The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Three boys will come back, and Arkady takes her by train to Perpignan. That’s close to the Spanish border.’

  ‘I know where Perpignan is! You’re talking about my backyard. It ought to be me taking her—’

  ‘Well, it isn’t.’ Coralie poured boiling water on tea leaves, splashing some in her irritation.

  Ramon had the grace to shrug. ‘I suppose you have to look after Noëlle.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And Una—’

  ‘Has her hospital shifts. Arkady will be fine. He’s fought in a war, you know.’ She bit her lip as Ramon looked away and down. ‘What I mean is—’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Black eyes flashed. ‘I wanted to fight the Germans, but I ended up digging latrines and carrying stretchers. The war isn’t over and one day I will prove that my blood is as good as the next man’s.’

  ‘It won’t come to that. Look, there is a way you can help. Look after Noëlle tomorrow night. And if . . . if anything happens and I don’t come back . . .’

  He put his hand hard on hers and the teapot went down with a crack. ‘You will, chérie, because at the first sign of danger, you will leave the Rose Noire. But don’t come back here tomorrow evening in case you’re followed. Go somewhere safe and get a message to me.’

  She wanted to tell him not to be so over-dramatic, but instead she apologised again for getting Henriette into trouble.

  Ramon said grudgingly, ‘My sister! Let’s admit it, she had it coming.’

  After Ramon left, Coralie and Ottilia made their way to place de l’Opéra and joined a line at the Kommandantur, where the Germans administered the permits that now governed French lives. ‘I’m sure this queue is growing from the front,’ Coralie complained after they’d stood for two hours. Arkady was minding Noëlle, but he had to leave at five for the Rose Noire. At a quarter to five, a uniformed functionary came out and shouted, ‘Closed. We are closed. Come back again on Monday.’

  Monday? ‘Couldn’t we see somebody now?’ Coralie pleaded, stepping in front of him, showing him the pink Ausweis. ‘We need a signature.’

  The man frowned at the paper, reading the names listed. ‘Which of you is Dupont? Why have you come here together?’

  ‘We’ll come back on Monday,’ Coralie said. Sensing danger in his questions, she hurried Ottilia away.

  Over supper Una proposed a solution. She’d brought home slivers of smoked ham from the hospital kitchen, a rare luxury, and for Ottilia and Noëlle, a whole chicken leg. Coralie had managed to buy a few potatoes and a litre of rough red wine. It was amazing, she thought, as she laid the table for the adults’ supper, how such basic provisions could manifest a feast. Add hunger, and you had a miracle. Noëlle had fallen asleep faster too, having put away a good meal.

  ‘This is how we’ll do it. Serge Martel boasts that his club is a magnet for a certain type of German officer.’ Una lifted her glass and said, ‘Cheers.’

  ‘What type?’

  ‘The old-school kind, which signed up to Nazism but doesn’t really swing along with it. Martel told me that he keeps an eye out for them.’

  ‘Protects them?’

  Una laughed at Coralie’s naivety. ‘Garners information on them for the security services. Every night one table at the Rose Noire is reserved for Nazi police who are spying on their own side.’

  ‘Gestapo?’

  ‘Martel just said police. He points out those officers who might be getting a little . . . shall we say, too French? A little too relaxed. Anyway, we will brush up our charms, and they will give us our signature.’

  ‘You think a German policeman will put his name on an Ausweis because we smile at him?’

  Una topped up their glasses. ‘Sure I do.’

  They spent Friday evening packing Ottilia’s suitcase with plain skirts, knitwear and basic lingerie. If she was searched, there must be no couture labels and, heaven forbid, no London ones.

  Coralie struggled to make Ottilia understand why she must jettison her twenty-two-carat Cartier cigarette case with ‘von S’ engraved on it. Ditto the gold cigarette holder and lighter. Predictably, Ottilia wept. ‘They were my twenty-first-birthday present from darling Papa!’

  ‘Choose one, then,’ a spinster florist might conceivably have one luxury to her name, ‘and nothing monogrammed.’

  ‘When I get to Spain,’ Ottilia suddenly asked, ‘how will I know where to go?’

  That was the elephant-sized question and Coralie couldn’t answer it. Arkady would deliver her to a safe house, whose address had been supplied by one of Una’s hospital colleagues. After that, Ottilia would be on her own.

