her work and art classes and my odd hours, we rarely saw each other. I loved Paris, but it was time for a trip home.

  I caught the overnight train to Pays de Sault, splurging on a second-class sleeping compartment so that I wouldn’t have to endure the discomfort of sitting upright all night. Bernard met me at the station, not in a sports car but a motor truck.

  ‘Bonjour, Simone. Welcome home,’ he said, and smiled. Bernard lifted my luggage into the tray then opened the passenger door for me before climbing into the driver’s seat and revving up the engine. The southern sun burned through the windscreen. It was dazzling after the anaemic light of Paris. The pines shimmered under the blue sky and larks sang. The road was so bumpy I imagined the glass of milk I had drunk on the train churning into butter in my
stomach.

  I told Bernard about Montparnasse, the Café des Singes, my spot at the Casino de Paris and my dinner at Fouquet’s.

  ‘We have swapped lives,’ he said, a grin breaking out on his sun-bronzed face. ‘You have become civilised and I have gone wild.’

  My gaze travelled from his hobnail boots to his cap. A film of perspiration glowed on his cheeks and forehead. He was a farmer now but he was anything but wild. His work trousers were pressed with a crease down the front of each leg, and the reek of scorched leather in the cabin was lifted by the scent of cologne floating up from his shirt collar.

  The lavender harvest was over. Bernard told me it had been a success and that they planned to buy another still the following year. They were also hoping to purchase the Rucarts’ abandoned farm from the only heir, who lived in Digne. The old house was beyond repair but they wanted to restore the orchard and prepare the other fields for lavender.

  ‘A contact in Grasse says their scientists are developing a hybrid that is hardier than wild lavender and yields ten times as much oil,’ Bernard explained, sounding like my father in one of his entrepreneurial moods. ‘If it works out, we will need more land.’

  We arrived at the farm in the afternoon. The cypress trees cast shadows over the sizzling road. My mother was standing in the yard with her hand shading her eyes, Bonbon on guard at her feet. Even from that distance I could see the little dog had put on weight; no doubt spoiled by Aunt Yvette’s cooking. We cleared the grove and my mother called out. Aunt Yvette burst through the beaded curtain in the kitchen doorway, a pan in her hand. Chocolat and Olly scampered after her.