by Will Belford
‘Close the bloody door,’ called Joe, ‘were you born in a tent?’ He turned to see Yvette walk in, and felt his heart start to beat a little faster as she walked right across the crowded room to him.
‘Miss Bendine. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’
‘In this tavern m’sieur? You know I come ‘ere to ask for money for the orphanage. After nine o’clock I find the men here are more generous than usual.’
‘I reckon they’d give their shirts to any cause you support mam’selle.’
‘Aah Lieutenant, there is no need for, what do you call it ‘flattairry’? she replied. Despite herself, she felt girlishly happy at the compliment.
‘Would you care to make some small contribution yourself?’ she asked, holding out her basket.
He thought about the back pay he was owed and what he had in hand—three shillings a day didn’t go far as an officer in His Majesty’s army—then dug into his pocket and pulled out his last shilling piece.
‘This is all I have money-wise right now, but I’ve been doing a bit of work on this if you’d like to have it,’ said Joe producing the Roman dagger from his boot.
She took it from him and examined it. Clearly he’d spent a lot of time carefully cleaning it, without losing any of the remnants or chipping away fragments. She glanced up and noticed him watching her intently.
‘You ‘ave done a good job with this m’sieur,’ she said with a smile, ‘per’aps you should be an archaeologist.’
Joe glowed, it made all his hours of finicky brushwork worth it.
‘Thank you for this,’ she continued, ‘and for your donation. I will make sure that the children ‘ave something special, per’aps new boots?’
‘Tres bon,’ said Joe.
‘Vous parlez Francais?’ she asked, with surprise.
‘Only schoolboy French,’ said Joe, grinning.
Corporal Smythe materialised on his left and nudged his arm.
‘Excusin’ me sir, but we best be off if we’re goin’ to be in our billets before curfew.’
‘Yeah, righto Corporal, get the men together will you? I’ll see you outside. Bonsoir Miss Bendine.’
‘Bonsoir lieutenant, et merci,’ she said holding up the Roman relic.
Joe turned and pushed through the door into the street. The spring air blew the smoke out of his lungs in an instant and he stood admiring the town square with its neat buildings, each one older than his whole country.
‘Lieutenant?’ it was her voice, quieter now, hushed to suit the silence of the night outside the hubbub of the tavern.
‘Miss Bendine?’
‘Please, call me Yvette. May I call you Joseph? It is so much nicer than ‘Lieutenant’.’
‘Miss, you can call me Joe, Joseph, anything you like, as long as it’s not Josephine.’
She laughed, a tintinnabulation. Steam framed her lips momentarily.
‘Joe then, but only if you stop this ”Miss”, and give me my name too.’
‘Yvette,’ he said, ‘it’s a beautiful name.’
She was about to reply when the door of the tavern burst open abruptly and a soldier came flying out, sprawling onto the cobblestones. The members of Joe’s platoon soon followed, either ejected by Belgian soldiers or Corporal Smythe.
Joe threw a smile at Yvette, then hauled the first man up by his collar and dragged him off up the road.
‘Get moving cobber, before you get yourself in a stoush with the MPs.’
‘Perr-aps I will see you again Lieutenant Joe?’ she called as he receded into the darkness.
‘Peut-être,’ he called with a wave.
~ ~ ~
She looked at the photograph again. The resemblance was uncanny. She put it down and went back to cleaning the pieces of an old Roman helmet.
She had her uncle’s tools out on the workbench and had already spent an hour blowing and brushing encrusted dirt off the decayed bronze. Now she was probing some of the cracks with a thin piece of wire to remove residual dirt. With meticulous care, she enticed the grains of soil out of the nooks and crannies, then took her work out into the sunlight to examine it. She acknowledged that she was a perfectionist—her approach to archaeology demonstrated that only too clearly—but no matter how perfect the man, none had ever really interested her before. The local boys from the town and the farms were all unsophisticated and had held no interest. The few intelligent men she had met, friends of her uncle, had either been too old or too academic. They’d had nothing to offer, and on the face of it, neither did this Joe Dean. So why could she not get him out of her mind? What did she even really know about him?
