The Lost Girl

by Carol Drinkwater

  Kurtiz touched the fingers of her left hand to her forehead, massaging the flesh, pressing against the bone, attempting to erase the clamour in her skull. She signalled to the waiter. ‘Would you please bring me a sandwich? Any sandwich, it doesn’t matter, and a glass of red wine. Oh, and some more water, please.’

  ‘Désolé, Madame, we don’t serve sandwiches in the evenings. No snacks. Meals only. Do you want to see the menu? Hamburger, perhaps, or a steak to accompany Madame Courtenay?’

  Kurtiz shook her head, glanced at her watch: 8.49 p.m. She was doing a quick mental calculation, working out the time the concert might finish. No text from Oliver. Was he with Lizzie right now? Bright-eyed Lizzie, was she happy to see him?

  Eight or nine youngsters burst through the door, exuberant, carefree and boisterous.

  The actress had been talking. Kurtiz had not heard a word.

  ‘Is that the name of the concert hall, where your husband and daughter are now? It’s really the only one within this vicinity.’ Marguerite Courtenay frowned, trying to recall. ‘No, there’s no other. Who is playing there tonight? Not that I would know one rock group from another.’

  ‘Sorry, are you speaking to me?’ Kurtiz raised her voice. ‘It’s getting pretty noisy in here.’ Not exactly conducive to conversation.

  The actress was talking again. To Kurtiz or herself? Either way, Kurtiz had to strain to catch any word at all.

  ‘It used to be a cinema before it was turned into a concert hall.’ The old lady threw back her head and laughed. Her face creased with delight. ‘I worked there. Oh, for a very short while. Days, weeks. I don’t remember. They sacked me. After the war. It was a cinema … ooh, right up until the fifties or sixties, I believe. Until 1969. I met my first husband there. The Englishman. The one I was telling you about. He came to see a film. I was in a terrible fix and he helped me out. Such a sweet person, he was. The perfect gentleman. Who could have known where that would lead? He was always so very generous.’

  ‘Forgive me, but your steak and frites are getting cold.’

  ‘I’m not hungry, dear. I never touch the meals they serve me. Even in my younger days I wouldn’t have tucked into such a substantial plate. I have spent my life watching my figure, making efforts to take good care of myself. I come here for the company, to enjoy good conversation such as the one we’re having now, and a drink or two before bedtime.’

  The din in the bistro was notching up decibels. Added to which, canned music was now blasting out of the invisible speakers, violin and piano swing. Stéphane Grappelli? Neo bossa nova? ‘How High The Moon’? Impossible to identify it. Toes were tapping. Bodies jigging as their owners talked, yelled, watched the game. One party after another of young folk, breasting the cold night air, pushed through the door, squealing, squawking, hallooing as they recognized mates, colleagues, scrambling and shoving good-naturedly for bar space, calling for beers, shots, bottles of wine. Such fresh young faces rouged by the cold November air, energized by life. Paris gearing up for its weekend.

  Might any of these youngsters have come across Lizzie? Ridiculous. It was rather like asking a Londoner if he had met the Queen.

  Kurtiz closed her book. She had time to kill and the old woman seemed hell-bent on conversation. She caught only one word out of every three but she might as well indulge her, hear her story. Pass the time. It was not yet nine. A noise rose from a table of men. Still no score. They were berating the screen, fists clenched above their heads – reminiscent of a Russian Communist poster from the past. The young English couple, honeymooners perhaps, were huddled close at a small table by the window, having vacated the bar. Enclosed in a world that excluded all others, they were sharing a plate of frites and the magret avec miel, feeding chips to one another, laughing, making plans, relishing the prospect of a promising future.

  ‘It was 1946. No, wait, I think it might have been ’forty-seven. Yes, it was March 1947. My, such a distance in time. Over half a century ago. I was eighteen, broke, hungry and just a little desperate. I had arranged a screen test in Nice at the Victorine Studios. Have you ever worked on those lots? It’s all wound down now, I hear. They shoot commercials there now. Japanese clients filming sports cars speeding along the Haute Corniche. It’s all very scenic but it’s not cinema. In my day, it was epic moving pictures. Sound had come in, colour images too. There was no going back to the silent era. It was such a thrilling, innovative time. The beginning of France’s Thirty Glorious Years. The film sets were extravagant, costumes opulent, scripts gritty. Some of the greatest films of French cinema were shot at the Victorine, and, without wishing to blow my own trumpet, I played in one or two of them. Cameos, of course, modest roles.’

