Wild Lavender (8 page)

But Camille was different. From her eyes down to the sway of her hips, she cast out magic over the floodlights and towards the hungry crowd. The audience clamoured and clapped for her, as if trying to grab hold of prime produce at the markets, while she stood remote in her mysterious beauty. When Camille exited the stage, she took the enchantment with her and left the audience longing for the taste of it again. Camille might not be interested in performing any more than the other girls, but I was certain that she would never starve.

Sometimes, when the wardrobe area was empty, I would pout and pose in the mirror, trying to be Camille. I imagined slipping open my cape and letting it fall to the floor to reveal my ‘Garden of Eden’ glory. But I was as successful as night imitating day; as dusk pretending it was the dawn.

One evening I returned from tidying the dressing room to find Madame Tarasova slumped in a chair and Vera standing above her, fanning her with a song script.
Madame Tarasova’s cheeks were flushed and her arms hung by her sides.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

The wardrobe mistress glanced at me. ‘I can’t take it any more,’ she whimpered. ‘I’m exhausted.’

I was surprised to hear Madame Tarasova say such a thing. Her boundless energy had always made her seem indestructible. Even when Vera and I were dead on our feet, Madame Tarasova could keep going. ‘Sit there until you feel better then,’ I told her. ‘Vera and I can look after the girls tonight.’

Madame Tarasova and Vera exchanged glances and laughed. Madame Tarasova sat up. ‘I’m not exhausted from the work,’ she said. ‘It’s that damn song.’ She slapped her knees and in an affected voice sang, ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’

The song was the motif for the first act. When Monsieur Dargent bought the costumes and props from The One-Eyed Sailor, he’d used up his budget for a songwriter and so had to write the scores himself. The Hawaiian number wasn’t a hit. Members of the audience often shouted at the girls to ‘Get on with it!’, and on opening night someone had hated it so much that they’d hurled a bag of cement onto the stage, knocking over a palm tree and sending the girls into a panic.

I couldn’t stop laughing at Madame Tarasova’s imitation even when she stopped. Then a girlish sense of
joie de vivre
overtook me. I picked up one of the leftover hibiscus flowers and tucked it behind my ear then flitted my way around the room, swinging my hips in a mock hula dance. ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’ I sang, flinging out my voice like a café-concert singer.

Madame Tarasova and Vera laughed and clapped. ‘Belle-Joie!’ Madame Tarasova called. ‘Stop it! You’ll make me bust my girdle.’ Belle-Joie was her pet name for me. She said she called me that because I made her happy.

Spurred on by their enjoyment, I raised my voice and danced more wildly, knocking my knees together and
turning down my lower lip to make a silly face. ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’ I sang, twirling around the room and rocking my hips more violently.

I glanced back at Madame Tarasova and Vera, but they were no longer laughing. Vera’s face was as purple as a grape and she was staring at something behind me. I whirled around to see Monsieur Dargent standing in the doorway. I stopped dancing and fumbled with my hands. He was not smiling. His eyes narrowed into slits and he tugged on the ends of his moustache.

‘Good evening, Monsieur Dargent,’ I said, my knees buckling. I thought I might faint where I stood.

Monsieur Dargent did not reply. He merely grunted and walked away.

Bonbon and I cut sorry figures the following evening when we walked from Le Panier—where I now rented a room—to the theatre. I trudged along, barely able to lift my eyes to see where I was going, while Bonbon, sensing my mood, pattered along beside me, her tail at half-mast. Our air of unhappiness aroused the curiosity of some children playing in the street and they stared at us with open mouths. Even sailors and drunkards hurried out of our way, as if in danger of being tainted by our misery. I was sure that when I arrived at the theatre, Monsieur Dargent would fire me. He was the son of a respectable doctor who had defied his parents to become an impresario. Everyone had warned me that he was sensitive and did not like being mocked so I had brought disaster upon myself, prancing around the wardrobe space and making fun of his choreography. If he were to fire me, Bonbon and I would be in trouble. I had barely enough money for my rent as it was. The room I had found in Le Panier wasn’t much better than the one Aunt Augustine had given me, but I had been so happy at the theatre that I didn’t care. And even though the quarter was squalid, there were street musicians and artists on every corner.

I found Madame Tarasova and Vera at work setting out the headdresses for the first act. They greeted me as if
nothing were amiss. I had no choice but to go to the dressing room and set it up. On my way, I passed Monsieur Dargent running down the stairs. I froze on the spot but he didn’t notice me. He rushed by, shouting instructions to a stagehand, then disappeared down the stairs and onto the stage. I shrugged; maybe I was the one who was too sensitive? It seemed that I was going to live to fight another day at Le Chat Espiègle.

