The Dressmaker's Gift

by Valpy, Fiona

  She stood, pushing back her chair, gathering up her coat and bag. ‘You too, Monsieur Leroux.’

  As she left the café, she glanced back to where the man with the sandy hair and the paisley print tie was paying the waiter.

  He stood and shrugged on his overcoat. And she could just make out the corner of a folded newspaper, barely visible, where it protruded from the pocket.

  Outside the tall windows of the sewing room, the December sky had taken on the same dull gunmetal-grey colour as the uniforms of the Nazi occupiers, as if it, too, had surrendered all hope and capitulated with the new order. The glare of the lightbulbs overhead seemed to Claire as bright as the searchlights sweeping the darkness for Allied aircraft, whose beams could be seen in the distance if one peeped out from behind the blackout which covered the attic windows at night. She held the bodice of the scarlet crêpe de Chine evening gown that she was working on a little closer to her face as the stitches blurred and swam, her eyes having been strained in focused concentration for hours on end. It was draughty in her seat by the window, but she wouldn’t have exchanged it with any of the other seamstresses for a chair closer to the cast-iron radiators on the far wall. She needed the light to work by. And those radiators didn’t give out that much heat anyway nowadays, since coal for the furnace in the basement was so strictly rationed. It would often go out and not be relit for days on end, although there was always enough coal to keep the fireplace in the salon blazing so that clients would be warm enough when they came in for fittings.

  Claire and the other seamstresses were all thinner now, surviving on the measly rations that they had to queue for at the weekends. But, glancing around the table, she realised that it only showed in their faces where the lights cast dark shadows beneath sunken cheekbones and eyes. Their bodies looked bloated, well-padded under their white coats, and on some of the girls the buttons strained and gaped. In reality, this illusion was down to the layers of clothes that they wore to try to keep out the cold while they sat at work in the atelier.

  Delavigne Couture was busier than ever and the run-up to Christmas was proving, if anything, even more hectic than in the years before the war. Paris had become an oasis of luxurious escapism in war-torn Europe, and the Germans flocked in to spend their pay on black market food, wine and designer gowns for their wives and mistresses. And their money went a long way now that the exchange rate had soared to almost twenty francs to the Reichsmark.

  Even the German women who had been assigned to Paris to help run the new administration could afford to have couture creations made for themselves. The saleswomen in the salon scathingly referred to them as ‘grey mice’ behind their backs, because they looked so frumpy and dowdy in their uniforms when they came in for their fittings.

  Mademoiselle Vannier left the room for a few minutes to go and fetch another bolt of the thin, unbleached muslin that was used to make the mock-ups of the more complex garments. Once they’d been cut out and tacked together, these toiles were then taken apart again and used as templates to make sure the more expensive fabrics used for the finished garments were cut accurately and with minimal wastage.

  Taking advantage of Mademoiselle Vannier’s absence, Claire joined in the chatter and gossip with the other seamstresses around the table: one of the models from the salon was rumoured to have taken up with a German soldier and opinion amongst the girls was divided. Some were shocked and disgusted, but others asked what a girl was supposed to do? With so few Frenchmen left now that any able-bodied males of working age who had survived thus far were being sent to work in the factories and camps in Germany, young French women were faced with the choice of becoming old maids or being spoiled and pampered by a rich German lover.

  From beneath her lashes, Claire glanced at Mireille in the seat next to her. She seemed so distant these days. Mireille didn’t join in the chatter any more, remaining studiously focused on her work. She was always preoccupied now, a far cry from the vivacious, fun-loving friend she had been before the Occupation, and she seemed lost in her thoughts most of the time. She kept to herself more, too, in the evenings and at weekends, often disappearing without inviting Claire to come along. And there was no point asking questions, Claire had learnt, as Mireille simply smiled her sad-eyed smile and shook her head, refusing to answer. Maybe she really was playing at her ‘Resistance’ games, as she’d threatened to do when she first came back to Paris, but Claire couldn’t see what earthly good any of that sort of thing might do. However, if Mireille wanted to be all cloak-and-dagger and keep her own company then so be it.

