The Lost Girl

by Carol Drinkwater

  She would never go back, not until her name was in lights.

  In the midst of her recollections, she spotted a sandy-haired young fellow whose face was vaguely familiar. He was giving her the eye, a bit of a come-hither look, grinning, amused by her. She frowned. What the devil was so funny? Did she know him? If so, from where? She turned her attention in another direction, hoping he would go away. What was he staring at? She needed to concentrate on finding someone who would lend her some money.

  ‘I could stand you a sandwich and a beer, if you like? Why not join me?’

  Charlie was leaning over her, his travel bag on his arm. He had addressed her in impressive French, but something in his accent or his manner suggested that he was a foreigner. Lord, of course! He was the rather engaging customer from the Bataclan picture house, who’d bought her a cup of tea and some cake. The last time she’d eaten, except for the bread. She rubbed at her face and hair hoping she did not look too frightful.

  ‘I am not in need of a sandwich, thank you very much. I have just dined in the very fine station buffet over there.’ She looked him in the face and saw that he was a great deal older than she. Twenty-six, or -seven.

  ‘Dined?’ He grinned again. ‘Do you call filching a stick of baguette “dining”?’

  ‘Such impudence. Are you accusing me of stealing? Be on your way.’ Hoity-toity manner, crossing one leg over the other.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you, keeping an eye open for you.’ He spoke with an intensity that turned her attention. ‘We met yesterday,’ he persisted.

  ‘Yes, I remember. What do you want?’

  ‘You are beautiful.’ He sat himself down on Marguerite’s bench and gazed at her.

  ‘Please go.’ She turned her face away from him and shunted herself further along the wooden seat. ‘I can’t sit and talk to you now. I’m busy.’

  ‘You appear to be in trouble.’

  She bit her lip.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I told you yesterday, I’m going south.’

  ‘But you haven’t boarded any train.’

  ‘Well, neither have you! I’m going to Nice. I’m in the movies. Now go away, please.’

  ‘Would you like a beer?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ It was the sandwich she craved. She glanced at the station clock again. Two minutes to four. Three hours were all that remained to purchase herself a ticket and get on board. She must find someone who would buy it for her. She lifted her gaze towards the young man at her side and softened her expression, fluttering her eyelids. ‘You’re too young to be rich, but perhaps you have a few francs to spare?’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘I can afford to eat and I usually have a bed to sleep in.’

  ‘I am not looking for a bed, and don’t you go getting fancy ideas!’ She swung her body back towards him and looked him full in the face. His grey-green eyes seemed kindly enough, although who could say in this city of chancers? His chin was stubbly, as though he had forgotten to shave. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I told you yesterday – Charlie. And you are Marguerite, yes?’

  Marguerite was taken aback that he had remembered. ‘That’s right. Very well then, thank you, Charlie. I will accept a beer on the condition that you go on your way afterwards because I need to give my urgent attention to a little business matter.’

  Charlie led her across the street, where they entered a brasserie. It was packed and noisy, fuggy with smoke. Toulouse-Lautrec posters on the walls. Cheery accordion music drowned the chatter.

  ‘You were at the pictures yesterday, weren’t you? So you must enjoy cinema, the silver screen? Unless you’re one of those who goes in there to sleep and keep warm.’

  ‘You should be in films, you’re so pretty.’

  ‘Oh, do you really think so? Well, I am an actress.’

  Their beers arrived. Marguerite emptied hers fast and felt instantly – not quite drunk but woozier, even more lightheaded than before.

  ‘Do you want another?’

  She shook her head. She had to keep her wits about her.

  ‘Something to eat? Oysters, what would you say to oysters?’ He was laughing.

  ‘Oysters! Ooh, yes. As it happens, I am very fond of oysters.’

  Charlie beckoned to the waiter and ordered two plates of a dozen each.

  Marguerite studied the young man opposite her who seemed so civilized, so well-bred. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t bear to be humiliated, ridiculed again, especially by one so handsome, but who else was left to ask? ‘I’m in a spot of trouble. Only temporarily mind.’

