The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris

by Natalie Meg Evans

  The first band took to the stage to the sound of applause. When Julie started clapping. Coralie shushed her crossly. ‘Remember whose side you’re on.’ But Julie just smiled. She looked lovely, Coralie admitted, a spray of silk flowers in her brown hair, a butterfly perched over the largest bloom. Coralie had made the decoration for her, shamelessly stealing Henriette Junot’s wiring technique. Una had lent Julie a peach-pink dress, one of the coloured ones she bought each season and never wore.

  When Coralie asked why she did that, Una had given a genuinely bemused shrug. ‘You know how some people steal from stores and can’t stop themselves? I love every dress I see and I have to have it. Oh, I pay. Or, rather, Mr Kilpin, from whom I wrestle a monthly dress allowance, pays, but the moment colour touches my skin, I feel I’ve rubbed myself with poison ivy. If you can explain my neurosis, you’re worth a hundred dollars an hour.’

  Coralie wasn’t sure how much she was worth. She’d been cutting silk all week, and stitching till her eyes crossed. The eight other girls in her party, midinettes from Henriette Junot, all wore a ‘cache-misère’ – a silk turban drizzled with tassels, beads and feathers. Seated across three tables, sipping champagne provided by the elderly gallants Teddy Clisson had brought along, they looked like so many Queens of Sheba. Or perhaps Princesses was nearer the mark. Coralie fully intended to be the queen of the evening.

  Her own evening dress of ivory bias-cut silk was one that Dietrich had bought her. A little old-fashioned now, she’d added gold vermicelli to the hips, giving it a touch of Mata Hari. And she’d made herself a hat, a real stunner.

  Before Henriette sacked her, she’d taken home a couple of top-hat and brim blocks to practise on. Handcrafted from poplar wood, they went some way to make up for the commission Henriette had cheated from her. She’d made herself a top hat for tonight. Silk plush being beyond her skills and her purse, she’d used buckram, a linen cloth impregnated with starch. Once blocked and dry, it kept its shape and she’d reinforced it with cotton-covered wire. She’d painted the hat with rabbit glue and, finally, gold leaf. Burnished with a squirrel-tail brush, peppered with gold lamé roses and butterflies, it shone like a Byzantine crown. If gold leaf brought a blast of her father back to her, she could ignore that. And with her hair a cascade of fat curls, Coralie reckoned she looked all right.

  Una certainly thought so. ‘I’m going to buy that hat right now,’ she said, opening her purse.

  ‘It won’t fit you and, anyway, this is my calling card and I want people to look at my head, not yours.’ Leaning close to Una, Coralie shared her long-held hopes of acquiring La Passerinette.

  Una made a face. ‘Don’t. It’s not worth anything. Sure, take on the lease and buy the stock, but there’s no goodwill left there. That awful girl has seen everybody off.’

  ‘Violaine? It’s not her fault.’

  ‘Lorienne. Last time I was there, she snicked me with her nails. And all those peach hats in the window. Would she sell me one?’

  ‘You don’t wear peach.’

  ‘That’s not the point. And it’s not fair that you didn’t make me a hat for tonight.’

  ‘It’s a punishment because you still buy from Henriette.’

  ‘I’ll defect, I promise. Give me yours.’

  ‘Gold isn’t your colour.’

  ‘Sure it’s my colour. Gold is only beige with ambition. Oh, you’re too mean.’

  A new band was on the stage, their matching white suits complementing Mediterranean complexions. ‘Come on, let’s shake a leg,’ Coralie said. ‘I didn’t come here to sit on a chair all night.’

  ‘Won’t your husband dance with you?’ Una injected a shot of malice.

  ‘Ramon’s keeping an eye on Julie. The boys are fearful she’ll get corrupted. Haven’t you noticed Florian’s sweet on her?’

  ‘And he trusts Ramon?’

  Going up to Teddy, Coralie held out her hand. ‘Ladies’ excuse me. If you don’t dance, your legs will go to sleep.’

  Teddy cocked an ear. ‘I hear no music.’

  ‘I know. If those boys don’t blow one end of their instruments soon, they’ll be thrown out and the next lot put up. All the better for our Vagabonds, eh?’

  The music did start eventually, like a locomotive grinding out of a station. Performing a sedate two-step with Teddy, Coralie shared with him her conviction that the musicians were a bunch of Corsican bandits.