A few nights later I turned up at the theatre to find the stage door open but no sign of Albert. It was unlike him to leave the door unlocked when he wasn’t at his post. A chill fluttered over my neck and back and I sensed something was wrong. Bonbon pricked up her ears. As I peered into the darkness, muffled sounds floated down the stairwell. I listened, but they were too faint to distinguish. They could have been anything from water running down a drainpipe to gagged cries for help. There had been a shoot-out at a music hall in Belsunce the previous day and it was rumoured that the Marseilles mafia was moving in on the theatres.

‘Albert?’ I called out. There was no answer. I hesitated, wondering if it would be wiser to go to the front entrance and see the cashier, but my anxiety won out and compelled me up the stairs.

There was no sign of the stagehands or electricians who were normally busy with the sets. My feet creaked on the floorboards. The sounds I’d heard earlier were coming from the floor above: voices. A picture of Monsieur Dargent and the chorus girls tied to their chairs floated into my mind. I dismissed it. We weren’t that influential and our profits weren’t big enough to steal. I tiptoed to the stairwell.

This time Monsieur Dargent’s pleading voice filled the air. ‘You can’t do this to me! The show starts in threequarters of an hour!’

‘I can and I am,’ a female voice answered him. ‘Look at my eye. You stand on stage and sing that stupid Hawaiian number you’ve come up with and see what it’s like to get fruit thrown at you!’

Something clattered to the floor and I heard footsteps coming towards me. The English chorus girl, Anne, hurried down the stairwell, a bulging suitcase tucked under her arm. There was a dark smudge under her right eye and swelling near her nose. When she reached the landing she turned to me and muttered, ‘Goodbye, Simone. Good luck. I’m going back to London.’

I watched her reach the bottom of the stairs and rush out the door. I was sorry that she was going; she had been my favourite chorus girl.

‘Things were all right until you introduced that stupid number,’ another female voice piped up. ‘It will ruin us all. The audience hates it!’

I climbed the stairs to the third floor and was surprised to see all the cast and crew, except for Camille, assembled there. The chorus girls wore long faces. Monsieur Dargent was leaning against the door to their dressing room, one hand clenched by his side and his brow twitching in an effort at self-control. Albert glanced over his shoulder to where I was standing and waved me towards the group. I had never seen him looking so grim. ‘We might have to close the show,’ he whispered. ‘The lead chorus girl has just walked out. We are taking losses—the audience doesn’t like the first act.’

I caught the eye of Madame Tarasova who held a lei in her hands and was fidgeting with its flowers. She sent me a nervous smile.

‘We can get jobs at the Alcazar,’ said the hungry chorus girl, whose name was Claire. ‘Their girls are always getting offers from Paris.’ She shook her skinny fist and turned to the other chorus members, trying to muster their support. A couple of the girls nodded bravely, but I noticed Claudine and Marie purse their lips. They both had children to support and had more realistic views. The
Alcazar was Marseilles’ top music hall. No one from Le Chat Espiègle was good enough to perform there.

‘What we need,’ said the lighting director, ‘is a whimsical, humorous act. Like the ventriloquist was in the last show. That made the audience laugh. It opened them up.’

‘I can’t get the ventriloquist,’ Monsieur Dargent said, his eyes pleading with us. ‘He was snapped up by a resort in Vichy.’

‘Nothing’s going to save the first act,’ snarled Claire. ‘It’s a dud!’

A murmur of agreement buzzed around the room.

‘Humour will do it!’ the lighting director shouted above the voices.

Monsieur Dargent lifted his eyes as if he were praying. Then he dropped his gaze and studied each of the performers. I wondered if he felt like Julius Caesar, about to be betrayed by his friends. Hadn’t he given each of these people their break in show business? Madame Tarasova always said that Monsieur Dargent had a gift for spotting talent, he just wasn’t any good at running a business. He fiddled with his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He tried to light it, but his hand shook and it fell to the floor. He bent to pick the cigarette up and as he did he saw me. A strange look passed over his face.

My breath caught in my throat. Oh God, I thought. He’s remembered my parody of the opening number. He’s in a bad enough mood to fire me now. I tried to squeeze behind Albert, but the room was too crowded and, to my horror, I ended up being pushed even closer to Monsieur Dargent.