  But Claire did miss the friendship they’d once shared. There were only two other girls sleeping in the rooms above the shop at the moment and they were in the other team of seamstresses, so they tended to exclude Claire from their weekend outings, probably assuming that she’d be spending time with Mireille.

  Claire cut a thread and smoothed out the scarlet fabric, relishing the vicarious sense of luxury. Her fingers, roughened with cold and work, caught slightly on the crêpe.

  Rubbing her thumb against the chapped skin of her fingertips, the sensation transported Claire back to the years spent growing up in Port Meilhon. After her mother had died of pneumonia, brought on by the damp and chill and exhaustion, leaving her only daughter a silver thimble and a pincushion stuffed with coffee grounds, Claire had been responsible for darning socks and mending the clothes of her father and four older brothers. The pins and needles would quickly grow rusty in the sea air and she had to pause frequently to rub them down with emery paper to stop them becoming blunt and staining the fabric of her father’s and brothers’ shirts with little brown marks like dried-on droplets of blood. As she’d sat at her sewing beside the range in the kitchen of the cottage that had been her home, her chapped fingers cracking open in places with painful fissures, a quiet determination had grown within her: her mother’s legacy of needles and pins would become her passport out of there. It was all she had. She would use it to change her path, refusing to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Instead of her grief at losing her mother lessening over time, the thought of the grave in the churchyard up on the hill had become more than Claire could bear. She preferred to think instead about the possibility of a life elsewhere filled with elegance and sophistication. And so she had concentrated on making her stitches smaller and neater, sewing quickly but fastidiously.

  Her longing for pretty things was a form of escapism from Claire’s rough and ready upbringing in a cottage full of men who spent their days wrestling creels from the grip of the cold Atlantic waters. When her father and brothers were off in the boats, she offered to take in mending for her village neighbours, charging them a few sous a time, saving the coins in an old sock stuffed into the bottom of her mending basket. Slowly, the sock became heavier, the toe weighted down as the coins accumulated. And then one day she counted her money and discovered that she had enough for the train fare to Paris.

  Her father had scarcely reacted when she told him she was leaving. She suspected it would be more of a relief to him than anything else – one less mouth to feed. And Claire sensed, too, that increasingly she reminded him of his dead wife, her mother, a reminder which probably stabbed his heart with guilt each time he looked at her. He must know that this was no place for her to live so, she said to herself, he couldn’t blame her for wanting to leave. He’d driven her to the station at Quimper and given her a gruff pat on the shoulder as the train pulled in, picking up her bag and handing it up to her once she’d climbed the steps into the carriage, which was about as much of a blessing as she could have expected.

  Setting aside the bodice of the red evening gown, she sighed. Well, she’d made it to Paris, only to have the war interfere with her plans for a better life. She was still spending her days hunched over her meticulous stitching, she was still freezing cold most of the time, and she was hungrier than she had ever been at home.

  She was overcome by a momentary surge of self-pity and homesickness at the thought of the
family she’d left behind in Port Meilhon. She pictured her brothers’ cheerful grins as they came home to the cottage on the quayside: Théo ruffling her hair and Jean-Paul lifting the lid on the pot of cotriade she’d prepared for their supper to sneak a taste of the delicious fish stew, while Luc and Marc pulled off their boots at the front door. Did their shirts go un-mended now that she wasn’t there, and their socks un-darned? She missed the sound of their laughter and their gentle teasing, as well as the quiet reassurance of her father’s presence as he sat in his armchair splicing a rope or untangling a length of twine. It was funny, she thought, how instead of feeling too crowded when they were all in the tiny cottage together, the room had always felt too big and empty when they were away.