She knew that he was polite, but managed to be slightly insolent, no—not insolent, cheeky—at the same time; she knew that the way he looked at her made her feel like a woman rather than a girl. She knew that where most men were over-awed by her appearance, he clearly wasn’t, despite the flattery. It was almost as if she had to prove to him that she wasn’t just a thirteen-year-old, and that sparked her spirit of competition. She knew that he had a physical presence she found irresistible; after she’d seen him that sunny afternoon digging with his shirt off she’d been shocked to find herself day-dreaming about his long back and his arms, glistening with sweat. She also knew that he’d be gone just as soon as the Germans attacked.
As she lit the stove to start preparing dinner, she wondered if soldiers ever had time off.
~ ~ ~
‘Hey Convict, you coming with us tonight?’ called Jameson as Joe walked into the officer’s mess.
‘Where are you off to Irish?’ asked Joe.
‘Nowhere special,’ replied Jameson, ‘just into town for a drink.’
‘Count me in, all this digging’s given me a thirst that would kill a camel.’
‘Surely you’re not digging Dean?’ asked Major Merrivale, ‘that’s what your men are for, officers don’t dig, it’s undignified, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
‘I don’t mind a bit of hard work Major,’ replied Joe, ‘where I come from we mend a lot of fences and bore drains and the like. Besides, I find the men work harder if I get amongst it.’
‘They won’t like it you know,’ said Merrivale, ‘British soldiers have always expected their officers to be a cut above them.’
‘Well sir, I reckon they don’t think much of me anyway because I’m a colonial, so it can’t get much worse. At least this way they know that I’m prepared to get my hands dirty; it’s not like I’m asking them to do something I wouldn’t do myself. Isn’t that the first principle of being a junior officer, Major?’
‘Absolutely right Dean, something I insist upon. You need to lead by example, but you have to keep some distance as well. If they think you’re one of them they won’t respect you, and if they don’t respect you, how can you expect them to follow you when you charge the enemy? Think about it, won’t you. You fellows better get going and remember, we have an inspection tomorrow.’
Down at the local café that night it was a pleasantly warm evening, and, after dining on boeuf bourgignon, the three young officers decided to finish their wine in the courtyard.
‘Do you think the Nazis are going to come at all?’ asked Jameson.
‘What I want to know is why the bloody French haven’t invaded Germany,’ said Ferguson. ‘What do they think they’re doing? Sitting in the Maginot Line hoping the Germans will just walk in front of their guns? They should have attacked months ago.’
‘I’m with you Massey,’ said Joe, ‘we could have knocked them for six by now.’
‘Oh to hell with that and to hell with the war,’ said Jameson angrily, ‘let’s forget about it for a night and go and get some French crumpet. Who’s for the Black Pussy?’
They downed their wine and set off up the road to a house in a side road that was frequented by officers of all the regiments based around the town. ‘Le Chat Noir’ was one of several brothels that had sprung up shortly after the British troops arrived, and been doing a roaring trade ever since.
The enlisted men’s house, on the other side of Roubaix, had a queue stretching around the block, as bored young French girls were mounted by one pent-up Tommy after another, often several to a room.
The Black Cat was a little more sophisticated.
Tonight, sitting on the window seat, Madame Sophie saw the three officers coming towards her door. Two of them she knew: Jameson and Ferguson. Her girls called them les enfants because they were so inexperienced; neither had the faintest idea what to do with a woman.
The third one was new. He was long of limb, slender, and moved with the easy grace that bespoke a life on horseback.
‘This will be interesting,’ said Madame Sophie as she lowered the curtain.
Joe’s companions pushed through the door as if they owned the place, swaggering with a knowing attitude that seemed to Joe somehow over-acted. He brought up the rear, a foot taller than the other two, silent and dark.
Inside, the décor was opulent: chaise longues and plush armchairs lay in yellow pools of light from low-hanging lampshades. A haze of cigar and cigarette smoke almost obscured the bar along the back of the room, behind which a large and ugly woman of indeterminate age was polishing glasses. Lurking beneath the acrid bite of the tobacco lay a hint of some musky, animal odour. At the tables, young girls wearing nothing but G-strings and high heels lounged, talking to young British and French officers whose eyes were bulging from their heads. In one corner, Django Reinhardt’s guitar tinkled from a Bakelite radio, where a girl in a negligee danced slowly with a colonel more than twice her age.