  He sipped his beer.

  ‘Do you think you could … might you be able to lend me the price of a ticket on tonight’s express to Nice? I have a job waiting for me there and I can send you back the money next week as soon as I’m paid my first wage.’

  He did not reply but seemed to be thinking it over. Hope rose like a new day within her.

  ‘I lost my purse, you see. Well, not lost. It was … stolen and –’ Her hand was in the dish of bread even before the waiter had placed it on the table. She was eating and talking at the same time, blithely unaware of her coarse manners.

  ‘How old are you?’ quizzed Charlie, watching the movement of her full mouth, those rosebud lips. He waited.

  ‘Twenty,’ she lied, ‘and you?’

  The oysters arrived. Marguerite picked up the first from her plate and, following the example of the horrid old man in the astrakhan coat – what a queer one he was – she slurped and sucked as hard as she could, almost choking on the slippery mollusc as it slid down her throat. ‘Ooh, goodness me. Very salty, but delicious.’ Her eyes were watering. ‘I do so love oysters, don’t you? Might I have another beer?’

  They ate their oysters happily, although Marguerite was growing anxious. Charlie hadn’t given her an answer yet. She scanned the room for a clock. ‘I mustn’t miss my train. What do you say for the ticket? My watch was stolen along with my purse or I would have left it with you as a guarantee, so to speak.’ She blushed beneath his penetrating gaze.

  ‘Why don’t I buy two tickets?’

  ‘But I am not coming back!’

  ‘Two singles. I could travel with you.’

  ‘To Nice?’

  ‘Why not?’

  She was mulling it over, stuffing her face with food, gulping more beer, governed by the hands of time marching onwards. ‘You can’t hang around with me, you understand that, don’t you? I’ve a job waiting for me. At the Victorine Studios. No doubt you’ve heard of it. It’s the Hollywood of the South of France.’ Her voice seemed to rise an octave as she pronounced the word ‘Hollywood’, as though she were singing. Singing its praises, singing her dreams.

  Charlie was silent, considering his choices. He was indeed attracted to the crazy, half-starved feral with her bright lilac-blue eyes. And what had he got to lose? It would be judicious to leave Paris, sooner rather than later, prudent to move on, and in the company of a woman was even smarter. ‘I have friends who live near Nice. Usually I spend a few weeks of my summer vacationing with them but what with the war and all …’ Charlie blagued, crossing his fingers beneath the table as he did so.

  Marguerite fixed him with an incredulous gaze. ‘You have friends near Nice? Whereabouts?’ She didn’t know a soul in the south. Might this be a bed, a place to store her belongings until she was settled?

  ‘Cannes. In fact, I had been mulling over their invitation.’

  The idea of this Englishman tagging along did not appeal to Marguerite Anceaume, even if he was ever so debonair, but what other possibilities were available to her? None. She was out of alternatives. Her two previous screen tests, both of which had been at the Studios de Billancourt outside Paris, had not been successes. Neither director had spotted her evident talents, in spite of the acting classes she had worked hard to pay for. She had been too nervous, too unsure of herself. Consequently, her comportment in front of the camera had been stilted; the words
spoken had sounded laborious, without fluidity.

  ‘You lack the quintessential ingredient, the magic, the charisma required for stardom.’ The damning words; the director’s summing up of her test.

  Flabbergasted, she’d listened to his comment, staring numbly as he’d turned his back on her and strode away. She’d bitten back the rejection. Steeled herself. What did he know? Who’d ever heard of him? She couldn’t even remember his stupid name. In Nice she would do better. She knew the ropes now, understood more precisely what was expected of her. She had hung around outside several film sets at Épinay-sur-Seine, watching other actresses at work, peeping from the sidelines in the hope of being contracted for a cameo, but nothing except several walk-on parts had come of it. Her paltry savings had been consumed. Her cashier’s job at the cinema had not worked out … The fact was, she was in a right pickle. Her future did not lie in Paris. In Nice it would be rosier. It had to be, and she was more practised now. She was almost a professional.

