Wild Lavender (15 page)

That evening at dinner my mother announced that I was going to Paris in the early spring. Although Aunt Yvette was shocked, she soon changed her mind when Bernard described my performance in Marseilles.

‘Well, if that’s the case,’ Aunt Yvette said, shaking her head and trying to take in the news, ‘I have some town clothes I won’t be needing that I can give Simone for the journey.’

I kissed my aunt. On another occasion, I might have felt sorry for her. I knew that she had never wanted to live on
a farm. But these days she seemed content in the company of Bernard and my mother. I did feel a twinge of sadness over my mother, however. Just as we were growing closer, I was going away.

Bonbon let out a yelp. My mother smiled at her and tickled her behind the ears. ‘Bonbon says you can go to Paris on one condition,’ she said, mischief dancing in her eyes.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘She wants to stay. She likes it here.’

We all laughed at that.

I
arrived in Paris in February 1924 to a grey sky and a dankness in the air that did nothing to disenchant me. I stood on the platform at the Gare de Lyon, watching the porters darting about and loading their trolleys with the baggage of women in silver fox stoles and men in hats and deerskin gloves. My nostrils burned with the soot from the train and my ears buzzed with the excited voices of lovers embracing, families reuniting and businessmen shaking each other’s hands. Apart from Monsieur Etienne, who had replied to Bernard’s letter with the advice that I come to Paris with enough money to last a month, I knew no one in the city. But my heart was filled with the certainty that my life was about to change for ever.

I glanced at the scrawled directions Monsieur Etienne had sent on how to get, by the
métro
, to his office on the Left Bank. But one look at the line snaking outside the ticket office and the crowds jostling each other through the gates and I lost heart. At least on the streetcar in Marseilles I could see where I was going. I would need time to get used to the idea of travelling through an underground labyrinth like a mole burrowing through the earth. I opened my purse and checked my franc notes, although I knew perfectly well how much was there, then looked around for the taxi rank. Paris deserved to be seen first by taxi, even if I had to skip four meals to afford it. A train guard pointed me in the direction of the front entrance. My ‘first day in Paris’ extravagance did not include the price of a porter, so I dragged my trunk by its straps towards the doors. When
I had left the farm for Marseilles, I had taken only clothes. But for Paris, Aunt Yvette had insisted that I take blankets and other household utensils with me. She wanted to save me money, but the ache in my arms and shoulders from lugging the trunk around made me realise what a burden thriftiness could be.

There were only two men and a young couple waiting in line for taxis and it wasn’t long before one pulled up for me.

‘Rue Saint Dominique,’ I said to the driver, who stepped out of the taxi to help me with my luggage. He lifted my trunk into the boot and scrunched up his face. ‘
Pardon
, Mademoiselle?’

I repeated my request and, when I saw that he still didn’t understand, showed him the address.

‘
Ah, oui
,’ he said, touching his cap. ‘You must be from the south. I didn’t understand you.’

I wondered how it was then that I had understood
him
.

The warmth of the taxi was a cocoon from which I could view the world flashing by outside. I craned my neck to look at the ornate buildings with their wrought-iron railings and slanted roofs. Paris was more sombre than Marseilles, but more elegant too. Marseilles burned into my mind in shades of turquoise and sunflower yellow, while Paris was hues of pearl and oyster. With the bare plane trees lining the boulevards and the slickness of the cobblestones, there was something funereal about the city. Indeed, we passed more shops selling urns, tombstones and marble angels than I had ever seen in the south. But I hadn’t come to Paris to die and soon my attention was captured by the brighter sights of the city. We passed through streets lined with shops. A grocer stepped outside his store and glanced hopefully up and down the street. He blew into his hands and called out to a passing group of women in scarves and coats. They returned his wave and stopped to inspect his leeks and potatoes. In the store next door, a florist was busy arranging flowers in the window. The hyacinths and bluebells looked as vibrant and juicy as
the carrots and spinach in her neighbour’s store. The sight of the two shopkeepers going about their daily business delighted me, like patches of sunlight on a cloudy day.

My pleasure doubled when we passed the palatial Louvre, and again a few minutes later when we crossed the taupe waters of the Seine. Excitement brought the blood to my face. I’m here, I thought. I’m here.

The Parisians were out in force on the Left Bank. Pairs of men strode down the sidewalks in navy blue coats and beige scarves, their shoes polished to a high shine. The women wore coats belted at the hips, with shawl collars or appliquéd at the sleeves with Russian swirls. I had thought I looked smart in Aunt Yvette’s pleated skirt and wool coat, but compared to the people outside I was as drab as a pigeon among peacocks.