  I could survive, Coralie thought, and Una would relish the adventure. Actually, Una would probably end up travelling first class to Madrid courtesy of a German Feldmarschall, with his entourage carrying her luggage. But could Ottilia sustain the shock of having to make endless difficult choices by herself? Even now, she seemed to be in a trance. She was sitting at the dining table, murmuring in a soft monotone. Her voice, with its German inflection, sounded like a whispering water-pipe.

  ‘Bedtime. I know it’s not dark yet,’ Una spoke like Matron, ‘but we’ve a big day ahead—’ She stopped dead. A car was drawing up outside. She flattened herself against the wall by the window, nudging aside the blackout curtain that Coralie still kept in place. ‘Oh, joy,’ she murmured.

  ‘What?’ Coralie demanded.

  ‘Black Mercedes 260D. And two gentlemen.’

  ‘Are they . . .?’

  ‘Coming to the door?’ Una leaned as far forward as she dared.

  Hard raps at street level told them all they needed to know.

  ‘Into Arkady’s loft,’ Coralie whispered. ‘Una, grab coats and hats, purses and handbags, so they think we’ve gone out. Leave them.’ Ottilia had begun to pile the teacups. ‘Take your suitcase. I’ll get Noëlle.’

  By good fortune, Arkady had left the loft ladder down – he’d been late setting off for the Rose Noire. Noëlle in her arms, Coralie watched Una scramble through the hatch, then reach down to take the suitcase, coats and hats that Ottilia held up.

  ‘Get in!’ Coralie urged as Ottilia climbed gingerly into the roof space. Coralie was halfway up the ladder, passing Noëlle into Una’s arms, when a crash told her that the front door had been forced. Just time to drag up the ladder and close the hatch.

  They lay side by side on Arkady’s bedding, the air heavy with the beating of their hearts. Coralie cupped her hand over Noëlle’s mouth, though the child was still half asleep. A louder crash suggested the door of the flat had been opened with a single kick. Then they heard men’s voices shouting for ‘Freiin von Silberstrom?’

  A man called in German, ‘Ottilia? Are you there?’

  Both she and Ottilia recognised the voice. Coralie hissed, ‘Quiet, Tilly!’

  Coralie couldn’t have said how long it took the men to conclude their search and go. Fearing a trap, they stayed where they were until cramp got to their legs and the continuing silence told them it was finally safe to open the hatch. They spent the night fully dressed, alternately dozing and waking. When the street door bumped open in the early hours, they all woke with a shriek. It was Arkady coming home.

  They couldn’t risk spending the following day at rue de Seine. Dietrich had come to fetch Ottilia and had not come alone. He might return at any time.

  Entrusting Noëlle to Arkady’s care – he would take the child to Ramon’s house – Coralie spent Saturday strolling in the Bois de Boulogne with Ottilia and Una. They hid among the trees like outlaws. Around teatime, they walked the short distance to Una’s building on avenue Foch. Talking in the over-cheerful voice she used when she was scared, Una fitted a key into a lock and said, ‘Cobwebs and rotten fruit I can handle, but let’s hope there are no Gestapo hiding behind the sofas.’

  Inside, their footsteps echoed like the march of wooden soldiers. Coralie was ready to flee at the first answering creak. But there was nothing amiss, beyond a bowl of
pulpy apples, busy with fruit flies, and a coating of dust on everything.

  Coralie felt as if she’d wandered into a huge, empty hotel. Everywhere she looked, there was a new texture calling out to be stroked. Onyx, suede, marble, burr walnut . . . And no clutter. Una had joked of moving back there with Arkady if – when – he ever got over his awe of her and made a romantic move. But really? Arkady would be a fish out of water in this palace.

  She followed Una into a lavish bedroom, conscious of her outdoor shoes sinking into snowy carpet. One wall was lined with mirrored doors. Sliding one back, Una said, ‘My wardrobe. This was my maid Beulah’s domain – I still feel I’m trespassing. But, for better or worse, I’m my own maid now. Grab what you like.’

  Coralie gaped. ‘How many evening dresses do you own?’

  ‘Two hundred maybe. Beulah took a dozen trunks back to the States, but I guess there’s enough left. To misquote Henry Ford, “Choose any color you like, so long as it’s—”’

  ‘Beige. I dare you to wear red tonight, or give pink a go.’ Coralie pulled out a floor-length shrimp-pink dress shot with silver thread. She exclaimed over the plastic zipper in the back.

