Secrets and Showgirls

by Catherine McCullagh

  Maurice, Orlando and Hiram quickly materialised and the little manager now fell at her side, signalling the two men to assist him.

  ‘Take Madame back to the apartment,’ he directed in a voice that was somehow mesmerising in its calmness, ‘she will have a little rest while we discuss the situation.’ The sorry little party left the room, Madame’s loud sobs trailing them down the corridor, a bubbling wake that washed over the walls and echoed back in agonised waves. Maurice looked at his dancers. A ragged, expectant silence hovered.

  Madame was right. The early months of 1940 had seen the Germans resume their westward advance, taking Denmark in April followed by Norway a few short weeks later. The full might of the German army was unleashed as the blitzkrieg rolled across the Netherlands and into Belgium. The British, French and Belgian armies collapsed and retreated as the tide threatened to envelop them. The legions of Huberts were nowhere to be seen. This was the grim situation as Monsieur Maurice faced his little troupe.

  ‘If you want to leave ...’ he faltered, ‘you should do so soon ... you are under no obligation to stay.’ It was Sabine who voiced the thoughts of the group.

  ‘But we have nowhere to go ...’ she began uncertainly. The harsh truth of this statement was instantly confirmed by the crescendo of wails and strident cries as the others woke from their shock.

  ‘I have no family outside Paris,’ protested one.

  ‘My life is here,’ agonised another.

  ‘I don’t want to leave,’ wailed a third.

  ‘Ladies, please, calm yourselves!’ Maurice raised his hands, appealing with beseeching eyes for his distraught showgirls to control their distress and listen to him. Despite his diminutive form, Maurice was a man of presence and his gravitas now calmed the storm that threatened to erupt before him.

  ‘I will stay.’ He spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘I hope to send Madame to a place of safety in the south ... we have friends in Montpellier ... but I will stay here at Le Prix and try to persuade the Germans that we are no threat and that they should leave us in peace.’

  Again, silence greeted his words as the girls tossed their fate in a mental juggling act. Gradually they spoke, their response expressed in anguished whispers or cries of desperation. Maurice addressed each plea, each sob.

  ‘I will stay with you.’ Maurice smiled gravely and pressed a hand in gratitude.

  ‘I have no money.’ Again a pressed hand and a soft smile.

  ‘I will help you.’

  ‘I have nowhere to go.’ Maurice looked around.

  ‘There must be someone who has relatives or friends who can help others in the company. We are a family, non? Please think carefully, try to recall any connection at all ... distant relatives, childhood friends, those you have worked with in other parts of the country ... some of these people may be able to lodge someone until we can make other arrangements.’ He paused and looked at the motley group that stood before him shrouded in uncertainty.

  ‘Who can help?’ he asked, shifting his gaze from one face to the next in turn. A bewildered silence greeted his entreaty as if the weight of individual responsibility had banished all prospect of collaborative care. Maurice looked slowly along the row of faces as Orlando and Hiram rejoined the anxious group.

  ‘Orlando? You are Spanish ... perhaps you could take some of the company and guide them across the border . they could stay in one of the little towns until this war is over ...’ Orlando shook his massive head vigorously.

  ‘Maurice, you are mad. The border is hundreds of kilometres away across rugged mountains — we could no sooner make such a journey than fly to the moon!’ Maurice nodded in weary acknowledgement and turned to Orlando’s left as a slight figure joined the group.

  ‘Coco? You must know someone in the south ...’

  ‘Non! My relatives are idiots with no education and even less in the way of manners. They are brutes who live like animals — I would prefer the company of the Germans!’ spat Coco, her whip working furiously against her leg as her eyes flashed with venom. Maurice sighed heavily. His eyes rested briefly on Chinon who lowered his head to avert his manager’s gaze. Maurice knew better than to tempt fate. He shifted his look to Sabine who stared back at him as if he was asking the impossible.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ she blurted, ‘I’m an orphan, I was raised by nuns.’ This startling revelation saw jaws drop as one. Lily guffawed into her hand.

  ‘That explains a great deal!’ she jibed to Poppy in an undertone, ignoring Sabine’s murderous glare. Maurice turned towards Lily with a hopeful look.