  Kurtiz was already lost, captivated by her companion’s post-war world.

  ‘But, first, I had to make my way from Paris to Nice and I didn’t have the price of the train, not even in third class. I persuaded Charlie to lend me the few paltry francs for the ticket. He invited himself along for the ride. Without being aware of it at the time, dear sweet Charlie changed the course of my life. He changed his own life too. It is hard to describe to you now, after half a century of peace, the wounds, the damage we were all suffering, the scars we were hiding. Some of us had lost family. Some fled, never to return. We were both on a one-way ticket to freedom.’ Head turned upwards, the old woman’s lilac eyes lit up, gleaming. She might have been eighteen all over again.

  Marguerite and Charlie, Paris, March 1947

  The film Charlie Gilliard had sat through had been an ill-considered choice. Its quality could not be faulted. It was the subject matter, the story, that had rattled him. Members of the armed forces returning to the United States after active war service. The warm embrace of families. He needed a stiff drink and fresh air. He paused for a moment in the foyer to steady himself and shrug on his jacket.

  ‘You all right, mister? Want a beaker of water?’

  He swung round. The cinema had been completely empty. It was the neat-looking blonde. She was locking the door that led from the ticket booth, slipping the key into the pocket of her mackintosh. A slender creature, she turned to him with an expression of concern. She reminded him of a lighter-haired incarnation of the movie star Loretta Young, with her shoulder-length curls rolled into ringlets – and what about those rather startling purple-blue eyes? Large, round peepers, quite out of proportion to the rest of the features in her delicate, fawn-like face.

  ‘Jeepers Creepers’ …

  He was humming a well-known melody to himself, waiting where he was, appreciating the blonde’s hip-swinging gait. The curves and indentations of her young body. A rather sexy body. He lowered his gaze, fearing to expose his vulnerability, his loneliness. ‘It’s a little stuffy in there,’ he lied.

  ‘There’s a café down the road. I know the proprietor well. He’ll give you a glass of water if you need one. Or a lemonade.’

  A lemonade! It was a shot Charlie needed. ‘Let me invite you for a drink.’ He smiled, experiencing the rare sensation of his face muscles wrinkling with pleasure, knowing he shouldn’t get involved, chastising himself silently as she stepped towards him and he inhaled her ferny perfume. He felt his emotions caving in. All of a sudden, and with a certain desperation, he was craving the proximity of her, her female companionship, her long strands of hair against his face. ‘I’ll buy you a lemonade for your kindness. And take you dancing if you like.’

  She was squarely in front of him now, a foot shorter than he was, gazing up at him with concern. He was momentarily confused. The haunting blue lights began to flash again. No, not lights – stay in the present – eyes: the girl’s beautiful, penetrating eyes.

  ‘I ought to be hurrying back for my tea,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to be here on duty again in half an hour. The boss owes me money. Today’s my last day. He fired me. The bloody merde. And I want my wages.’

  ‘One quick glass, go on. After, I can walk you back here, if that would make you feel safer. Sorry to hear you got the
push.’

  She hesitated, knocked sideways by his good manners. ‘You’re very pale. I don’t want you throwing up over this carpet and getting me into more trouble. Can you credit it? This moth-eaten, pre-war bit of old rug, and he’s made such a song and dance about it! Still, the old grouser can’t sack me twice. Come on then, let’s go.’

  Charlie ordered whisky and water, no ice, and downed it in one slug. She had a cup of tea, which she slurped thirstily, and a double helping of tarte aux pomme, which she gobbled down in a matter of mouthfuls. He recalled the gannets over the Kentish coast and chortled silently. Her name, she told him, was Marguerite Anceaume. ‘Marguerite with one T,’ she insisted. Marguerite was not a Parisian by birth. She hailed from further north. ‘My parents have a village store west of Reims. My father bakes bread and croissants while my mother takes charge of the cashbox. Not a bad little business. But … but … well, I’ve got dreams,’ she confided. ‘I’m just waiting to get paid, then I’ll be on my way. You don’t talk much, do you? Where are you from?’ she encouraged, staring at him with her wide, earnest eyes, conscious of his silence.