A woman in a black silk dress stood up from the window seat and came towards them waving a cigarette in a long ivory holder. As she crossed the floor she managed to combine an air of authority with a blatant sensuousness that captured Joe’s attention immediately.
‘Aaaaah, les enfants Jam’son and Ferg’son. Why have you abandoned my poor girls to these wolves for so long?’ cried Madame Sophie, gesticulating with her cigarette at the other patrons, ‘Maria and Jacqueline have been calling out for you, “Enough of these farting old generals,” they cry, “where are the young men?” And here you are at last. It has been weeks gentlemen, weeks, what has kept you from my young women, and who, pray tell, is this?’
She cast her eyes squarely upon Joe, who looked at the floor, unable to meet the challenge of her gaze.
‘He is shy, ne’ cest pas? Perhaps my girls can loosen him up a little. Who would you suggest Jam’sonn? Anna? Perhaps he would like something a little more robust, Eleanor perr’aps?’
‘We are all in your expert hands Madame Sophie,’ said Jameson, trying to sound sophisticated.
‘Well then Lieutenant,’ she said to Joe, ‘Eleanor is upstairs, the second door on the right. I think you will find her diverting.’
Suddenly her voice hardened and her right hand shot out.
‘She will be five francs, s’il vous plait.’
Tempted as he was, Joe knew he didn’t want his first time to be with a prostitute, but he also didn’t want the other lieutenants to suspect that he’d never been with a woman. He decided that boldness was the only course open to him.
‘I think I’ll pass on Eleanor,’ said Joe, ‘I’d rather have a drink with you Madame. You two, go ahead.’
‘Oh come on Convict.’ remonstrated Ferguson, ‘what’s the matter? Afraid you won’t be able to get it up?’
‘Piss off Massey,’ said Joe, pulling a condom out of his pocket and flicking it at him, ‘here, have a franger on me.’
Jameson laughed drunkenly and thrust some money into Madame Sophie’s hand.
‘I’ll have her if he won’t. You don’t know what you’re missing Joe, Eleanor’s got an amazing set of lungs on her.’
Madame Sophie clicked her fingers and another of the nearly-naked girls sidled up to Ferguson, put her arms around him and led him up the stairs.
‘I see you are a little different from the others Lieutenant,’ said Madame Sophie, ‘come and have drink with me and explain why that is, hmm?’ She took Joe’s hand and seated him at the bar, where two glasses of absinthe quickly materialised.
Although it was hard to tell her age under the make-up, Madame Sophie was unquestionably an attractive woman. Dead straight black hair—was it a wig? Joe wondered—fell all the way to her hips and though her face was lined, the wrinkles in her forehead were mostly horizontal, not vertical, betraying a life of laughter rather than frowning.
‘So, you prefer boys, is that it, Mr …?’
‘What the hell?’ spluttered Joe, spilling his drink down the front of his uniform.
‘Girls then, but none of mine it would seem,‘ she said, handing him a cloth, ‘what is wrong with them soldier boy?’
‘I’m just not interested in low heels,’ said Joe, wiping himself.
‘Aaah, you’re a virgin, is that it? Saving yourself for that special girl,’ replied Madame Sophie, clasping her hands and gazing mockingly upwards as if to the heavens, ‘that’s so sweet, I applaud your decision. Here, have another drink, you’re clearly not an Englishman, it’s a nice change to have someone other than rosbifs in here.
‘Now,’ she whispered, leaning in close and confronting him with a vertiginous cleavage, ’tell me about yourself.’
‘Me? What do you want to know about me?’ asked Joe, getting a noseful of a strong floral perfume as he forced himself to look away from her chest.
‘For a start, who it is you’re so besotted with that you can resist Marie or Isobel over there so easily,’ said the Madame with a grin.