  ‘Indeed they are.’ Teddy indicated a second group of swarthy men lined up in front of the baize curtains that stopped light seeping up the stairs and violating the blackout. Wide-shouldered and wide-trousered, they were staring hard at the stage. ‘Black-marketeers from Marseille,’ Teddy whispered into her ear. ‘A turf war’s broken out and they’re trying to take over here. No, don’t stare. They’re shy and have guns in their pockets. The band are their creatures. They will win, by the way.’

  Coralie wailed, ‘Our boys don’t have a chance?’

  ‘About as much chance as me throwing you over my shoulder while performing a knees-bent shimmy.’

  ‘I was up three nights sewing their costumes.’

  ‘The world never was fair, my dear, and now it’s less fair.’

  Arkady’s Vagabonds of Swing were the last on the bill, and by the time they stepped up to play, people were leaving, including performers and their supporters, as if they’d also heard the game was up. Arkady threw a fatalistic glance and Coralie sent an encouraging one back. The club wasn’t empty by any means. People had walked a long way in the dark to hear music and dance. They would dance.

  Arkady’s boys – Florian and two recruits, a Spaniard and a Portuguese – had rehearsed a set designed to get people on their feet. They were worth a second look too, in their red and white costumes. ‘Come on, girls.’ Coralie beckoned to her crowd. ‘Grab a partner and get ready to shout.’

  The first song was a slow lament for lost love: ‘Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir’. Arkady and Florian hadn’t wanted to play popular tunes but Coralie had been blunt. ‘Gather together everyone in Paris who wants to hear Hungarian mazurkas all evening, and you’ll be playing to fresh air. People want the music they hear at the films, on the radio, at the Casino de Paris. Give it a Romany twist and you’ve got something different.’

  The Spanish guitarist provided the melody. The dulcimer added a silvery resonance, the Portuguese double-bass player gave the rhythm, while Arkady’s violin swooped and sobbed. At the end, there was strong applause. Then the Corsicans moved forward. ‘Keep playing!’ Coralie shouted, through cupped hands, and Arkady swung into Fats Waller’s ‘This Joint Is Jumping’. There was a rush for the dance floor. Dezi Rice, with whom Coralie had Lindyhopped all that time ago, grabbed her hand. ‘Does that hat stay on?’

  ‘If it doesn’t, don’t you stand on it!’ She and Dezi danced directly beneath the main light, an art-deco extravaganza of pink glass that had been the proprietor, Serge Martel’s, parting touch before a police wagon had taken him away. A rose motif shone down on them and as they danced in and out of its shadow, their shapes flickered like a speeded-up film.

  Coralie was back in the canteen at Pettrew’s, kicking up her feet. She danced on after Dezi stopped – until she saw what was troubling him. The Corsican musicians were trying to get back onstage. Their gangster friends, family, whatever they were, had formed a line behind them. Arkady was oblivious, as he always was when he was playing. Florian had seen the danger, though, and so had the guitarist. The bass-player had also stopped, but his gaze was on the stairs.

  What the devil? The baize curtains were bulging open to admit a platoon of soldiers. Moss-green uniforms, patch pockets, black berets.

  ‘English Tommies!’ Dezi whistled through his fingers to attract their attention.

  Twenty or so Tommies stared around as if they’d stumbled into Fairyland. ‘Have the British invaded?’ Coralie asked.

 
; ‘They’re stationed in Normandy, along the Belgian border, but they’re let out occasionally. They’ll be on a three-day pass. Lock up your daughters.’ Dezi laughed.

  Félix Peyron was greeting the newcomers cautiously. Working out how much champagne they’d drink, Coralie reckoned, and getting his disappointment over with early. The girls in the club were more enthusiastic. They peeled away from the sides, heading for the boys. As Félix and his staff set up new tables, Coralie noticed a smattering of slate-blue uniforms among the green.

  ‘Royal Air Force,’ Dezi told her. ‘No. 1 Group, stationed near Reims.’

  ‘Are you a spy or something?’

  ‘I was there a couple of weeks ago, playing a morale-booster concert, and I met some of the lads after hours. Bomber crews, mostly, attached to the Expeditionary Force.’

