The Heart of the Ritz

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Fifteen,’ she said. Her accent was French. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ she told her with a faint air of superiority.

  ‘Oh?’ Odile said, surprised. ‘You sound younger than that.’

  Polly wasn’t sure how to respond.

  ‘Have you heard what’s happening right now?’ Blanche asked them.

  ‘Where, darling?’

  ‘At the Maginot Line, for God’s sake.’

  Polly caught the loaded look that passed between Blanche and Alexandrine and realised that Alexandrine was harbouring a hidden anxiety.

  ‘Oh honey, we ain’t paying any mind to that,’ said Lana Mae, who didn’t notice this.

  Blanche looked cock-eyed at her fellow American. ‘Why aren’t I surprised, Lana Mae?’

  ‘Look around you, honey. Does anyone else look worried?’

  ‘Sometimes I think you live with your head in the sand.’

  ‘No, darling, we live here at the Ritz.’ Alexandrine smiled warmly. Yet Polly saw there was an unspoken understanding between her and Blanche.

  ‘As do you, baby,’ Lana Mae told Blanche. ‘So, don’t go claiming some highfalutin knowhow that’s better than ours. The war is all the way over there, not here, so why lose sleep over it?’

  Zita made her belated arrival on the Cambon stairs and was delighted to spot their mutual friend. ‘Oh Christ, send that stinking soak to the bar, puss,’ she called out, ‘a blind idiot could tell how badly she wants another drink!’

  Only Polly was mortified by this seemingly insensitive crack. Flinching, she mouthed a distinct ‘I’m sorry’ to Blanche.

  Yet the latter accepted Zita’s words with a good-natured smirk, before turning to regard the film star. ‘Screw you, Zita,’ she rejoindered, gaily. ‘Did you get your little telegram?’

  This caused the other three women to pull up short.

  ‘You’re reading my mail now?’

  ‘Oh sure, because you’re so interesting,’ Blanche teased.

  ‘Mama,’ said Odile, warningly. ‘This is no place for a fight.’

  ‘Who’s fighting? These girls are our good pals.’

  Yet Polly saw that the comment had thrown Zita – along with Alexandrine and Lana Mae.

  ‘She tell you what was in it?’ Blanche asked the others.

  ‘Mama,’ said Odile again.

  But her mother was in too good a mood to stop. ‘I’ll give you a clue, so you’ll know what she’s hiding from you.’

  ‘Blanche –’ Zita looked stricken.

  ‘It came from the krauts.’

  Surprise rippled through Polly alone. The others didn’t flinch.

  ‘Good luck figuring that out,’ said Blanche, laughing, thinking she’d dropped a bombshell. In truth, only Polly had felt the impact of it. The others’ lack of response was telling in itself.

  Odile was shaking her head.

  Polly could see that Blanche was a little intoxicated, certainly, but beneath it she seemed vulnerable and scared.

  ‘Perhaps we will see you in the Cambon bar when we return from our shopping, Madame Auzello?’ Polly said.

  Blanche looked at her blankly for a moment, as if she’d forgotten Polly was there. ‘Sure, why not,’ she said. ‘You and Odile should make friendly.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Polly said to the other girl. ‘It was very nice meeting you.’

  ‘You, too, Polly,’ Odile said, and then in a stage whisper she added, ‘Good pals are thin on the ground around here – I don’t know if you’ve realised it but everyone is so damn old.’

  Polly had to smile. ‘Surely you can’t mean any of the lovely ladies here?’

  ‘Well, not Mama, obviously, because she’s so beautiful,’ said Odile. ‘But these other hags . . .’

  Lana Mae hooted, and Polly had to put a hand over her mouth to stop herself laughing outright.

  They watched Blanche head off on the arm of her sightless daughter, swaying down the corridor that led to the Vendôme side.

  ‘Before she was Auzello’s wife, she was Auzello’s mistress,’ whispered Lana Mae, wickedly to Polly. ‘They were both of them married to somebody else and it’s anyone’s guess who fathered that naughty girl – so don’t go giving Blanche any class she don’t deserve.’

  Polly turned to Zita. ‘But what was Madame Auzello talking about?’

  Zita gave an insouciant look. ‘How do I know?’

  ‘A telegram from the Germans?’ said Polly. ‘Was she joking?’

