Wild Lavender (22 page)

T
he show at the Casino de Paris was a success and looked like running into the summer. Camille was launched into stardom. The reviewers couldn’t drool over her enough: ‘
Camille Casal is so vibrantly beautiful that one’s skin tingles the minute she steps onto the stage
.’

I managed to see Camille’s performance by purchasing a matinée ticket and taking a seat in the audience after my act in the show. Camille was more sophisticated than she had been in Marseilles. She had toned down the obvious sexual slinking and sighing in her act and had become more remote…and even more beautiful. The audience held its breath as spotlights criss-crossed the stage and the music for her signature song, ‘
Quand je reviens
’, started up. Camille slipped through the curtains, clothed in a figure-hugging dress with sprays of pearls and sequins fanning her breasts and hips, and a matching cape trimmed with ostrich feathers. As she stepped towards the audience, she let the cape slip from her shoulders and fall to the floor like a cloud of snow. Perched on her shapely legs, she surveyed the audience and did not move again until she was sure that everyone had taken in how sublime she was. When the audience was stilled to a complete hush, she started to sing. Her voice was still thin, but after her memorable entrance nobody noticed.

My act didn’t receive a mention except in an obscure entertainment newspaper which stated: ‘
The program showcases some new talents, including the vivacious Simone Fleurier, a charming brunette who dances
engagingly and whose voice has personality
.’ But I didn’t allow the lack of attention to make me sour. I sent Camille roses to congratulate her on her success and to thank her for getting me an audition.

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.’