  She shrugged off the feeling, telling herself that wallowing in self-pity wasn’t going to help anyone. As she stuck her needle carefully back into her mother’s pincushion, she reminded herself how far she’d come, despite the hardships. The city was still a place of infinite opportunity compared to the fishing village in Brittany. She just needed to make the effort, to get out a bit more so that those opportunities could find her.

  Harriet

  There’s been another terrorist attack. The city is stunned with shock and the headlines scream their anguish around the world. Paris was already reeling from the brutal assault on staff at the Charlie Hebdo offices in January, and now gunmen have murdered almost a hundred concert-goers at the Bataclan Theatre, holding a group of survivors hostage for hours before the French police could end the siege. The reports flood in of lives taken, lives altered in unimaginable ways, sickening acts of brutality. They are difficult to read, but impossible not to.

  Dad calls me. ‘Are you sure you’re safe? Why don’t you come home?’ he asks.

  I try to reassure him that I’m surely as safe here as I would be anywhere, even though I feel sick with anxiety every time I walk down the street. My heart aches for the victims as their stories come out. Most of them were young, about the same age as Simone and me. But we try to stay focused on our work; the unremitting demands of the job force us all to carry on.

  From nine to five, the office is busy with the hushed hum of conversations and the discreet chirp of telephones. I take it in turns with Simone to man the reception desk and I feel the weight of responsibility of being the first point of contact for Agence Guillemet’s clients. The company may be relatively small but it punches above its weight, numbering amongst its clientele several up-and-coming designers, a luxury accessories brand and a new eco-cosmetics company. Of course, the larger fashion houses have their own in-house PR teams, but Florence has carved a niche for herself in the daunting world of Parisian couture. She has a knack for spotting promising new talent and finding creative ways to promote the new kids on the fashion block. Over the years, she has earned the respect of her peers and developed an enviable network of contacts. So, as the days go by, it’s not unheard of for me to find myself making small-talk with a former supermodel who is developing her own line of swimwear, or the fashion editor of a glossy magazine, or an edgy young shoe designer and his muse who wears a skin-tight jumpsuit accessorised with a pair of the most vertiginous platforms I have ever seen, which are embellished with golden pineapples.

  Florence also gives me opportunities to work alongside the account managers and I am inordinately proud of the first press release I help to compile. It’s for the launch of the shoe designer’s latest collection, which will be showcased at Paris Fashion Week in a fortnight’s time, and the account manager shows me the list of recipients and asks me to send it out. As I do so, an idea occurs to me.

  ‘Does anyone in the UK know about this guy’s designs?’ I ask.

  ‘Not yet. It’s hard for us to break into that market so we are focusing on Paris first.’

  ‘If I were to translate the press release and send it to a couple of buyers at some of the edgier London outlets, would that be okay?’

  The account manager shrugs. ‘Feel free. We have nothing to lose, and perhaps it would be a good way to begin to gauge interest across the Channel.’

  So I draft an introductory email and attach the translated release. After digging around a bit and making several phone calls, I come up with a few London contacts and then, with the approval of Florence and the account manager, I press send.

  Simone is impressed. ‘Your first press release! We must celebrate this evening. I know a great bar we can go to. There’s live music on tonight and some of my friends will be there too.’ I’ve already learned how much she loves her music; she always has it playing in the apartment, and is usually plugged in to a pair of earphones when she’s out and about.

  And so that night we head out, crossing the river and heading for the Marais district with its narrow streets and hidden squares. The police presence is even more evident than usual, with heavily armed officers patrolling the busier junctions. It’s a reassuring sight, even if it does make my heart race with the sense of fear that lurks just beneath the veneer of city lights and traffic fumes. Simone leads me past the Picasso museum and then we duck into a bar. An acoustic duo play on a small stage at one end of the crowded room over the buzz of chatter and laughter that spills around them.

