Liberty Silk (22 page)

As her fame had grown, so too had Lisa’s mailbag. Aside from the usual begging letters and entreaties for signed photographs there were, now that America had joined the war, plenty of requests for appearances at morale-boosting events. Lisa was at a loss how to handle these requests. She couldn’t dance or sing, like Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth. She was no ambassadress, like Marlene Dietrich. All the talk in Hollywood was of propaganda films and the selling of war bonds, and many of her American colleagues – including Sabu – had joined the forces. But Lisa couldn’t even do that, since – unlike Sabu – she had not taken out American citizenship.

She was growing increasingly worried about her grandparents, having had no word from them for some time. Aside from the disruption to international mail and telephone services, the escalating hostilities meant that travel between continents had become more perilous than ever. Hundreds of British ex-pats had returned home in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

But Lisa’s contract kept her shackled to Tinseltown.

For the next few days she took no action. She slept a lot, wrote a short guest column for
Click
magazine, and tuned into the World Service for news of home any time she could. Then one evening the distinctive warm voice of Sam Browne came over the airwaves, crooning ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ live from London.

London! Her home! Her family, her friends – were they still there, in a city half-destroyed by German bombs? What was she, Lisa, doing
here
in this shiny, vapid, pantomime place?

Pouring a large drink, she knocked it straight back. Then she grabbed her address book, flicked through the listing to ‘H’, and picked up the phone.

‘Mr Hughes, please,’ she told Johnny Meyer.

‘What do you want? Flying lessons?’ Johnny laughed down the line – a little nastily, Lisa thought, and there was silence for several moments. Thinking she’d been cut off, Lisa was just about to put the receiver down, when Howard’s gentle voice came on.

‘What can I do for you, baby?’ he asked.

‘Howard – I’m sorry. You’re the only person I feel I can ask for help.’

‘Fire ahead.’

‘I’m awfully worried about my grandparents. I haven’t heard from them in months, and I need to get home.’

‘I thought you had a film lined up? The one about the ship?’

‘
The City of Benares.
It’s not happening – the attack on Pearl Harbor’s changed everything. I’m going to ask Ziggy for a temporary release from my contract.’

‘He’s not going to want to do that, Lisa.’

‘But Ziggy has no use for me – I’m no good for anything here.’ Lisa started to cry. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really desperate.’

‘Shh, shh, honey. I hate to hear a dame cry. Leave it to me. I’ll have a word with Phil Gersh tomorrow. We’ll negotiate some kind of sweetheart deal.’

‘A what?’

‘Don’t worry your pretty head about it. Allow us to do the talking for you.’

‘Thank you!’ Lisa didn’t care about sweetheart deals and negotiations with agents and studio executives. She just wanted to hold her grandfather’s hand again, and hear him call her his princess. ‘Howard, do you think you could do anything about getting me to London?’

‘Sure. If you don’t mind taking a roundabout route you can hitch a ride with one of my pilots. I have a seaplane scheduled for Ireland via Newfoundland.’

‘Why Ireland?’

‘Right now, it has the biggest civilian airport in Europe. I’ve still got business interests there, and a licence to land. Once there, you’re just a shuttle away from London.’

‘Oh, thank you, Howard – thank you so much!’ In her gratitude she cried even harder, and after another ineffectual ‘Shh, shh, honey’, Howard deftly made his excuses and hung up.

The wireless was still on low: she could hear Vera Lynn singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and she yearned now as she never had for the long-forgotten names in her address book, and for Richard and her poor, bewildered grandparents, and for the mother she could barely remember.

THE EVENING AFTER
Coco had put the finishing touches to Jessie’s wardrobe, Gervaise and Jessie took cocktails with the couturier and her lover, Boy Capel, in the Ritz bar. Jessie had never tasted a cocktail before and she’d felt just like a child let loose in a sweetshop – she’d sampled a gin sling and a sidecar
and
a martini! And then they’d all piled into Gervaise’s Buick and motored off to the quartier Bas-Meudon for dinner in la Pêche Miraculeuse, a restaurant that – Gervaise told her – was frequented by both established and up-and-coming artists.

Jessie was wearing one of Coco’s little black dresses with fluted sleeves and an asymmetric hemline that showed to advantage her shapely ankles and calves encased in silk stockings; Coco was sporting another svelte jersey ensemble.

