Lace

by Shirley Conran

  “Since when has your vocabulary included such phrases as ‘liquidity crisis’? And stop jumping on that bed. The chambermaid hasn’t reported my food suitcase but she couldn’t avoid reporting a broken bed.”

  Guy sat down and stayed seated on the end of the bed. “My father has changed his tune. He’s really being quite helpful. We went through the figures last night, and I think he was surprised to find I’m so businesslike—entirely due to you, of course. . . . Anyway, he says it’s vital to make only a certain number of each design, and not to take more orders than I can afford to produce. I’m to tell latecomers that I’m very sorry but my production schedule is booked up. And it is! Put your suit on. I’m taking you to the Ritz for a glass of champagne.”

  “Isn’t there a better way of saying no?” Judy asked slowly, as she slipped into the pale blue silk suit—suitable for all seasons—that was her only decent dress. “Isn’t there some way that won’t exasperate customers but will make them order faster next time? How about giving away a couple of suits to celebrities, on condition that they’ll go around saying they’re mortified that they weren’t allowed to order more than two?” She pulled up the zipper. “It could make your collection seem more select. Instead of trying to hide the fact that you can’t finance your orders, flaunt it.”

  “But I don’t know any celebrities. And I can’t afford to give away clothes. I haven’t sweated for years to give presents to strangers.”

  Judy quickly buttoned the jacket and snapped on a gilt dog collar. “Guy, you have to pay something for publicity. Europeans never understand that! Nobody is going to blow your trumpet for free. Dammit, I wish you could afford to hire me full time!”

  “As soon as I can afford it, you’re hired, mon chou. Right now I need all my cash to buy you a drink at the Ritz. No, no, not the black patents, the cream pumps.”

  In spite of her friendship with Guy, Judy missed Nick more than she cared to admit. For the obligatory two years of National Service, Nick’s regiment would be fighting terrorists in Malaya. Although he wrote to Judy every week, Nick’s letters arrived irregularly, sometimes three in two days, sometimes none for a month. Judy’s replies were similarly spaced, because she only wrote when she had something special to say. Then she would scrawl a few lines in green ink, just as if she were speaking to him, with a total disregard for grammar and punctuation. She wrote to Maxine, Kate and Pagan in the same way. The only person to whom she wrote regularly, neatly and once a week was her mother, and Judy hated doing it. Writing home was like doing homework.

  By the end of August, Paris was sweltering and the very cobblestones of the streets seemed to melt in the heat. Still, it was probably even hotter in Malaya, thought Judy, as she saw a pale blue airmail envelope in her pigeonhole and eagerly ran toward it. Standing by the wilting palm tree in the hotel lobby she tore open the envelope and then gasped.

  “Darling Judy,” wrote Maxine, “I have some very bad news. At first we hoped it wasn’t true, but we have checked with the War Office and there is no doubt. I don’t know how to tell you, but Nick has been killed on duty . . . in a Communist ambush in Malaya.”

  Judy read the rest of the letter with her eyes but she didn’t absorb the contents. Stunned, she moved mechanically up the seven flights of stairs to her room, carefully locked the door, ran over to the washbasin and threw up. Then she carefully cleaned the washbasin, took her shoes off, lay neatly in the middle of the bed and started to shiver in spite of the heat.

  The concierge, the chambermaid and Guy were arguing in the passage.

  “It’s true, I haven’t been able to get into her bedroom for two days; it’s chained from the inside,” said the chambermaid. “We should break the door down.”

  “And she doesn’t answer the telephone,” agreed the concierge. “But the door is hinged from the inside—and to break the door down, well, I can’t be responsible for damage.”

  “I’ll pay for the door,” said Guy, impatiently. “We know she’s in there, there’s no sound, she’s either ill or . . . I’ve been shouting out here for hour after hour. I’ll break it down myself, if you won’t!” Angrily, he threw his slight body against the door. “Judy! Can you hear me?”

  “Maybe we should call an ambulance?” the chambermaid suggested.

  “I should have done this yesterday,” Guy grunted, heaving his body against the door. “How do we know she’s alive after being locked in for two days with no sound from her?”