  Simone’s friends wave us over to the pair of tables they’ve pulled together and find chairs for us so that we can squeeze in too, adding our own drinks to the clutter of glasses and bottles. The musicians are good – really good, in fact. And I begin to relax and enjoy the setting and the company. Simone’s friends are a creative bunch and they include a gallery owner, a designer, an actress, a sound engineer and at least two musicians. I guess it’s Simone’s love of music that has cemented some of these friendships. I’m surprised at how easy it is to feel a part of this group of young Parisians. I never made any very close friends at school or at university and I realise now that I never felt I fitted in anywhere at all really. Perhaps that feeling stemmed from the sense of not belonging at home with my father and stepmother. Perhaps that undermined my confidence of my place in the world. For most of my life, I have dwelt in a sort of no man’s land where loneliness has been an easier option than trying to fit in. I always felt that there was a distance between me and my peers who hadn’t had to attend their own father’s wedding to someone new, shortly followed by their own mother’s funeral. Here, in this company of strangers, I don’t feel that I have to explain that I had been all my mother had left and that I had failed to be enough to make her want to stay in this world.

  The sound engineer, who introduces himself as Thierry, brings another round of drinks and nudges Simone to move up so that he can pull his chair in between us.

  He asks me questions about how I’m finding my job and how I like being in Paris, and I ask him about his work, which takes him to concerts at different venues across the city. I chat away, feeling more confident about speaking French now, and find myself relaxing and enjoying his company.

  At first, the conversation among the friends is light and buoyant with smiles and laughter, but then, inevitably, the talk turns to the Bataclan terror attack. The mood around the table immediately turns sombre and I can see the trauma written on the faces of Simone and her friends as the still-raw pain that the terrorist act has cast over the city engulfs us all again. The Bataclan isn’t far from where we are sitting, and Thierry tells me that he knew the sound crew who were working that night. All of a sudden it feels very close to home. As I listen to his words, I watch the lines of pain that cut deep into his face, transforming his easy-going expression into a mask of grief. His friends got out and helped get the band and several members of the audience to safety, but the brutality of the act and the thought of the many young lives lost, or altered for ever through horrific wounds, both mental and physical, have changed the way people see their city. Just under the surface it seems that fear and distrust lurk everywhere.

  ‘Do you ever worry, when you’re working, that something like that might happen to you?’ I ask him.

  Thi
erry shrugs. ‘Of course. But what can we do? You can’t let terror win. It becomes all the more important to resist the urge to give in to fear.’

  I nurse my drink, musing on his words. I hear in them the echo of Mireille’s declaration of resistance and her assertion that it’s up to the ordinary people to decide how life will be lived.

  ‘Even coming to a bar on a Friday night to listen to some music takes on a new significance for us these days.’ He smiles, and the sadness in his dark eyes is replaced by a flicker of rebellion. ‘We’re not just here to enjoy ourselves. We’re here to make sure that the freedom to live our lives cannot be taken away from us. We’re here for every one of those people who was killed that night.’

  Thierry wants to hear what I think as he asks me about the impact the attacks had across the Channel in Britain, and how we have coped with terrorist atrocities on our own soil.

  ‘My father was already worried about me coming to Paris,’ I admit. ‘Not that London is without its dangers.’ After the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Dad had tried hard to talk me out of taking the job, right up until the last minute. At the time, I’d resented his interference and put it down as another example of the distance between us – couldn’t he see how important this opportunity was to me? Didn’t he understand how strong the longing to leave was within me? But now I realise how anxious he must have been. From this perspective, I can see that the fact that he didn’t want me to go was perhaps more to do with love than with a lack of understanding. For a moment, I miss him. I make a mental note to try to call him again tomorrow, although he’ll probably be too busy to talk, as usual, out shopping with my stepmother or driving the girls to their weekend dance classes and sleepovers.

  Thierry and I talk on, late into the evening, long after the musicians have finished their set and joined us at the table, and by the end of it I feel a closeness to Simone and her friends that is a new sensation for me. Slowly I find myself dropping my guard, my usual reticence thawing, as – tentatively – I begin to allow my thoughts and feelings to show themselves.