  But she would be nothing if she didn’t get to the south. René Clément was to direct a picture there soon. Merle Oberon had been hired as an extra at those very same studios before the war and see to what heights she had risen. Once Marguerite reached Nice, everything would change. Opportunity would shake her hand and beckon her onwards.

  ‘It would be a pity for you not to say hello to your friends, and if you really could lend me the price of that ticket … What do you say? A loan, mind you, I wouldn’t dream of not paying you back. Cross my heart on it.’ Marguerite smiled warmly at Charlie and he melted at the delicacy of her features, the sad simplicity of her clothes, her bitten nails and air of desperation. A state he was all too familiar with.

  ‘You finish your meal and I’ll go and buy the tickets.’

  ‘No, wait!’

  He stopped in his tracks.

  ‘I’m coming with you.’ She dared not let this opportunity out of her sight. Charlie, this handsome freckle-faced Englishman who spoke surprisingly good French with a delicious accent, was to be the gateway to her future.

  The train standing on platform four was awaiting departure to the south. Directly after the Second World War, the carriages of the blue train, officially named Le Train Bleu in 1949, were a lot less fancy than they had been during the golden years of the twenties and early thirties when, in first class only, it had ferried the rich and famous up and down the country. Certainly, where Marguerite was settled in a third-class carriage, it was all a bit shabby, no frills, rather basic, not that she was complaining. She was over the moon to be on board with a bona fide ticket, firmly tucked up in her seat, hat off, raincoat folded, bag slipped neatly beneath her soiled swollen feet, bound for the Côte d’Azur.

  But where was Charlie? Had he decided at the last minute against accompanying her on this grand journey? She hoped not. He seemed like a decent man and he knew the south. Perhaps he’d take pity on her and offer her lodging with him and his friends. And then she caught sight of him through the grimy window, running, laden, arriving with his case and other parcels, out of breath. And her heart lifted.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ she cried, unexpectedly relieved.

  ‘I gave you your ticket. What were you worrying about?’

  ‘But what took you so long?’ Her stomach had been in a knot. She had not understood how much she hoped he would return. When had she last been in the company of someone who treated her with respect? Life in the capital had been grim. Suddenly, Charlie’s proximity was a ray of sunshine.

  ‘I went to find an evening newspaper and I bought us some sandwiches and a few beers. Look, I have plenty of provisions. We won’t starve.’

  She wanted to ask him more about his friends and their villa, but decided against it. She was getting carried away. She mustn’t count on him or she would open herself up to further rejection, to being hurt again. Better, once they arrived, to give Charlie the slip. She couldn’t allow him to hinder her career, to become entangled in her life. She had to think of herself, only herself, and her future. However, if he should offer her a room, just for a few nights … She yawned. Her feet were throbbing and she was worn out.

  ‘Take my coat, why don’t you? Use it as a pillow.’

  She lifted her head drowsily while Charlie slipped the coat between the seat and her curls. She was exhausted but her tribulations, her gruelling days of hunger and anonymity, would soon be behind her. Nothing but a distant memory. Fame and acclaim awaited her.

  The train was pulling out. Finally, at last, Marguerite Anceaume was on her way, climbing the pathway to stardom. She watched the rooftops and sooty chimney stacks of Paris disappear behind her, then closed her eyes to sleep for a while, secure in the company of the nice young man.

  Paris, November 2015

  Marguerite was sitting in her mink and outdoor shoes, fixated by the images being screened on France 3, an édition spéciale. It was informing the nation that residents of Saint-Denis, a suburb on the outskirts of Paris, were being evacuated. Not all residents but those inhabiting streets abutting the Stade de France, the football stadium where the nation’s team, Les Bleus, had been playing a friendly game against Germany. Many of the spectators from the match were still on the pitch, eyes trained upwards to the floodlit sky, as though anticipating visitors from outer space, ears tuned to the loudspeakers, awaiting instructions. Three suicide bombers had blown themselves up outside the stadium, killing one person, as yet unidentified.