  Suddenly, to his relief, they heard the scrape of metal as the chain was unhooked, then the door lock turned and the door slowly opened. Judy stood there in her stocking feet and the crumpled clothes she’d been wearing for two days. She looked white and dazed.

  “What’s wrong? Are you ill? Why did you lock yourself in?” Guy asked, furious with her now that he could see that her wrists weren’t slit and she wasn’t in a coma.

  They all crowded into the room. Guy pushed the concierge and the chambermaid out and slammed the door. Judy scowled at him. Then she felt tears fall onto her cheeks and suddenly she was able to cry.

  Guy wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly to him. Blindly, she reached one hand out to the night table and handed him Maxine’s letter. Guy read it over Judy’s shoulder and softly stroked her hair until she was a little calmer. “Get undressed and hop into bed,” he said gently. “I’m going down to my room, but don’t you dare lock this door again.” He was back within minutes with a large bottle of eau-decologne and half a liter of milk, which he warmed for her, carefully setting the iron to “wool.”

  “I feel so guilty, so dreadfully guilty about everything. I didn’t love Nick, he loved me, and now it’s too late,” Judy snuffled.

  “You can’t order love.”

  “But I can’t seem to love any man. I go out with a few guys, yes, but I can’t seem to love anyone.”

  “Judy, you’re eighteen and you’ve told me before that you don’t want to fall in love with a Frenchman. You said you didn’t want to complicate your life at the moment.”

  He stroked her hair again, and stayed with her until, in the soft gray twilight, she fell asleep.

  In the dark Guy slipped the pale blue letter into his pocket. He felt like throttling Maxine. Why hadn’t she telephoned him?

  Twice in the night Judy woke in tears, and he stroked her hair and soothed her to sleep again. In the morning he lifted the phone and firmly ordered café au lait for two, with double croissants, much to the surprise of the chambermaid, who had thought he was the other way.

  10

  THE SATURDAY AFTER Nick’s death, Aunt Hortense telephoned and immediately sensed a difference in Judy. “Are you ill, my child? Your voice sounds so flat and weary. I was hoping to swoop you off to Versailles.”

  “I don’t think so, thank you,” Judy said. “I have some paperwork to do for Guy.”

  Aunt Hortense immediately telephoned Guy and was told the true reason for Judy’s apathy. She called Judy again and firmly said, “I’m sending the car around for you straightaway, because I’d like to see you for half an hour if it’s not inconvenient. I have a present for you.”

  She rang off before Judy had time to think of an excuse.

  Usually Judy loved to visit Aunt Hortense’s new home, a beautiful old stone house with the lacework balconies, which stood on l’Isle de la Cite, the tiny island in the middle of the Seine that was the original city of Paris. But today Judy sat listless in the back of the Mercedes as it threaded its way through the cobbled streets, past street criers carrying big wicker baskets full of fresh butter and eggs, Romany gypsies trying to sell dried lavender or hand-carved wooden clothespins to the passersby. And when the car passed the shop full of young girls making funeral wreaths of violets and lilies and white roses, she started to sob again.

  The setting sun was gilding the walls of Aunt Hortense’s drawing room as she silently handed Judy a small green velvet box. Inside was an antique necklace of seed pearls.

  “But why?” Judy a
sked. “It’s not my birthday. I can’t accept. . . .”

  “Yes, you can,” said Aunt Hortense. “I accepted them at your age for a much more wicked reason and I want you to have them. What would I do with them now? They are for the neck of a young girl. Let me show you how the clasp works. If you don’t care for the ruby clasp, then you can choose another one from Cartier.”

  Judy slowly fastened the necklace and then moved to a mirror. In the old, warped, silver surface, the pearls gleamed against her skin.

  “Why have you given me this, Aunt Hortense?”

  “To be direct, because you are miserable, because you have lost a friend and because you are unhappy in a boring job. I think we should perhaps try and find you another job.”