  ‘Lil?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows. ‘Can you help?’

  ‘Me?’ answered Lily immediately, looking around at her expectant companions, ‘No, no, I’m not ... I don’t have any relatives here.’

  ‘But you lived in Marseilles ... don’t you have any friends there who might help us?’

  ‘No,’ now Lily was definite, as if trying to parry the agonised looks of her fellow performers, ‘no, I well and truly burnt my bridges in Marseilles ... sorry!’ It was Poppy who relieved Maurice’s agony.

  ‘I don’t have any relatives worth knowing and my friends are just like me — pretty unreliable types really. But I will stay here with you, Monsieur Maurice, and I will try to find somewhere for those who wish to leave. Someone will be able to help.’ Poppy’s words had a calming effect on the gathering and many of the others now voiced their willingness to stay, at least for the moment. What the clouded future held, no-one was game to suggest. But they began to see safety in a shared fate and face their situation with a sense of common purpose, their unity assured as long as Maurice remained at their head.

  But this resolve was not shared by all.

  ‘I’m not staying,’ announced Lily pointedly as if only a fool would do otherwise. Her fellow company members stared at her, their eyes reflecting their own inner turmoil.

  ‘I don’t do war .. it’s not my thing. I saw enough of war in Spain to realise that we’re simply not suited.’ Gaping mouths closed in hard, appalled lines. A feeling of abandonment began to insinuate its way through the gathering which had only just resolved to stand behind Maurice. Lily was being quietly and mutely charged with desertion. She sensed the changing mood and turned towards the door.

  ‘So I’ll pack my things and trot south like the rest of Paris,’ she tossed as she turned. By the time the door had closed behind her she knew she had been condemned. So what? she asked herself, what use was she to the company anyway? She was just another dancer. Had she been a strong young man she might have made a difference ... or been mobilised and sent off to the front, came the echoing rejoinder. She swallowed hard. True, either way she would be gone. She shrugged and continued on her way to her room in the apartment to corral her few possessions and stuff them into her faithful tapestried bag and tatty suitcase as if it was the war she was packing away. But the war would not leave quietly and Lily knew this only too well.

  Half an hour later, Lily traipsed down the flat stone stairs of the apartment ready to dash out the door and outpace the encroaching enemy. She paused as she passed Madame Gloria’s living area with its warm, welcoming kitchen and, biting her lip, realised that her behaviour would seem all the shabbier for not farewelling her landlady. Madame Gloria had taken her in at a moment’s notice without references or rent in advance, the usual prerequisites for accommodation the length and breadth of the country. Lily hovered in an agony of indecision outside the kitchen before noticing that the door was slightly ajar, the gap just sufficient for her to hear the muffled sobs of her landlady. Madame Gloria sat at the kitchen table crying as if her heart would break, her sobs punctuated by delicate nose-blows directed into a man-sized checked handkerchief. Lily felt her heart melt. She dropped her bags at the doorway and pushed the door slowly, peering in as it opened.

  Madame Gloria looked up to see a freckled face sandwiched in the door frame. She greeted Lily with renewed sobbing and a series of staccato nose-blows.

&
nbsp; ‘I’m sorry, dear,’ she spluttered at the peering dancer, ‘I’ve just received some rather terrible news.’ The sobs grew louder and more passionate and Lily rushed to the older lady’s side, pulling up a chair so that she could lean into her and hold her close.

  ‘Now, now,’ she told her sobbing landlady, ‘what can be so bad?’ She rocked Madame Gloria gently, murmuring soothing sounds to calm her. The sobs subsided, the gentle swaying relaxing her. Madame Gloria took a deep breath, despoiled the checked handkerchief again and readied herself to speak.

  ‘It’s my Hubert,’ she began, the sobbing now threatening to resurface, ‘I’ve received word that he’s been killed in the fighting.’ The sobs burst afresh and Lily held her close, the tears trickling down her own cheeks in a shared sense of loss. They sat together, rocking gently as Madame Gloria’s sobs ran their course. Finally she stopped mid-sob and turned to Lily. Blowing her nose rather more delicately, she took a deep breath, launching a valiant attempt to regain her composure.