Despite the cold, a table of men huddled around a brazier at a sidewalk café, savouring their
cafés crèmes
as if they were drinking the finest cognac. One man’s empty sleeve was pinned to his shoulder, another’s crutches were propped up behind his chair. Even the waiter who served them was missing an ear. I had seen many of the war-wounded in Marseilles, but I would see hundreds more in Paris. To me, they were a reminder of my father; to others, a reminder of the horrors of war in a country that wanted to forget.

‘Rue Saint Dominique,’ said the driver, pulling up in front of a building with massive carved window frames and a blue slate roof. I didn’t baulk at the fare, although it was twice what I had thought it would be, and tipped the driver generously. I will be making real money soon, I told myself, stepping out onto the street and taking my first breath of Paris air.

The front door was oak and as solid-looking as a president’s coffin. There was no buzzer or bell to press, so I put one hand on the door and pulled my trunk after me with the other. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the gloom of the foyer. At the far end of the space, working at a piece of knitting, was the concierge. Despite the noise my trunk made when I dragged it over the
doorstep and the bang of the door, she didn’t look up from her task.

‘Pardon
, Madame,’ I called out, smoothing down my skirt and coat. ‘I am looking for Monsieur Etienne.’

The woman glanced over the top of her spectacles. ‘Apartment three, fifth floor,’ she mumbled before returning her attention to her knitting.

Her reply was so brief—no ‘Mademoiselle’ or ‘
Bonjour
’—that I hesitated. I wanted to ask if she would mind looking after my trunk so that I didn’t have to lug it upstairs. ‘May I leave this here?’ I asked.

This time there was no break in the click of her needles. ‘Take it with you,’ she said. ‘This is not a hotel.’

There was a cage elevator in the foyer with a strip of red carpet on the floor. I pushed open the door and struggled to keep it open while dragging my trunk in after me. I pressed the button for the fifth floor. Nothing happened. I dreaded asking the concierge for assistance and gave the button a forceful jab. The lift jolted and I lost my balance, falling against my trunk and tearing a hole in my stockings. The cage shuddered, rattled and jerked its way to the fifth floor, where I opened the door and dragged my trunk out before it had a chance to trap me again.

There were only three apartments on the floor so Monsieur Etienne’s office was easy to find. I stood at the door for a few moments, straightening my stockings and fixing my hair, before pressing the button. The door was opened by a young woman with blonde hair smoothed down over her scalp and wearing a jacquard dress trimmed in ostrich feathers. The fragrance of orange blossom drifted around her.

‘
Bonjour
, Mademoiselle,’ she said.

The woman was so chic that I assumed she must be one of Monsieur Etienne’s Parisian clients on her way out. I was surprised when she introduced herself as Mademoiselle Franck, his secretary.

She helped me move my trunk in the door and then led the way along a short corridor into a reception room. The
space was not much bigger than a train compartment, but tastefully furnished with two Louis XVI chairs and blue curtains with gold tassels. I took a seat by the window and Mademoiselle Franck handed me a form before returning to her desk. While she commenced typing, I studied the questions. The form had a segment for hair colour, shoe and dress sizes and other physical descriptions, and another for personal details such as known illnesses and next of kin. Each time Mademoiselle Franck paused to read over her typing, I heard Monsieur Etienne’s voice vibrating through another door which I assumed led to his office. ‘That’s how it goes, Henri. That’s how it goes,’ he said.

I completed the form and waited while Mademoiselle Franck answered a telephone call from the Scala about an audition. ‘Yes, we have several good magicians,’ she said. ‘I can send you two this afternoon if you like.’ She put the receiver down and a few minutes later the telephone rang again. From the way her cheeks flushed and her voice took on a girlish giggle, I sensed that the call was not entirely professional. ‘Ah, you will have the desk here this afternoon? It is beautiful? He will be so pleased.’

I studied the signed photographs of women in feathers and sequins that adorned the walls, and began to feel even more ungainly. I promised myself that as soon as I could afford it I was going to buy a dress as nice as the one Mademoiselle Franck was wearing.

About half an hour later, Monsieur Etienne stepped out of his office. He handed a stack of files to Mademoiselle Franck and caught sight of me. He stared for a moment before clapping his hands and exclaiming, ‘Ah, yes. The girl from Marseilles. Come in, come in!’