  “Well, yes, almost any other job would be an improvement, but other offices seem pretty much the same.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of an office job. I thought you might like to be an assistant saleswoman at Christian Dior. The assistants are quite young you know.” Her emerald eyelids fluttered. “I cannot promise anything, you understand, but I have spoken to the directrice and she is willing to interview you. The pay will be terrible, of course—if you get a job—because the competition is fierce. I know you don’t really approve of Monsieur Dior, but it is the house where I have the most, how do you say?”

  “Clout?”

  “Exactly. They know me there so they will interview you. But please don’t offer your opinion of Monsieur Dior’s work. And don’t forget to use the servants’ entrance, my child.”

  “Aunt Hortense, you are so kind.”

  “It is merely common sense. Something has to be done.”

  “Maxine and I secretly call you Aunt Horse-Sense.”

  “I know, ma chère. I have been called worse.”

  So Judy visited Christian Dior again, this time entering by the employees’ entrance, which was heavily guarded. She wore her blue silk suit and tried not to sound overqualified. The shrewd-looking woman who interviewed her wore a perfectly cut gray linen dress and her silver hair was swept up in a French knot. “So you speak English, French and German?” she asked.

  “And a little Spanish.”

  “And you’ve been handling exports and secretarial work. Why don’t you want an office job?”

  “Because I want to learn to sell and I want to be with people. I’ve been working in a room by myself for nearly a year. Also I would do anything to work at Dior.”

  “Most of the girls that come here say that. They want a job because they love fashion, but they don’t realise what a hard job it is. It’s physically very tiring.”

  As the interview continued, the directrice became increasingly surprised by Judy’s technical knowledge of fashion until she mentioned that she did bookkeeping for Guy Saint Simon.

  “Aha, now I understand. A young man to watch. Of course, it is not difficult to get a little publicity at his age, but if it doesn’t go to his head, if he stays small for the moment, if the buyers remain confident of his ability, quality, finish and—above all—his reliability, then he could go far.”

  “He intends to.”

  There was no vacancy at Dior, but her name was taken and in early December the personnel manager telephoned to say that one of their assistant salesgirls had contracted hepatitis. Did Judy want her job, on a temporary basis, until after the collections in February? Anything to get her foot in the door, Judy thought, and immediately accepted.

  All chatter stopped as Judy timidly entered the saleswomen’s room for the first time. It felt like her first day in high school. Terrifying. Like the other saleswomen, she was wearing a gray flannel dress that had been provided free by the house. Her first Dior! She was rapidly introduced to everyone by her boss, Annie, who then whisked her out to the salons. Annie grumbled incessantly about her feet and her commission, which she was always working out on a hypothetical basis in her little black notebook. “If the Countess also takes it in black . . . if the Ambassador’s wife doesn’t think it’s too flamboyant . . . if Zizi Jeanmaire likes the scarlet feathers.”

  Most of the other assistants were older than Judy and got no commission, only a meagre salary. They were putting in a two-year stint before getting a job as first saleswomen in second-rank couture houses, after which their next step would be to become a first saleswoman in a first-rate house.

  Judy was surprised to find what a large staff was necessary in order to operate the elegant, pale gray salons. The doorman, the scent-sprayer, the boutique salesgirls, the directrice, the salon sales force, the publicity department, the six models and the dresser were only the visible tip of the iceberg. The huge behind-the-scenes force included the quiet, awesome, pasty-faced Monsieur Dior himself and his assistants, his design staff (all men) and their assistants. Also the business manager, the buyers, the accountants, the secretaries, the tailors and cutters, the head fitters, the first and second sewing hands, the midinettes, the stock girls and so on, down to the delivery boys.

  She quickly lost her respect for the refined salon saleswomen who, behind the scenes, were always bitching over new customers or the location of seats for old customers. She acquired a new respect for the seemingly humble head fitters, such as Madame Suzanne, who had pinned the apricot silk dress on Aunt Hortense. The fitters spent the whole day on their feet or their knees and often worked until nine in the evening—or even later, before a collection—carefully pinning clothes on weary, bad-tempered models. Each head fitter was responsible for a workshop with perhaps forty workers in it, all stitching busily as they gossiped, all wearing plain black skirts and sweaters with white blouses, except on St. Catherine’s Day when they all pinned on the yellow and green ribbons of their patron saint.