  A loaded look passed between the Girls. Zita then appeared to cave. ‘Unfortunately, no, puss. You can read it if you like. Maybe it’ll make more sense to you than it does to me.’ She took the opened telegram from her purse. ‘It’s some stupid riddle.’ Zita unfolded the little sheet of paper and showed Polly the telegrammed message she had received. The others said nothing.

  I will bring you a gift from little Lotti. H.

  The words seemed innocuous to Polly. ‘Who’s little Lotti?’ she asked.

  ‘You tell me,’ said Zita.

  ‘Then who’s H?’ said Polly.

  ‘A mystery,’ said Zita. ‘Or maybe someone’s idea of a gag.’

  Alexandrine was watching closely as Polly puzzled at this. ‘Someone sent this to you from Germany?’

  ‘Maybe it was meant for someone else?’ said Zita, shrugging.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Alexandrine.

  Zita screwed it up into a ball. ‘Who cares. We’re going shopping.’

  As they exited the Ritz, the incident nagged at Polly’s conscience. While Zita had been open, letting her see and read the strange telegram, Polly had been left with the impression that the film star – along with her two closest friends – had in fact been tightly closed.

  * * *

  Once they were outside in the rue Cambon, where the afternoon air was warm with a light breeze, Polly took up the matter of the German invasion of Luxembourg and what it all meant. The others knew about it but no one seemed very much alarmed by the news. It was true what Lana Mae had said; looking around at the well-dressed men and women, most especially the women, with the extraordinary confections that were the season’s best hats perched upon their heads, it was hard to find any other attitude than indifference in their manner.

  ‘Well, whichever way you skin it and no matter what happens,’ Lana Mae mused, ‘this ain’t gonna be the worst thing for us girls.’

  ‘How is that?’ Polly wondered, as they made their way down the bustling street.

  ‘Keep in mind I was practically a child, honey, when the last war happened, and my memory ain’t what it could be, but I do remember things weren’t as lousy as you’d think.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Zita. ‘Doors opened for us then. Like magic.’

  Alexandrine agreed. ‘Of course, we were all very young, Polly,’ she said, furthering Lana Mae’s conceit, ‘but for women like me, with so few servants left to help at home, and the dreadful lack of coal for the fires, well, we had to give up the tradition of hosting weekly salons. So, instead, we went to the Ritz. It was still heated.’

  ‘It’s what started it all,’ said Zita.

  ‘It’s what changed things for girls like us,’ said Lana Mae.

  ‘But hadn’t the Ritz already been here for years?’ Polly was trying not to be too distracted by the astonishing things she saw in the shop windows they were passing.

  ‘Until the Great War, hotels like the Ritz had only been places to stay on vacation,’ said Alexandrine, ‘when one had a respectable excuse. For a woman to visit such an establishment when she was not on holiday, well, it was as good as admitting to sin.’

  ‘Because it was sin – one of the good ones.’ Zita laughed.

  ‘Hotels were where a girl went if she wanted some happy time with her beau,’ Lana Mae spelled it out. ‘A fabulous French tradition.’ She sighed, nostalgic. ‘I miss those days. That all went away with the fighting.’

  ‘Women were left to themselves,’ said Alexandrine. ‘With th
e men at the Front some of the bolder, more confident ladies began to appear at the Ritz. They met other women of their own daring kind.’ She gave her secret smile. ‘Oh, when I think of it . . .’

  ‘We headed straight to the hotel bars,’ said Zita. ‘They’d been forbidden to us once, but now they were as friendly as could be. The Vendôme was pretty nice all right, but the Cambon, now that was where the action was.’

  ‘A woman could speak directly to the barman there,’ said Alexandrine. ‘And order her own drink. That never happened before the Great War.’

  ‘Such low-lifes we could meet. Bohemians. Actresses!’ cried Zita.

  ‘I met an atheist politician once,’ said Lana Mae, ‘I was electrified.’

  ‘I met my very first parvenu,’ said Alexandrine, looking at the other two, meaningfully. ‘And then I met another one.’

  All three of them laughed.

  The penny dropped for Polly. ‘Is that where the three of you first became friends?’

  ‘The four of us, darling,’ said Alexandrine. ‘It’s where we met your dear aunt.’

  Polly felt the urge to cry sneak up on her. Sometimes she managed to keep her grief for Aunt Marjorie to the back of her mind, but at other times, moments like these, it came back.

  Zita saw it first. ‘Oh puss, no more tears.’

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘You made it through Claude and Mimi telling you how much you looked like her. Why now?’