  Coralie didn’t know whether to be glad to see them or not. They looked so foreign. After two and a half years in Paris, she’d got used to French colouring. Apart from a few dark heads, the Englishmen all seemed mousy or ginger. The Corsicans had stopped their assault on the stage and were eyeballing them.

  Blood and teeth before the night’s over, Coralie predicted. She ought to warn the Tommies, though the RAF boys would be easier to approach because they were sitting a little apart. One caught her eye. Tall, with good shoulders and a gleam of dark hair under his cap, he seemed to be singling her out too. The pay-off of wearing a gold hat, she supposed.

  Dezi whispered, ‘Seen something tasty? Don’t let your husband catch you.’

  ‘We go our own way.’ Ramon had one of Henriette’s midinettes in a clinch. He must have decided Julie could look after herself.

  Dezi said thoughtfully, ‘That German you used to come here with? The fella didn’t fix on me like I was a threat. I’d say he didn’t see me at all.’

  ‘He saw you . . .’ Coralie didn’t want to talk about Dietrich. All evening, she’d felt his ghost alongside her. Heard his voice, far off, telling her why he was choosing this or that wine and why she should appreciate meat that was cooked rose-pink. The Corsicans had begun chanting ‘The winners, the winners’ in heavily accented French.

  Coralie asked Dezi, ‘Who won? My Vagabonds or their people?’

  ‘Theirs, of course.’

  ‘I don’t mind my friends losing to better players but that hairy lot couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket— Oh!’

  A bottle thrown from the foot of the stage had just hit Arkady in the face. He stopped playing, and Coralie saw blood on his shirt. After a string of untranslatable oaths, he tucked his instrument under his chin and played on. The joint was still jumping.

  The Tommies were on their feet now, clapping. It was getting tribal. The midinettes looked frightened, and it occurred to Coralie that if she sent them back to work bruised, she’d have Henriette on her tail. Ramon looked as if he was about to charge the Corsicans like a bull. His dancing partner and Una were holding him back. Teddy and his chums were nowhere to be seen. Probably hiding under a table. One of the gangsters got up onstage and grabbed the microphone, shouting, ‘It’s over. We have winners.’

  Arkady head-butted him and that was the cue for more bottles to fly. One broke against the double bass. The Vagabonds held a five-second conference before resuming ‘This Joint Is Jumping’, after which they played a bridging piece, which would take them into ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’. This final number was intended to win ear-shattering applause – had it been a fair contest. A Corsican trumpeter was now on stage, blasting out noises like a suffering elephant.

  ‘Right.’ Coralie hitched up her dress. ‘Now or never.’ She’d started off playing by the rules, but now there were no rules. ‘Girls!’ she shouted to the midinettes. ‘Watch me and copy.’ Running to the stage, she stuck out her hand for someone to pull her up.

  ‘Too dangerous!’ Arkady shouted. ‘No woman!’

  So she heaved herself up unaided. ‘Ignore him,’ she bawled at Arkady, meaning the gatecrashing trumpeter. ‘Forget ragtime. We’ll give them . . .’ She shouted a song in his ear.

  Arkady looked bemused. ‘That? Now?’

  ‘Don’t you know it?’

  ‘Everyone knows it. All Europe sings it, even in Spain, and in Gurs we sing it. But we have not practised.’

  ‘You want Tommies on your side?’

  ‘What is Tommies?’

  ‘Never mind. Blaze away and you’ll have that lot in the black berets roaring along. Give me a bit of instrumental, and I’ll come in with the words.’

  ‘You sing, Coralie?’

  ‘I certainly do, and my girls are going to dance.’

  ‘They know how?’

  Well, like he said, everyone knew this song and the dance that went with it. It wasn’t exactly complicated. All the time she’d been creating tonight’s outfits, she’d thought about getting up onstage. A little finale, to steal the evening. It was a risk, because if anything was going to broadcast her true nationality to the world, it would be this song. But seeing these Englishmen had made her feel just a little bit homesick. Proud, too. They were here to sort out the Germans. They deserved something home-grown to sing along to. The Corsican trumpeter had stopped blowing and was making an obscene hand-show at her. Coralie walked up to him and punched him in the jaw, knocking him clean offstage.

  She strutted to the microphone. ‘That’s called manners where I come from. Ready, boys?’

  Arkady turned and mouthed to the others, ‘One, two, three, four . . .’