  Behind the scenes was a constant, hurried feeling of pressure, but once through the doors that led to the quietly sumptuous salons, everyone’s manner changed. Annie spoke in a calm, almost hushed voice; her manner was respectful; she was solicitous but never urged a sale; she never criticised a customer in any way, especially when invited to do so. The customer was always right. If anything was wrong, it was the colour, the cut, the fit or the lighting. But once back behind the swing doors, her exquisite tact vanished in a flash. “The Countess must have put on ten pounds since her first fitting. Judee, where’s my order book? You’d think an ambassadress would be able to make up her mind, without asking me, if cyclamen suited her. Judee, where is the list of tomorrow’s fittings? That old Belgian bitch knows perfectly well that no alterations can be made to a design without the consent of Monsieur Dior. Why does every single customer think that she’s the only one who wants her clothes by Christmas? Judee, what news from the workroom about number 22 in white satin for la Comtesse de Ribes?”

  At the house of Dior the atmosphere became increasingly rushed and tense as the day of their big February collection drew near. Models hurried from their dressing rooms to the studios in white wrappers that kept their clothes clean and prevented anyone from seeing them until the press show. Monsieur Dior also insisted that all the studio staff wear white smocks in order to keep the clothes spotlessly clean. A hushed atmosphere surrounded the design studios, which looked like a cross between a modern church and an operating theatre, no white-walled corners were unlit, there were no shadows; the cream window shades were kept pulled down all day and all night in order to prevent spying from binoculars on the other side of the street; Monsieur Dior had his own room in which he was surrounded by paints, crayons, photographs and scraps of fabric, but the designers worked in the outer studio, their drawing boards grouped around a huge central cutting table, twenty feet long and ten feet across. The walls were lined with shelves and racks neatly piled with buttons, belts, bags, shoes and jewelry and roll upon roll of fabric samples. Normally, this was where the manufacturers’ reps showed their wares and often hopefully left a bolt of cloth in case it caught some designer’s fancy, because if Dior used a new fabric, the whole world wanted it.

  During the dress rehearsal, there was a gu
ard on every door. Christian Dior—“The Master”—in an immaculate gray suit sat straddled on a chair, his arms folded over the chairback, his pale, aging-cherub’s face showing no sign of emotion or temperament—only weariness—as, gently and quietly, he scrutinised each model that passed before him and, together with his assistants, decided which jewelry and accessories were needed to complete each ensemble.

  It was drizzling on Avenue Montaigne as Judy rushed to work. By eight A.M. crowds had already gathered outside the main door. Photographers with gear hanging from their shoulder straps jostled next to the two parked film trucks; the film crew shivered farther down the sidewalk. There was a crowd around the staff entrance and a bottleneck at the door, as security guards checked each person. Inside, there wasn’t much talking; everyone was hurrying, their anxious faces preoccupied.

  Chaos broke out as the front doors opened and the crowd heaved inside, clutching invitation cards like refugee passports. Pandemonium swept the reception desk as each card was checked and suspects were asked to show their official chambre syndicale stamped press cards with their photograph attached. Security men linked arms at the doors like police at a football game to keep the crowds out. Blasts of cold air swept up marble steps and crowds shrieked as the celebrities arrived: Princess Aly Khan, once Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney glowering at her, and the Duchess of Windsor looking like a little governess.

  The approved guests surged into the main salon, where every gilt chair was numbered. Nevertheless, reporters argued over seats; neither the chambre syndicate (the couturiers’ association) nor the fashion houses knew the relative importance of foreign journalists and they were too arrogant to find out; journalists were dragged ten thousand kilometers to stay at the Plaza Athénée, then treated like pickpockets on the New York subway; there were angry arguments when high-powered, syndicated columnists found their seats—booked weeks beforehand—occupied by Little Rock magazine reporters with six-week deadlines. The syndicated writers were prepared to struggle ruthlessly as they claimed their places, fighting with kamikaze desperation.