‘Oh, just a sheila back home,’ lied Joe, unwilling to reveal much to this woman who was, frankly, terrifying and alluring at the same time. He coughed and felt in his pockets for a cigarette.
‘How about you tell me how you wound up in this place,’ he continued.
‘You want to know my story? Ha, it’s been while since any man cared to asked.’
She lit his cigarette with a gold lighter and sipped her drink.
‘Very well then, seeing that you are about as conversational as a clam, I will do the talking. When I was young I was a chorus girl in La Pigalle.’
‘La Pigalle?’ queried Joe.
‘Pig Alley you would call it, it’s the red-light district of Paris,’ said Madame Sophie. ‘As I got closer to thirty I could see that my days on the stage were numbered, so with some difficulty, I set up my own little operation. As you can imagine, well no you probably can’t, avoiding the attention of the law and the gangs was not easy. I focussed on only the wealthiest of men—politicians, bankers, industrialists—many of whom had paid to enjoy me when I was dancing. Now I was too old for their tastes, but there was no shortage of young girls desperate to earn a living who could satisfy them.’
‘You? Too old?’ said Joe, who was now feeling the effects of the absinthe.
‘Ha,’ laughed Madame Sophie pushing him in the chest, ‘you’re trouble aren’t you? Anyway, when the British came I decided to move here for the winter. Selling sex to young men who are away from home and have nothing to do is, well, not a challenge. Naturally I only serve officers; they have the real money, not the common soldiers, they’re just rutting animals full of diseases. My girls are clean, they dress properly, and they take English lessons during the day.’
‘You seem to have it all worked out Madame,’ said Joe, ‘what’ll you do when the Germans arrive?’
‘Why, stay in business of course, back in Paris,’ she replied, ‘Germans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, they are all the same once they take off their clothes, and they all want the same things, no matter what language they demand it in. Where are you from anyway? I cannot place your accent.’
‘Australia,’ said Joe, ‘the other side of the world.’
‘Aah, this might explain why you look so much healthier than the others,’ laughed Madame Sophie, ‘it is sunny there, no?’
‘Yep, hot, dry and there are no chorus girls either,’ said Joe, who was beginning to like Madame Sophie.
At that point Jameson appeared at the top of the stairs, adjusting his tie. He came down and joined them at the bar.
‘Feeling better now eh Jam’sonn?’ asked Madame Sophie, giving him a kiss on the cheek, ‘was Eleanor to your liking?’
The British lieutenant blushed.
‘Yes Madame, yes indeed,’ he turned and looked up the stairs, ‘now where the hell is Ferguson?’
‘Oh he always goes a bit longer than you,’ said Madame Sophie, ‘according to the girls he likes to talk for a while before he gets up the courage to have his way with them. They think it’s quite cute.’
‘Well, err,’ started Ferguson, clearly not expecting to wait around in the brothel now his business was done, ‘I guess I’ll be off then. You coming Dean? No? See you tomorrow then.’
Two hours later Joe reeled out of the brothel reeking of absinthe. Unaccustomed to the powerful liquor, he’d drunk far too many of the small glasses before he stood up and realised just how drunk he was. When Madame Sophie had tried to drag him off to her bedroom he’d only barely been able to maintain the presence of mind to fend her off and stumble to the door.
He leant against the wall in the pool of red light from the lantern above the doorway, the world spinning. As the cold night air blew some of the fug out of his brain, he heard a voice.
‘Joe, is that you?’
He lifted his head and tried to uncross his eyes and focus, then groaned inwardly. Of all the people who had to see him here.
‘Joe, tell me you did not just come out of there?’
‘Yvette,’ he mumbled, ‘what … what are you doing out at this hour?’
‘I ‘ave been collecting at the tavern, while you ‘ave been in this … this place.’
‘No,’ he slurred, ‘it’s not what it looks like, I didn’t …’
‘I had hoped you might be different, but clearly I was wrong,’ she fanned the air, ’Mon Dieu, you stink of liquor and cheap perfume.’
‘All I did was talk,’ said Joe, feeling like he wanted to shrivel up and disappear.
‘Oh, so that’s what you do in a whorehouse is it? Talk? A likely story.’