  ‘You know dear, he wouldn’t have liked me to cry over him.’ A gentle smile spread across her face even as the tears continued to flow. ‘My Hubert was a no-nonsense sort of man ... he was a stickler for a tidy house too, he was, and he wouldn’t have liked it to stop just because he’s ... he’s gone.’ Lily looked at her, mildly astonished at her recovery. If this were a sign of French resilience, then the Germans would be well advised to turn and flee while they still had the chance.

  ‘I’m sure Hubert wouldn’t have minded,’ replied Lily gently, steering a careful course through the tangled wreckage of Hubert’s memory.

  ‘He was a very fastidious man, was Hubert,’ mused Madame Gloria, dabbing furiously at the stubborn trail of tears, ‘and that suited me because I’m tidy too. He rescued me, you know,’ she added brightly as if warming to her topic. Lily was intrigued.

  ‘He did?’ Madame Gloria nodded.

  ‘My mother lost her first child, you see, and it affected her dreadfully, really it did. My brother was two when he died ... of the fever, I think ... it was so long ago now. She was only young, but she wore black and stayed indoors for months and there were those who thought she would never recover.’ Her eyes wore a faraway look and Lily watched her as she peered deep into the recesses of her memories.

  ‘But my father was determined to shake her out of her grief and he persevered with her.’ A wry smile appeared on the grieving face. ‘He was a stubborn man, my father.’ She paused a moment as if remembering her determined father as a separate being to her mourning mother. ‘Before long my mother was expecting again and this time she was sure the baby would be a girl. She was right — it was me.’ She looked up at Lily with a cheery smile that battled the tears for possession of her face.

  ‘I don’t know how she knew,’ continued Madame Gloria, ‘but she decided that this little girl would be a peace offering to God. If He let her have healthy children from that time on, she would give Him this little girl for His own. She decided that this child would be a nun. The child was christened Benedicta and destined to take the veil as soon as she came of age.’ Lily gaped at her in astonishment: Madame Gloria a nun? The thought was extraordinary. Madame Gloria giggled at Lily’s open-mouthed wonderment.

  ‘Yes, dear, I was destined to be Sister Benedicta of the holy Catholic faith, until my Hubert came along. You see, Hubert took a shine to me, despite the fact that my mother had drilled my destiny into my mind so completely that I never met any boys except at Sunday Mass.’

  ‘Is that where you met Hubert?’

  ‘Yes, he was the nephew of the Parish Priest and I saw him at Mass one week. He was a handsome young man,’ she chuckled at the memory, ‘and he caught my eye almost as soon as I came into the church with my mother. A week later, he came to tea with his uncle. Quite unexpected it was, or my mother would have hidden me away. She was every bit as determined as my father.’ The look on Madame Gloria’s face was sufficient to tell Lily that she held few cherished memories of the fractured being who had been her mother.

  ‘But as it was,’ explained Madame Gloria, obviously enjoying the opportunity to tell her tale, ‘Hubert set his cap at me and was just as determined to win my hand — despite the destiny that my mother had vowed and declared was to be mine. He quickly realised that he had more chance dealing with my father who was less than eager to see his eldest daughter packed off to a convent with such haste. The two men plotted and, with the help of the Parish Priest, it was all arranged. Then my father faced the grim task of telling my mother.’

  ‘Was she terribly unhappy?’ asked Lily, caught in the thrall of the story.

  ‘Oh yes, dear, she was furious, quite furious,’ replied Madame Gloria earnestly, ‘but, you see, my father’s mind was made up — and so was Father Bernard’s, so that was that. My mother might have dared to disobey my father, but she would never act in any way contrary to the wishes of a priest.’

  ‘So you were married,’ said Lily with a glow of satisfaction, cherishing a story with a happy ending in a world that was beginning to fill with uncertainty and death.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ nodded the older woman, her face glowing beneath her coppery waves, ‘and you’ll never guess what my new husband suggested to me on our wedding night?’ Lily gaped, her mind gripped with limitless possibilities, none of which was suitable for the ears of Madame Gloria who was utterly respectable.

  ‘Um ...’ stuttered Lily.