‘Humour?’ Monsieur Dargent muttered, tapping his foot. ‘Humour!’ He clicked his fingers and the whole room jumped. He rushed at me, grabbed my shoulders and pressed his face into mine.

I was terrified. What on earth did he intend to do? ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’ he sang, peering into my eyes.

Madame Tarasova caught on faster than any of us. ‘We have half an hour,’ she cried.

‘Quick, get her clothes off!’ shouted Monsieur Dargent, pushing me towards a stool and make-up mirror. No one thought to question him. His voice had taken on a Napoleonic tone of command and everyone sprang into action.

Madame Tarasova grabbed Bonbon from me and put her on a chair. Albert shooed the other performers away before running back to his post at the door. ‘Get her a costume from downstairs,’ Madame Tarasova called after him. ‘Anne’s one will do—she won’t be needing it any more.’

Madame Tarasova tugged off my dress while Vera pulled at my shoes. Marie dabbed at my face with a greasepaint stick. ‘She doesn’t need any on her body,’ Claudine advised, brushing back my hair. ‘She’s as brown as a nut.’

It finally dawned on me what they were intending to do. I wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. If it wasn’t for the giddy feeling that overwhelmed me as people pulled pieces of clothing off me and covered me in oily lotions, I might have been embarrassed. The only man left in the room was Monsieur Dargent, and he was so engrossed in making notes on his song script that he didn’t seem to notice that the wardrobe assistant was being stripped naked. Someone pulled off my chemise and pushed my breasts into a coconut bra with the same sensitivity a greengrocer might use to pack his goods for the market.

‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’ Monsieur Dargent sang to himself.

‘Shouldn’t you get her to do this tomorrow?’ asked Madame Tarasova. ‘When she’s had time to rehearse!’

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We’ve lost our lead chorus girl. We have to save the show tonight or not at all.’

My arms and legs were trembling so much that I could barely stand up when Madame Tarasova needed to take in my skirt. I still didn’t believe what Monsieur Dargent wanted me to do.

The stage bell rang. ‘Ten minutes until show time,’ Vera called out.

Madame Tarasova fitted my wig and Vera pinned it in place. I stared at myself in the mirror. My face was alive with colour: my eyes had green arches over them and my lips were painted ruby red. My eyelashes were so stiff with mascara they looked like twin centipedes.

‘Now,’ said Monsieur Dargent, leaning towards me, ‘when I give you the signal, I want you to appear out of the left wing and dance and sing on the mountain plateau exactly as you did in the wardrobe area the other night. I want you to mimic the chorus girls. You are going to be our comedian.’

I swallowed but the lump in my throat didn’t disappear.

The chorus girls lined up on the stairs, waiting for their cue to go on stage. The pre-show music was a tinny carnival tune with accordions and guitars that put my nerves on tenterhooks. Madame Tarasova and Vera led me to the left wing. The place where I had viewed the show for the first time had been cleared out and there were some wooden steps leading up to the stage and out onto the plateau where I was supposed to dance.

‘Wait at the top of the stairs,’ said Madame Tarasova, giving my wig a last brush. ‘Good luck!’ The tone of her voice and the way she patted my shoulder made me feel as if I were about to be fed to lions. Of course I was doing what every performer dreads, although I had no idea what to call it then. I was going on cold.

I climbed the stairs and waited on the top step for the next signal. I cast my eye over the backdrop of smoking volcanoes and low-slung clouds. Below me, where the chorus girls were to dance, rubber palm trees and a water tank suggested a blue lagoon. Monsieur Dargent appeared in the wing opposite. The way he was chewing his bottom lip and fingering the hair at the back of his head did not inspire my confidence.

The curtains opened. The spotlights flicked on. A drum roll thundered through the hall and the orchestra burst into the first act’s theme song. The girls rushed onto the stage.

‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’

My throat tightened. Beads of sweat sprang up on my lip, but I was too scared to wipe them away in case I smeared my make-up. Any desire I’d had to work in the theatre drained away from me. The girls danced around the lagoon, swinging their hips. Claudine and Marie strummed ukuleles. The situation was surreal. Monsieur Dargent didn’t even know my name, but the success of the evening now depended on me. Only a short while ago I had been worrying about my rent, now I was about to appear on stage for the first time in my life, with coconuts for breasts and a wig that was in danger of slipping from my head. Many of the seats in the audience were empty, but enough were occupied to make me shiver. The faces loomed at me out of the dark. I realised that the girls were on the last line before the chorus and Monsieur Dargent was signalling to me. ‘Now!’ he mouthed.