  ‘I know.’ Polly had a thought as she sniffled. ‘Do I really look like her? You didn’t tell me I did.’

  The three of them passed their usual glances at each other.

  ‘That’s because you don’t, puss,’ Zita said, flatly.

  Polly’s grief stopped with the surprise. ‘I didn’t think so either. But they seemed so sure.’

  Zita shrugged. ‘Maybe they just wanted to see a resemblance?’

  ‘Maybe there is a resemblance,’ said Lana Mae. ‘If you squint a little . . .’

  ‘Perhaps the resemblance will be clearer in time,’ Alexandrine suggested, tactfully.

  Polly studied them quizzically. ‘But how old were you all when you met at the Ritz?’

  The three of them looked vague.

  ‘Somewhere around your own present age, I’m sure, darling,’ said Alexandrine, with a flutter of her hand. ‘But who counts?’

  * * *

  Their short walk along the rue Cambon had taken them to the front of Chanel’s grand boutique at Number 31. The four of them stood staring for a moment at the window displays: sumptuous gowns that were miracles of stunning simplicity.

  ‘Oh God. I think it’s time to start living beyond my means,’ said Zita.

  ‘Start living?’ Lana Mae queried.

  ‘We’re here for Polly,’ Alexandrine reminded them. ‘It’s all about her this afternoon. And tomorrow afternoon. And most likely the afternoon after that. We’re here for dear Marjorie’s wishes.’

  ‘She wanted to do this with you herself, you know, baby,’ Lana Mae told Polly.

  ‘When would she have done it?’ Polly wondered.

  ‘When you turned seventeen, eighteen, who knows? But as sure as eggs are eggs, she’d have done it. She was planning on it. Why else put it in her last words to you?’

  Alexandrine gave Lana Mae a warning look.

  ‘But let’s not overcook it too much,’ Lana Mae added, hastily. ‘It’s just shopping. As normal as breathing.’

  Polly’s tears had dried up, but the grief behind them remained. ‘I feel like she’s with us,’ she whispered, ‘and that she’s feeling pleased.’

  This made the Girls fall silent for a moment as they remembered their lost friend.

  ‘Yes,’ said Alexandrine, eventually. ‘See anything you like?’ She was looking up at the windows.

  ‘I really can’t imagine what they might look like on me,’ Polly said.

  ‘I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,’ said the Comtesse, smiling.

  As they went to push open the heavy glass door, a jewelled hand on the other side turned a little sign. What had formerly read ‘Open’, now read ‘Closed’.

  The four of them stood reading the word for a moment in puzzlement.

  ‘But it’s not the right time for closing,’ said Lana Mae.

  They saw through the door who had turned the little sign: it was Coco herself.

  ‘Mademoiselle!’ Alexandrine tapped on the glass. ‘You have the time wrong. There’s at least another hour.’

  The door opened a crack. Polly got her first glimpse at this legendary figure of fashion: she was rail thin, with barely a bust; her curled, bobbed hair was as black as jet; she was dressed in deep navy blue, and her signature pearls swung in two long strings from her neck. ‘Can’t you read?’ she asked them, abrupt.

  ‘Coco, honey, you should try to get your watch fixed,’ said Lana Mae. ‘Or buy a Swiss one, they keep better time.’

  ‘It’s not the closing hour,’ said Zita, frowning at Coco. Polly remembered her calling the famed designer a ‘snobby cow’.

  ‘It is today.’ Coco looked Zita up and down in return, radiating condemnation.

  ‘But we’re here to buy clothes,’ said Alexandrine. ‘Lots of clothes.’ She indicated Polly. ‘This is Marjorie Tighe’s niece. Do let us inside, darling, it’s a very special day for Polly.’

  ‘I told you,’ said the designer, ‘we’re shut.’

  ‘But why, I don’t understand?’

  Coco stepped out onto the front step, folding her arms at them, disgusted. ‘Where do you three fools live, under a rock?’

  Alexandrine was mortified. ‘We live at the Ritz,’ she reminded her, evenly. ‘As do you, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘You live with your heads in a hole.’

  Embarrassed, Polly heard the echo of Blanche’s teasing words.

  ‘What do mean by that, puss?’ Zita demanded.

  ‘Why don’t you buy a newspaper?’ Coco suggested. ‘Read more than a menu for a change?’

  ‘The gall of you!’ cried Lana Mae.