  He hadn’t proffered his name, hadn’t revealed anything about himself, as was his habit. To the people of the night, to the whores and the pimps, the dancing girls, he’d had no qualms about inventing stories, a distinguished past, but this girl was as fresh as a buttercup. He smiled to himself, then almost wept at the stab of pain in his gut. He was remembering his nan holding a buttercup beneath his chin.

  ‘Are you listening? I’ve got to go.’ She rose to her feet, knotted tight the belt of her drab raincoat and pulled up its collar. Even in her lacklustre clothing she was stylish.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Never ask a lady her age.’ She giggled flirtatiously. It had the effect of making her seem even younger, ever more waif-like. He debated in his head whether she might be little more than an adolescent, certainly younger than he had initially estimated. Better to keep his distance, not get involved. He didn’t need trouble but, my, she was a pretty, jaunty thing. He wanted to hold her, embrace her.

  ‘Can I see you again?’ he heard himself asking, still marvelling at her eyes, the largest eyes he’d ever seen. Big lilac globes planted in such a delicate face. Everything about the make-up of her features was irregular. It shouldn’t work and yet it did. She was more than pretty: she was really quite beautiful.

  ‘I don’t even know your name.’

  He hesitated. ‘It’s Charles. Most call me Charlie. Je suis Charlie.’

  ‘You English, then?’

  He nodded. ‘Come dancing with me later. We can go to a club, listen to some jazz. Do you know be-bop?’

  She furrowed her brow, glancing at a clock set high on the wall above the bar.

  ‘I’d get you home safely. No pranks.’

  She was gazing hard at him. It was rare to meet someone with such a gentle approach. She’d never been to a club, never been invited to go dancing. Pity she hadn’t met this fellow sooner. All these miserable months alone in Paris.

  The way he was looking at her.

  She took a deep breath. ‘No, no, sorry, I’ve got to get back. I need my wages so I can pay my digs and collect my stuff. The landlord of the pension where I’m staying has snatched my case with all my clothes, keeping hold of it, he says, till he gets his wretched pittance. I’m leaving Paris tomorrow evening.’

  ‘Leaving Paris?’ Charlie felt an unexpected tug of loss, of sadness. Unplugged. He was losing her. It wrenched at his throat, like a noose tightening.

  She nodded and tossed her head. ‘Heading off by train from the Gare de Lyon. I’ll be on that overnight fancy blue train to the sunshine tomorrow, Charlie. The French Riviera, imagine it, where all the movie stars take their vacation. I’m going to Nice. I’ve got work there. Nice meeting you, Charlie. Thanks for the tea and cake.’ And with that she was gone, waving as she strutted away to the corpulent bartender behind the counter who was buffing wine glasses with a checked tea towel.

  Charlie stared at the closing door. He shivered at the sudden chill in the air and called for another whisky, pulled his newspaper from his pocket and wondered, besides getting drunk, what he would do with the evening that yawned before him. His loneliness gnawed at his heart, turned his stomach into an iron bar. For one brief half-hour, a warmth, a pleasing light had crept into those dark chambers within him and he had felt almost carefree. Perhaps it was time for him to leave Paris too. Ride along with Lilac Eyes. Jeepers creepers, he hadn’t felt so attracted to a girl in a long while, not since dear Doris Sprigley.

  Towards the first light of dawn, when Charlie returned to his digs at number nine after meandering for hours alongside the Seine, he clocked through the cracks in the shutters that a light was on in his flat. He crossed the street. A habitual caution always led him to glance upwards. A front bulb was burning. In the bedroom. Heart knocking, he slipped down the alley by the side of the building and tried to assess the place from where the dustbins were stored, but the building was too high and the yard lacked depth, no matter how he craned and twisted his neck. His few belongings were tucked away in a bag at the back of the mahogany armoire in the spare bedroom. No article of his was ever left lying about, a precaution he’d taken from his very first encroachment. He made his way stealthily up the back stairs, the service entrance – which he had habitually used – and approached his front door. His, Madame Friedlander’s, was the only apartment on the top floor. The attic space was included with her rental. Had he been so careless as to leave a light on? Surely not. The shutters had remained closed since the genuine occupant had departed and he seldom, if ever, had switched on a light. On the rare occasions when he had been home at night, he had survived by the crepuscular glow of candles.