  ‘He told me I should change my name,’ stated the forthright Madame Gloria with evident relish. ‘He said to me that since I was destined for glory rather than benediction, I should change my name to Gloria.’ She sat back, bathed in the warmth of her memories while Lily upbraided herself for her less than respectable assumptions concerning Madame Gloria’s wedding night. She looked across at the smiling face of her landlady, still wet with tears but now lost in reflection as she described a happy family life of children, pets and domestic bliss. Lily lost herself in the description, climbing willingly into Madame Gloria’s life. I wish you had been my mother, she told Madame Gloria inwardly. Madame Gloria stopped her story abruptly and looked at Lily tenderly.

  ‘But I am your mother,’ she said softly, and Lily realised with a jolt that she had spoken aloud. ‘I am mother to you all,’ explained the landlady, placing a gentle hand on Lily’s arm. Lily felt the tears well. This was what she was leaving. In trying to outrun the war, in fleeing to safety from the approaching Germans, Lily was forsaking the very people who had become her family over the past year. She murmured an apology to Madame Gloria and struggled to her feet, refusing her entreaties to share a glass of wine with her. Only then did it occur to Lily that her landlady, usually intoxicated by ten o’clock in the morning, was stone cold sober and it was well past lunchtime.

  Lily stumbled out the front door of the apartment gripped by an overwhelming and unforgiving guilt. How could she leave them? More’s the point, how could she leave them now? With the enemy at the gates of Paris, Lily was leaving her friends, her surrogate family, to their own devices. But I can’t help them, she told herself in desperation, what can I do? I’m just a showgirl, I can’t defend them or keep them safe. But you can share their suffering, she answered herself, you can do something to lighten the load, anything will make a difference. By now she had traversed the alleyway and reached the boulevard. It was only then that she noticed the odd procession that was weaving its way past the doors of Le Prix. Cars, trucks, horse-drawn carts, tractors, bicycles and handcarts piled to overflowing with baggage, boxes, family treasures and keepsakes. The cars were crowded with people whose desperate and shocked faces peered at her, the children tear-streaked and distressed. Many of the women in the cars wore furs despite the warmth of the late spring day, and their arms were weighted with bracelets, their necks bedecked with strings of pearls and fine necklaces and their fingers encrusted with rings. They were carrying the currency of the refugee — tradable commodities that might buy food, gasoline or a bed for the night. Those who w
alked or rode on rough carts were clearly poorer people for whom a tethered goat or banging kettle represented the same tradable commodity. The procession wove its way slowly along the boulevard, an unending train of human misery. The freckle-faced showgirl stood at the end of the alleyway and watched in mute horror. This was what it meant to be a refugee.

  Lily dropped her carpet bag and suitcase and sat on the kerb, her face buried in her hands. Her mind was wracked with torment. Should she stay or run? It was an age-old question and Lily simply did not know which way to turn. She sat motionless as she harangued and excused herself in turn. She became oblivious to the rumble of the carts, the shambling footfalls of the walkers and the futile blaring of horns. After what seemed an age, a set of clip-clopping high heels stopped in front of her.

  ‘And just what are you doing down there, Lily-pilly?’ asked a soft, husky voice with more than a hint of surprise. Lily peered through her fingers to find Crecy Duplessis regarding her curiously, the fine pencilled eyebrows arched in astonishment, the manicured hands on hips. Lily looked up at the buxom blonde. Crecy’s voluminous platinum curls were slightly dishevelled at the edges as if hurriedly thrust back into place after a massive disruption to their usual state of order. The splash of red lipstick and thick streak of kohl eyeliner proclaimed, however, that the blonde bombshell was well and truly in control.

  ‘Oh, I’m just having a little think about life,’ mumbled Lily, searching for an excuse for her peculiar behaviour. Crecy ignored this.

  ‘Do you have a fag, cherie?’ he drawled, ‘I’m fairly gasping.’ Lily was an infrequent smoker, but kept a packet of cigarettes for occasions just such as this. She proffered the pack and Crecy selected one with an elegant movement of his red-nailed fingers, bending down to inhale as Lily lit the end with a match. Lily’s curiosity hauled her from the depths of her distress and she eyed him coquettishly.