The
maître d
’ was all obsequious smiles and bows as he took their coats. Clicking his fingers at a waiter, indicating for menus to be brought
tout d’suite
, he led the way to the most prominent table in the restaurant – one that commanded a view of the rest of the room. Other diners gawped openly, glanced surreptitiously, or pretended very hard indeed not to look as the party took their seats. There were one or two sniggers, and Jessie heard a man murmur: ‘What outlandish get-up’ – which was ironic, since his dining companion had what looked like a velveteen fruit bowl on her head.

‘Good work, Coco,’ said Boy, as the waiters fussed around them, unfurling napkins and pouring water. ‘That was some entrance. Ignore the nay-sayers – between the two of you, you’ll soon have Paris at your perfectly shod feet.’

Boy Capel was a handsome, athletic man with glittering dark eyes, a raffish moustache and a devil-may-care manner that made him most attractive – the appreciative sidelong glances that Jessie had seen being directed at him during the cocktail hour had been testimony to that. But Boy had eyes only for Coco. He quite clearly adored her.

‘I told you
chez
Chanel would be an excellent investment,’ Coco said with mock-hauteur, producing a cigarette from a little lacquer case and waiting for Boy to light it. Then, blowing an elegant plume of smoke into the air, she turned to Jessie. ‘Boy has been my financial backer since the business was in its infancy. What blind faith he had in me then! Do you know – the assistants I employed in my very first shop in Deauville couldn’t even sew! And now I’m dressing all kinds of women: actresses and opera singers – and artists’ muses, of course,’ she added with a smile.

‘And she’ll be branching out again soon,’ Boy told Jessie, with manifest pride, ‘into fragrance.’

‘I hope you outsell Guerlain,’ remarked Gervaise. ‘I’m sick of the smell of Mitsouko. The Ritz positively reeked of it this evening.’

Jessie was just about to make some observation about the smell of Mitsouko in the Ritz bar being infinitely preferable to the stench that clung to the inhabitants of the Hôtel des Trois Moineaux: then stopped herself just in time. Perdita – who’d been found romantically wandering around a rose garden in the Tuileries – had no business in a dump like the Trois Moineaux.

‘Has the parfumier delivered yet?’ asked Boy.

‘Yes. I’ve narrowed the samples down to six.’ Looking thoughtful, Coco tapped ash into the ashtray. ‘The fifth is my favourite, I think.’

‘What’s so special about it?’ asked Jessie.

‘The base notes – vetiver and vanilla. I’m going to call it something beginning with the letter “V”, to reflect that.’

‘“V”?’ said Boy, looking up from the wine list. ‘How about “Virgin”?’

‘Don’t be facile, darling.’

‘Why not call it “Velvet”?’ suggested Gervaise. ‘Since you work with fabric?’

‘No.’ Coco shook her head. ‘The word “velvet” is too luxe. I want something quite different and quite, quite plain.’

‘Why don’t you just call it “V”, then?’ said Jessie. ‘As in the Roman numeral?’

‘I rather like that conceit,’ said Coco, holding her cigarette as though it were a pen and describing the symbol in the air. ‘Chanel – Number Five.’

‘It’ll never work,’ scoffed Boy.

Coco raised an autocratic eyebrow at him. ‘It will if I want it to,’ she said.

Jessie laughed. ‘In England, we use two fingers – instead of your French single one – to cock a snook. It’s called the “V” sign. That should appeal to your subversive streak, Coco.’

‘Five it is, then! Oh – Pablo!
Bonsoir!
’

‘
Bonsoir, messieurs et dames
.’ The man looking down at them had wicked, Spanish-looking eyes. ‘Will you introduce me, if you would be so kind, Gervaise? I understand this lady is your new model.’

‘Word travels fast,’ said Gervaise. ‘Who the devil told you?’

‘Marie Laurençin heard it from the Cunard woman.’

‘Hell’s teeth! Demetrios must have been on the blower to every hostess of every salon in town this morning.’ Turning to Jessie, Gervaise effected a perfunctory introduction. ‘Perdita, this is Pablo Picasso.’

‘
Enchanté
, Mademoiselle.’ Jessie felt a fingertip graze her palm before Monsieur Picasso relinquished it. ‘Perhaps, Gervaise, you might think about sharing your new girl? She has . . . a quality. As I sat at my table there in the corner, I took the liberty of making some sketches.’ Taking a page from the breast pocket of his jacket, he unfolded it and tossed it onto the table. The page was covered in little head and shoulder pencil sketches of Jessie looking animated.