  Among the kerfuffle and the distressing news, and the dog’s incessant, restless yapping, Marguerite’s hearing took time to tune into the fact that her doorbell was buzzing. Short strident bursts. Urgent.

  ‘Who could it be at this hour?’ she asked aloud, clutching at the chair’s embroidered covers. The police or fire brigade? They will attempt to evacuate me, but I have nowhere to go. The doorbell’s non-stop burring sent the dog into a hysterical fit of desperate growling.

  ‘Stop it, arrêt maintenant, Lola,’ Marguerite snapped irritably. ‘Let me think.’

  Its tail cocked in the air, the Maltese began whining, unsettled by the tone of its mistress’s command.

  Marguerite’s hands were trembling. She couldn’t lift herself from the seat.

  Why can’t they leave me here? I would rather die in my own home than be shunted about by strangers. Homeless again.

  She was affronted by noise. It was becoming insufferable. Paris under fire, under siege, yet still no mention of the horrors below in her own street. It was unthinkable. A nightmare of the worst kind. Others could take comfort in loved ones but to whom would she turn, and where to go? Eventually, if for no other reason than to put a stop to the commotion, she struggled to the door and pressed the intercom.

  ‘Oui?’ Her voice was croaky.

  ‘Madame Courtenay?’ An unidentified female enquiring.

  ‘This is Madame Courtenay. Who are you?’

  ‘It’s Kurtiz Ross.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘We sat alongside one another at L’Armagnac this evening.’

  ‘Oh, yes, my dear, so we did. I was concerned about you.’ And a frown crossed her aged features. ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt? Come up. Why don’t you come up?’

  ‘There has been an attack.’

  ‘Yes, I kn-know.’ An attack, but where? Downstairs or elsewhere? She was quite unsure what information she had gleaned. But none of it was good. ‘I was going to take the lift down and look for you. I was putting on my shoes. Or do you want to come up? I’m on the second floor.’

  ‘Merci, Madame. I won’t, thank you. People need help here. I wanted to reassure myself that you are safe. Have a good night and forgive me if I woke you.’

  ‘Woke me? Goodness, no. I was on my way down. I was coming to look for you. To tell you –’

  ‘Sleep well, Madame. Apologies once again for waking you.’

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ The intercom was silent. There was no one there.

  Below, at street level, lights were flashi
ng, pin-balling, spinning in every direction. A caravan of vehicles had slowed to a standstill, doors flung open. Orderlies, paramedics, nurses with transfusion units climbed in and out of ambulances. Burly men loaded with vests of ammunition paced to and fro. A ladder was propped against a wall, giving access to nowhere. People stood alone or in groups. The mood was subdued, intent, single-minded, outraged. Within an hour, everything had altered. The city had changed its face, turned it towards the darkness. It was numbed by the Armageddon that had taken it by the throat. It was ignorant of the facts, the many pieces that had not yet fully fallen into place.

  Kurtiz spun about her, snapped a few shots. She listened to the city. This was war. She recognized it, the sick-sweet odour of death. And her daughter, her estranged husband were out there somewhere in the fray.

  Kurtiz, Jerusalem, July 2011

  Kurtiz was woken by the phone bursting into life. She opened one eye. Overhead, the creak of the aged fan was spinning in uncertain circles. From beyond the small open window, beyond her cramped first-floor room, with its jumble of dark hardwood furniture, and multi-pigmented carpets hanging from the walls, joyous laughter exploded in the gardens below. Music was playing, Palestinian instrumental music, like the soft clop of horses on cobblestones. She left the phone to ring. Her eyelids closed heavily, drowsily, without returning to sleep. It was bound to have been Alex. Her body stretched instinctively at her mental pictures of him. She glanced at her wristwatch before her arm flopped back against the flimsy bedding. It was ten past eight. She should get up, grab some dinner, put in a couple of hours’ work editing the photographs she had downloaded that afternoon. Send Oliver and Lizzie a message, then get some real sleep. She, along with the crew, would be heading off into the mountains before first light.