  ‘Elsa Schiaparelli,’ Una told her. ‘It’s the real thing, because nowhere could I get a zipper dyed just the right shade.’

  ‘You’ve never worn it?’

  ‘Virgo intacta.’

  ‘I just don’t understand—’

  ‘Must we always come back to this? Because I can. Because it used to give me pleasure to run up bills for clothes I never wore, and thus torment Mr Kilpin, the kind of man who would charge a friend to smell his coffee. And,’ Una put the Schiaparelli back on the rail, ‘because if I had a dress, no other woman could have it. Come on, choose. We need to be at the Rose Noire when it opens to get a good table.’

  ‘Nothing too tight or heavy.’ Coralie was thinking of midnight, when the club’s walls trickled with human perspiration. They needed to be able to move freely and to run, if necessary.

  Ottilia picked up a dress that was little more than a net covered with reflective discs that blinked as they caught the light. ‘This,’ she breathed.

  ‘Vetoed.’ Una replaced it in the cupboard. ‘In your heart, you may want to outshine me, but those paillettes have a nasty habit of coming unstitched. You’d end up shedding scales like a wind-dried herring.’

  Coralie’s watch said it was gone five. ‘Why don’t you just choose for us?’

  For Ottilia, it was ivory silk with a lace evening coat. For Una, cream bias-cut with an overskirt of embroidered chiffon that fanned behind her as she walked. For Coralie, a sheath of coffee-cream rayon silk, whose back dipped below her waist, weighted with strands of beads.

  ‘All Lutzman originals,’ Una said proudly, ‘and there only ever were originals. Yours suits you, Coralie. It needs a long back and heroic shoulders. Mine are too narrow.’

  Coralie contorted herself in front of the mirror. ‘Are the beads at the back to give dance partners something to play with?’ Not that she was going to dance. Head down: that was her plan. ‘Who is Lutzman? He obviously shares your love of washed-out colours.’

  ‘Not he, she. Alix Gower – one of Javier’s protégées. Lutzman was the name she adopted when Gower became a little poisonous. A story for another time.’ Una struck a pose for the mirror, hips forward. ‘She absorbed Javier’s liking for clean lines but, being female, also understood the desire to seem innocent while being downright sexy. Men never knew where they stood with Alix. Had them all on the hop, even her husband.’

  ‘I never took to Javier’s stuff,’ Coralie admitted. ‘Too plain for me.’

  ‘You don’t say. Your dress is called Lutzman Number Ten.’

  ‘Is Alix still in Paris?’

  ‘No, she ran for her life. She’s half English, half Jewish and, as we know, both parts would have been locked up if they’d caught her. Hell, where’s Tilly?’

  In the en-suite bathroom, it turned out, rootling in the medicine cabinet for tweezers. Encountering herself in a wall of mirrors had alerted her to the ‘horrendous tragedy’ of her eyebrows. A bottle of sleeping tablets without its cap stood on the vanity unit.

  ‘How many did you take?’ Una demanded.

  ‘Only a few.’

  ‘Then let’s pray they don’t start working too soon.’

  While Una searched out evening cloaks for them, Coralie turned her mind to evening shoes. Predictably, Una had a phenomenal collection, though none with heels under four inches. Ottilia opted to keep the walking pumps she had on but Coralie couldn’t bring herself to go out in the leather brogues she’d put on that morning. She selected a pair of satin sling-backs, amazed to discover that Una’s feet were a half size bigger than hers. She made them fit by stuffing tissue paper into the toes.

  Finally, they were ready to go. ‘I take it we’re not going to be spirited to boulevard de Clichy in your Rolls-Royce?’ Coralie asked.

  Una laughed sardonically. ‘I already handed it over to some monocled owl at German Army Headquarters. They’d have taken it anyway, robbed me blind by giving me devalued francs for it – and I hadn’t enough fuel to go further than the city limits anyway. I don’t care because, in return, I got free passage to Switzerland for two writer friends, who were hiding in one of those refugee rabbit cages in the Marais. You know, ten poor souls to a room in a crumbling hôtel particulier? I know you’re going to ask,’ Una dropped her voice, ‘why didn’t I buy Ottilia’s escape?’’