‘They’re a very good likeness,’ said Jessie with a smile. ‘But I’m not sure that I could trust you to confine yourself to my head and shoulders in the privacy of your studio, Monsieur.’

With a laugh, Coco reached for the drawing. ‘Tch, tch, Pablo,’ she said. ‘You’ve neglected to sign it.’ Unclasping her evening purse, she extracted a pen and passed it over along with the sheet of paper.

The artist scribbled his signature on the bottom left-hand corner, then handed it to Jessie with a flourish. ‘If ever you should change your mind, Mademoiselle, I should be more than happy to welcome you to my studio. Until then, I shall just have to make do with admiring you from afar, or in the paintings Gervaise makes of you. When do you intend to show, Gervaise?’

‘The Galérie Pierre is available in April. I hope to have a new series ready by then.’

‘
Tiens
. That will take some work.’

‘Perdita isn’t afraid of hard work.’

‘I wish I could say the same for my wife. She has me eating out of the palm of her hand because it saves on the washing up. Sorry – that was a feeble joke.’

And Monsieur Picasso bade farewell with a shallow bow before returning to his table in the corner of the restaurant where a beautiful, heavily pregnant redhead sat, looking sulky.

‘Is that Madame Picasso?’ Jessie asked Coco.

‘Yes. She’s a Russian ballerina, née Khoklova.’

‘Rather an unfortunate name,’ observed Jessie, ‘if she were English.’

‘Perdita! You rogue!’ Coco hid her smile behind her menu, then twinkled her fingers at Boy. ‘Come, come,
mon beau mec
. You’ve been perusing that wine list for ages. Isn’t it time we ordered?’ Leaning in to Jessie, she murmured in an undertone. ‘By the way . . . you’ve just made yourself a lot of money,
mon amie
. Hang on to that sketch of Pablo’s. I guarantee you it will be worth thousands of francs in years to come.’

Thousands of francs
. . . What couldn’t she and Scotch have done with thousands of francs six months ago, when they’d been so broke that she’d had to petition her father for the wherewithal to visit Venice!

As Jessie studied the appetizing list of
hors d’oeuvres
, she wondered how Scotch was faring with his Italian girl. Gervaise had told her that he’d want her to start sitting for him tomorrow, after he’d paid a visit to Sennelier, the artists’ suppliers on the Left Bank. Perhaps, when the series was finished, Scotch would come across reproductions of Gervaise’s work in the press: images of her, ‘Perdita’, posing for one of the most sought-after portraitists in France. Might he then realize his mistake and come looking for her? Might he beg her to return to England with him and they could set up home in the house Pawpey had promised them, and live happily ever after with their baby? Perhaps—

‘
Du vin, Madame?
’

‘Oh!
Merci
.’

The sommelier – who had arrived with the
réserve spéciale
they had ordered – poured, and Boy Capel raised his glass. ‘
Santé!
’ he said.

‘
Santé!
’ echoed the company, mirroring Boy’s gesture and continuing with their perusal of the menu.

Jessie’s eyes scanned a variety of fish dishes that once would have sent her into a swoon; the waiter set upon the table a basket of bread that could have kept her going for a week; the label on the wine bottle spoke of resplendent châteaux and lush valleys. Raising the glass to her lips, she took a sip of wine that probably cost as much as the most extravagant meal she and Scotch had ever shared.

On the other side of the restaurant, Monsieur Picasso slid his sketchpad from his pocket and proceeded to execute a series of rapid pencil strokes. It took him just moments to record Perdita’s bereft expression for posterity.

LISA FLEW INTO
Foynes on the south bank of the Shannon Estuary in an airboat captained by a dashing pilot who was pleased to accept an autographed photograph and a kiss. She was scheduled to leave for London the next day, but in the meantime she requested that a car take her – at great expense, due to petrol rationing – to the small town of Clifden in Connemara. There she knocked on the door of an unprepossessing two up, two down on the main street.

Róisín answered, uttered a shriek at the sight of her cousin, then fell silent for a long moment, taking in Lisa’s travelling clothes: her tailored waistcoat, her slacks and boxy jacket, her smart snakeskin clutch, the sheepskin coat she had draped around her shoulders. Róisín was plump and motherly, with rosy cheeks. She was smaller than Lisa: the last time they’d met, Róisín had been the taller of the two.