  He pressed his ear against the door, straining for sounds, movement. All was still. Sweat was prickling his forehead. His identity papers were in the jacket he was wearing. Instinctively, his left hand pressed the pocket to confirm this. Had Madame returned at last? If he turned the lock and crept inside would he find her sleeping, at peace in her own heavy wooden bed, content to be surrounded by her possessions? His watch read 4 a.m. Five minutes passed. He had been gone since before noon. A floorboard creaked and his heart took a dive. He should disappear, leave his small bag of belongings and slip away from here. His money, his stashed cash, was buried beneath a floorboard under a rug in the unused box room. It was the sum total of his assets, everything to see him through the next couple of years until he created a new, honest existence for himself. There was no way he could walk away from it. He had gambled imprisonment to earn that handsome wad of francs, accumulating those notes like a miser over the past five years. Coughing from within the apartment caused him to stiffen. What was he to do? If no one knew of the woman’s presence in the city … Sickness swirled within him. He was no more capable of threatening or distressing her than of … what?

  Six years ago he had been a decent, loyal young serviceman. Before the war, he wouldn’t have lifted his finger to harm a butterfly. Now, he was a man without a past on the run.

  The coughing ceased. Heavy footsteps crossed the parquet flooring in the hallway, shuffling their way towards … Towards the kitchen. The familiar squeaking rotation of the cold tap with the worn washer he had never fixed for fear of giving away his presence. Water began to splash. If he turned the handle and entered now, right now, might he make it to the spare room across the hallway without her hearing him? The rush of running water, a susurration camouflaging his movements. Could he occupy that space for a short while, lift out his money, his bits and pieces – even his toothbrush was carefully stowed away each time he went out – work in the darkness? He knew the layout of the room sufficiently well. Then, when she was sleeping soundly, he could steal out again. How high the risk? What if she woke, heard him and started screaming?

  How much cash remained in his pockets? With his false papers he could check into a nearby pension, return in the morning, wai
t until Madame Friedlander went out, then collect his gear. What were the odds she’d find proof of his presence before he returned to remove everything? He was mildly drunk. His head ached, thick with exhaustion, befuddled by too much whisky and a heart that felt weary. This was not clear thinking. A few hours’ sleep, a few hours’ delay would make little difference. The odds were he would achieve his goal more swiftly, with less jeopardy. He heard shuffling back along the hallway. She was just a few feet from where he was standing. One oak door was all that separated them.

  Charlie stepped back a metre or two, lingering, procrastinating, eyes still fixed tightly on the door – he must reclaim his stashed cash at all costs – then slowly, almost in one springing motion, he swung to the left and descended the stairs.

  Beyond the building, daylight was breaking.

  Any hotel clerk worth his salt might judge it odd, suspicious, that a man with no luggage and little loose change was checking into a hotel at this hour in the morning. Better to proceed with caution. He would walk to Les Halles where the market traders and stallholders would be busy setting up for their day’s merchandising. Plenty of cafés and bars would already be open in that district. He’d get some breakfast while weighing up his options. The city by night, by dawn, was a familiar and healing landscape, a salve to him. He had become an animal of the night, a hunter. Breaking into a trot, he decided upon coffee, thickly buttered sticks of warm bread, a large slab of strong hard cheese and a carafe of rouge at Au Pied de Cochon in rue Coquillière. He needed cigarettes too. Later, when the light returned, he would face the challenge of breaking and entering into his erstwhile domicile to steal back his possessions.

  Paris, November 2015

  There had still been no word from Oliver. Kurtiz had been listening, with only a fraction of her attention and without interruption while the lilac-eyed diva recounted her story, or the fragments she could remember. Kurtiz watched the old girl sift through her rusty memories, as though drawing towards her boxes of fragile souvenirs, opening the damaged treasures stored in corners, delighted to rediscover her lost past. Until, midstream, she stood up unexpectedly from her table, tugged at her sleeping dog, and wished her new companion a good night.