  ‘No. Tilly’s far too much of a prize. They’d have issued an Ausweis and arrested her at the first checkpoint. We’re doing it the only way we can, by stealth. You’re a good woman, Una Kilpin-McBride.’

  ‘Aw, and you’re not so bad yourself, Madame de Lirac-Cazaubon. So – pony-cab? The Rose Noire’s too far to walk, and I don’t rate the Métro in evening dress. Oh, shoot!’ Una had been inspecting herself in the mirror. ‘Hats.’

  ‘Lead the way. I suppose they’ve got their own wing?’

  ‘No – I want to wear one of those bijou babies Amélie Ginsler made for you.’

  ‘My doll-hats? They’re not ready.’

  A week or so after her encounter with Amélie at Henriette Junot’s, Coralie had walked to the Marais to offer old Monsieur Ginsler a commission. After getting lost for an hour in the maze of streets, jangled by the bustle and smells of crowding humanity, she’d located rue Charlot. The Ginslers’ shop had needed no pointing out. Tiny wax faces stared through gauze-protected windowpanes.

  Amélie’s greeting had been a mix of surprise and delight, old Monsieur Ginsler’s more cautious. ‘I was thinking you’d want just one or two,’ he’d muttered when Coralie announced that she’d purchased twenty bags of felt offcuts from a waste-fabric merchant.

  ‘For as many miniature hats as you can make, Monsieur.’ She’d turned to Amélie. ‘Think about it. Women spend all day queuing, or going to and from work. They jam a headscarf on because it’s simpler. But a doll-hat could go into a handbag or its own bag. Then, at night, off comes the headscarf, on goes the doll-hat, and they can go out looking chic without even having to find a mirror.’

  In the end, Monsieur Ginsler’s wife took up Coralie’s cause. ‘You say “no” because we’re so busy, Manny?’ She glanced meaningfully up at a cobweb-strewn beam. ‘Even the dolls sleep.’

  At the end of the visit, the Ginslers had presented Coralie with three teacup-sized hats, perfect in every detail. Later Coralie had shown them to Una, only to put them away as she recognised the gleam in her friend’s eye. She said just as firmly now, ‘I haven’t gone fully into production. I’m waiting for September.’

  ‘What’s to stop you launching them tonight?’

  ‘Everything. They’ll be a sensation, I’m convinced, and the last thing we want tonight is people staring at us.’

  ‘I disagree,’ said Una. ‘The more we give people to look at, the less they’ll notice the thing we’re trying to hide.’

  ‘Too bad. They’re at h
ome and I’m not slogging back over the river.’

  ‘You have them made in the Marais? I know the Marais. My writer friends lived just down from the doll shop. So let’s go.’

  The Vagabonds were well into their first set when Una, Coralie and Ottilia arrived at the club. They’d spent half an hour at the Ginslers’, sitting in front of a smoky fire, while Amélie and her grandmother feverishly trimmed three little hats for them.

  Coralie was in reflective mood as she descended into the candlelit Rose Noire. Tonight she’d discovered that Amélie had a profoundly disabled daughter. The family was so protective of twelve-year-old Françoise that her existence had been entirely unknown at Henriette Junot. ‘I told only Madame Zénon,’ Amélie had confided.

  They paused on the dance floor. The Vagabonds were playing a hot jazz version of ‘La Marseillaise’ so loudly that glasses shimmered on the bar.

  ‘They know it’s illegal to play it, don’t they?’ Coralie stared uneasily at them. ‘Nobody’s dancing.’ She drew in a breath, steeled herself and tried to avoid the eye of the proprietor, Serge Martel.

  Thirty minutes later she was in the Ladies with Ottilia, the near discovery of Ottilia’s British alien’s identity card still making her breath come short.

  Ottilia went straight to the mirror. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  Coralie waved the offending card. ‘This is more dangerous than a loaded gun. It’s even stamped “Bow Street police station”! Don’t you get it?’ Obviously not, as Ottilia shook her head. Tears were close. Sighing, Coralie took an eye-pencil from her bag. ‘Give yourself a bit of definition, go on. You look as though you haven’t slept in a month.’ As Ottilia leaned into the mirror and drew shaky lines, Coralie said, ‘Remember that day at Epsom? We both had a palm reading. I don’t know what your Gypsy told you, but mine said I would kill one day. I’ve realised recently, I could.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘No, not you.’ Well, sometimes. ‘Kill to protect the ones I love.’