  Coralie winked at the Tommies, who were shouting, ‘Come on, Goldie!’ She tucked her thumbs into imaginary braces and sang, ‘“Any time you’re Lambeth way, any evening, any day . . .”’

  People rushed to pair up. ‘The Lambeth Walk’ had been a huge hit in ’37, spreading from London across Europe, like a dose of flu. It had stormed New York. Even Germany had its version. Maurice Chevalier had made it a hit at the Casino de Paris. The Cockney walking dance with ‘oi’ after the chorus was everywhere from public ballrooms to diplomatic receptions.

  Coralie sang on; according to the lyrics, everything in life was free and easy. People could do as they damn well pleased . . . In Lambeth, or anywhere for that matter.

  The Tommies certainly thought so. They were mobbing the stage and the Corsicans were piling in behind, pulling off caps, tearing collars. Soon fists were flying, women screaming. A bottle crashed at Coralie’s feet. She hurled it back. ‘“You’ll find yourself, doin’ the –’ one of the gangsters got hold of her leg ‘– “Lambeth walk, oi!”’ On ‘oi’ she kicked him but he pulled her down anyway. Shrieking, she grabbed her hat to protect it. Arkady got her under the arms and heaved in the opposite direction. Coralie shouted at him to let go. If she didn’t split in half, her dress would. She landed with a thud on the dance floor, and before she had time to refill her lungs, she was hauled up. Shutting her eyes, she softened every muscle to withstand the coming blow. Not a black eye, please.

  The blow didn’t come. Instead she was pulled to her feet and hustled away towards the stairs. She staggered along, her hand in a stranger’s, gold hat over her eyes. She hoped Julie, Una, the midinettes and Teddy had run for the exits too. Ramon could look after himself. She stumbled through the lobby, past the cloakroom, whose attendant flashed a muted torch, and out on to boulevard de Clichy where the air was as cold as sea spray. A smudge of moon gave just enough light to make out the outline of a man with padded shoulders, wearing a cap. He had a belted middle. She realised she’d been pulled out by the tall RAF man she’d admired earlier. ‘Merci beaucoup,’ she panted, continuing in French, ‘You ruined my chance of an encore.’

  Hands linked behind her head and she was looking up into a face that was lean and serious, faintly familiar. A second later, she was being kissed so hard she could hardly keep her feet on the ground.

  When it ended, his lips stayed on hers and he said in English, ‘Do yo
u know how long I’ve waited to do that?’

  Without thinking, she shot back in the same language, ‘Bloody cheek! I’m a married woman and my husband is down in that club.’ That was another of Ramon’s roles: to be the eternally jealous husband whenever she wanted to discourage an over-enthusiastic man.

  ‘Married? Cora, what have you gone and done? And what the hell are you doing here?’

  Cora . . . She stared up, trying to impose on the hard face the soft features that matched the voice, which had grown deeper, the worried inflection gone. ‘Donal Flynn. Donal . . . what the hell have you gone and done?’ She pulled a serge sleeve.

  ‘Joined up, of course. You didn’t think I’d still be pushing laundry carts now we’re at war? Cora, why did you go? Why did you run? I looked high and low for you. I thought you were—’

  ‘Shush.’ Her gaze scavenged the frosted boulevard. It was empty. ‘Donal, don’t call me Cora. I’m Coralie, Coralie de Lirac. Never call me anything else.’

  ‘I went looking for you after the Derby. I looked for you for days, and then for your body, on all the waste sites and the culverts, and down by the docks—’ He broke off, pulling her to him again.

  ‘You thought I was dead?’

  ‘I thought Jac had done for you. I cornered him in his shed, got him by the throat, but he swore he hadn’t touched you. I knocked him down. Oh, Cora. Alive and three times as beautiful. Cora—’

  ‘Coralie! And, hey, you owe me an explanation too. Leaving me stranded at Epsom Downs—’

  He groaned. ‘I know. I went home – I was fuming and it never dawned on me I had your ticket till I woke up in the dead of night. I fetched my jacket and there it was. I swear I went straight round to your house and knocked on the door, but nobody answered. Cora—’

  ‘Coralie. I’m Coralie now.’

  ‘But why are you here? Why didn’t you go home while you still could?’

  ‘This is home. And I’d rather face the Germans than my father, or your bloody sister.’