  Alexandrine was the diplomat. ‘Surely, Coco, you can’t mean the Luxembourg trouble?’

  ‘Mother Mary,’ said Coco, shaking her coal black head. ‘The “trouble”, as you call it, Comtesse, is the German invasion.’

  ‘Well, yes, possibly, but not here. This is France.’

  ‘God above. You’re all incredible.’ Then she caught Polly’s eye and had reason to pause. Something unspoken seemed to pass between them. ‘Except for you,’ she said quietly. ‘Because you get it, don’t you, girl?’

  Clutching Marjorie’s bag, Polly was taken aback.

  Coco shook her head at her, pityingly. ‘So, what did you do wrong to get stuck with these featherheads?’

  Alexandrine bristled. ‘All right then, Mademoiselle, you’re closed,’ she said, ‘but for how long?’

  ‘Indefinitely,’ barked Coco. Then she thought of a better answer. ‘For the duration.’

  ‘For the duration?’ Alexandrine parroted.

  ‘It’s my patriotic duty,’ Coco spat at her. ‘This is no time for something as frivolous as selling fashion. Why don’t you three fools put some thought into what you might do as your patriotic duty? Or are ideas like “duty” and “thought” beyond you?’

  She shut the door on them. And locked it.

  * * *

  On the initially silent walk back to the Ritz, the three older women would have had Polly believe that nothing so dreadful had been said to them at all, and that the purpose of their excursion had not been shopping but exercise. Polly kept quiet, but she knew her three guardians had been publicly belittled in front of her, and that such an affront had been deeply humiliating for them.

  Finally, she decided to break the ice. ‘Well, as Lana Mae might say, I’ve never heard more horse-hooey in my life.’

  This stopped the three women in the street.

  ‘Mademoiselle Chanel was a perfectly horrid woman,’ Polly told them. ‘What appalli
ng rudeness. It just goes to show that all the lovely clothes in the world can still do nothing to dress up a bad character.’

  Lana Mae broke first with an explosive guffaw.

  ‘The stinking piss of her,’ said Zita, joining in. ‘What did I say she was, Polly?’

  ‘A snobby cow.’

  ‘God, when I think of the money I’ve spent there,’ said Alexandrine.

  ‘That all three of us have,’ said Lana Mae.

  ‘Money that she has never accepted gracefully,’ said Alexandrine, ‘ever.’

  ‘The nerve to judge us,’ said Lana Mae.

  ‘When hasn’t she judged?’ said Zita. ‘We only put up with it for the frocks.’

  ‘Aw, the frocks . . .’ said Lana Mae, sadly.

  Alexandrine made a stand. ‘Chanel’s offerings this season are well below standard.’

  Polly was pleased with what she had started.

  ‘You’re right, puss, L’Officiel said as much.’

  ‘All this troublesome politics,’ Alexandrine said, ‘it’s the perfect excuse for her.’

  ‘Excuse to do what?’ asked Zita.

  ‘To close down, of course. She’s exhausted creatively. She’s wrung the well dry.’

  ‘Oh honey, now it all makes sense,’ said Lana Mae, warming to this theme. ‘She’s probably broke.’

  ‘Up to her fanny in debts – of course she is, the stinking sow,’ Zita agreed.

  ‘And now Hitler’s marched on Luxembourg and suddenly it’s manna from heaven for her,’ said Alexandrine. ‘A face-saving way out.’

  Zita sparked a cigarette. ‘To dress it up as “patriotic duty”? It’s disgusting.’

  ‘She oughta be ashamed,’ said Lana Mae.

  Together, they felt mollified enough to continue walking, heads held just a degree higher than they had been five minutes before. Polly couldn’t wipe the smile from her face.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Alexandrine, turning to Polly as they walked, ‘we shall go to Lanvin. She understands the importance of fashion in these upsetting times.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ said Polly, trying not to laugh.

  Walking the Paris street in the warmth of the afternoon sun, Polly felt a sudden, quite unexpected wave of affection for her three guardians. This rush of feeling was as surprising as it was also welcome. She was beginning to make sense of these women. They were ridiculous, certainly, and exceedingly frivolous, too. They were also secretive, deliberately keeping things from her, if not from themselves, which made Polly suspect that their superficiality was in fact a collective mask. If anything frightened them it was the threat of a loss of face, yet nothing bonded them tighter in defiance, either. Together, they were formidable.