I followed Monsieur Etienne into his office, which was smaller than the reception room and not nearly as elegant. He moved a stack of papers from a worn leather chair and directed me to sit down, taking his own place behind a desk scattered with files and photographs. He seemed less commanding than he had that night in my dressing room at Le Chat Espiègle; in his business suit he appeared more
like an overworked accountant than a creator of stars. But from his puzzled look in the reception room, he had probably thought the same thing about me. In my aunt’s hand-me-downs, I didn’t look like a potential star.

Monsieur Etienne switched on a lamp and searched his desk for something, lifting papers and shuffling folders. He called out to Mademoiselle Franck that he couldn’t find my file and she told him it was near his telephone.

‘Ah,’ he said, picking up a file with my name written in the corner. He opened it, flicked through the two or three sheets that were in it and handed a copy of a schedule to me. ‘There, that’s what I have for you this month. I don’t charge anything until you get an engagement, except for your photographs, and after that I charge twenty per cent of whatever you earn.’

I glanced at the schedule. It was a list of auditions with various music halls and nightclubs along with the times and parts being tried out for. They were all for chorus roles or the last slot in a nightclub, when most of the patrons had already gone home. I was instantly deflated.

‘Monsieur Etienne,’ I said. ‘There are no leading parts.’

He cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. ‘How old are you, Mademoiselle Fleurier? Sixteen?’ he asked, glancing over the form I had filled in. His finger tapped my date of birth. ‘No, still only fifteen. You will get leading parts but you have to work for them. It is not as if in Marseilles you were performing at the Alcazar or the Odéon. If it had not been for the review in
Le Petit Provençal
, I wouldn’t have bothered to go to see you.’

‘I didn’t come to Paris to be in a chorus,’ I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. Wasn’t I good enough to be something other than a chorus girl? Wasn’t what I had achieved in ‘Scheherazade’ enough?

Monsieur Etienne smiled. ‘Mademoiselle Fleurier, in Paris it is better to be an usherette at the Adriana or the Folies Bergère than to have ten seasons as the star of a third-rate vaudeville show. Unlike many phonies in this city, I am an honest agent. I’m not going to call a girl away
from her family unless I think she has potential. But for potential to become reality, it requires hard work and experience.’

I studied his face. He had a thin, stern look about him but not a misleading one. I sensed that he was telling me the truth.

Assuming that the matter had been resolved, Monsieur Etienne moved on. ‘I have an apartment in Montparnasse for you. It has just been given up by one of my other clients who is now touring London. It is cheap and you can travel by the
métro
to your auditions. You can find something better once you start working.’

He stood up, signifying that our conversation had come to a close, then shook my hand and walked me to the door. ‘Let Mademoiselle Franck know when you can have your photographs taken,’ he said. The telephone on his desk rang and Monsieur Etienne rushed back to answer it, giving me a final wave before Mademoiselle Franck shut the door.

Mademoiselle Franck opened her diary to book the photographer and wrote down the studio address on a card for me. ‘This photographer is reputable, so you won’t have any problems,’ she said, handing the card to me. Then, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door to Monsieur Etienne’s office, she added, ‘If he says you have potential, Mademoiselle Fleurier, he means it. I know: he is my uncle.’

I boarded a crowded bus to Boulevard Raspail—the address in Montparnasse that Monsieur Etienne had given me. Fortunately, Parisian men were gallant and I was helped at both ends of my journey: first by a middle-aged man who heaved my trunk up the bus steps; and by a couple of rosy-cheeked students who yanked it down again when the bus approached my stop on the intersection of the boulevard and Rue de Rennes. ‘Mademoiselle, we will help you,’ they said, hoisting the box onto their shoulders
and insisting on carrying it all the way to the iron gate of the building.

‘We can take it up the stairs for you,’ offered one of the students. His companion nodded, but I was too embarrassed to ask for any more help, so I lied and told them I had a friend in the building who would help me.

‘Well, goodbye,’ the students waved, turning back to the street. ‘Good luck in Paris.’

‘
Merci beaucoup!
’ I called after them. ‘You are very kind!’

The iron gate was unlocked and lurched on its hinges when I pushed it open. I wiped the rust from my hands and dragged my trunk after me. The courtyard was shaded by the buildings around it and full of old shoes and broken pots. The garden beds were a tangled mass of withered plants and ropy vines, so far gone that I had no idea what they once had been. I covered my nose against the stench of dog excrement and the sewer. I was tempted to leave my trunk there while I searched for my room, but one glance at the broken windows and the raggedy washing hanging on lines slung from their frames, and I decided against it.