Liberty Silk (20 page)

‘Gervaise!’ said Madame. ‘What a pleasure to see you!’ With nimble fingers, she rolled up the tape measure, then tossed it into a corner. ‘Forgive me – I’m measuring the windows for drapes. I shall want yards upon yards of velvet.’ Extending a hand to be kissed, she turned her attention to Jessie. ‘Bonjour, Monsieur.’

Gervaise laughed. ‘Coco, it is with pleasure that I introduce you to. . . Perdita.’ Turning to Jessie, he said: ‘Perdita, you may remove your hat.’

Jessie reached up and pulled off the beret, whereupon her hair tumbled over the collar of her sailor suit in a mass of unruly waves. Madame Chanel looked nonplussed, momentarily, then clapped her hands together and crowed with glee.

‘Of course! You are the girl who caused such a sensation at the salon in the boulevard Péreire the other evening! And now you show up here dressed as a cabin boy! How I applaud your audacity!’

‘Thank you, Madame.’

‘Coco, please. And I shall call you Perdita.’ Moving across to a fluted sconce, Madame unhooked a speaking tube. ‘Rose! A bottle of Veuve Clicquot, if you would be so kind.’

Gervaise took a seat on the ottoman, stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘As you may have guessed, I brought Perdita here to be kitted out.’

‘Will my clothes appear in your paintings?’

‘I rather think not,’ said Gervaise, with a smile. ‘I’m embarking on a series of nudes.’

‘No matter. I will have my secretary write to the important magazines. That way, word will soon spread that the new muse of Lantier favours Chanel.’ She turned back to Jessie and touched her lightly on the arm. ‘Please don’t be afraid to say “no” to anything you don’t care for, by the way, Perdita. It stands to reason that you should feel as comfortable in my clothes as you do in your pelt.’

How disarming and ingenuous was this woman! Jessie felt as if she’d met up with an old friend to whom she could talk about anything. ‘Is this design your own?’ she asked, indicating the tabard.

‘But of course!’

‘I truly love it.’

‘What impeccable taste you have. Isn’t the embroidery exquisite? Gervaise – help yourself to champagne when it arrives. I’ll have your protégée try on a half-dozen or so outfits, then send her back to show them off to you. Come with me, Perdita.’

They arrived in a room that smelt of fresh paint and new fabric. There were no furnishings, just row upon row of costume rails draped in dust-sheets.

‘This is a temporary arrangement,’ Coco told Jessie. ‘Before the year is out, the apartment will be refurbished as a dedicated salon. It is going to be
so
beautiful! You and Gervaise must come to our first party. In fact – why not dine tonight with me and my beau? I’m sure Gervaise told you about Monsieur Capel? Gervaise and my Boy are great friends.’ Taking hold of a corner of one of the dust-sheets, Coco pulled smartly in the manner of a magician performing the tablecloth trick.

‘Oh, heaven!’ said Jessie, when she saw what had been unveiled. ‘What
exquisite
clothes!’

Coco smiled at her. ‘You like? That gladdens me. Go on, rummage – rummage! I can tell your fingers are itching to!’

But these clothes were too precious to be handled in anything but a reverent manner. Feeling apprehensive lest she soil the garments, Jessie wiped the palms of her hands on the hips of her sailor’s bell-bottoms, then took from the rail a hanger from which was suspended a tunic and matching skirt. Like the dress that Coco was wearing, the garments were deceptively unstructured – but the opulence of the embroidery made up for the schoolgirl simplicity of the line.

‘Look here, at the little peacocks. Aren’t they darling!’ Coco took hold of the hem of the tunic, around which paraded a procession of minuscule silken peacocks worked in jewel-coloured chain stitch and herringbone, and dotted here and there with French knots.

‘I’ve never seen anything so pretty,’ exclaimed Jessie. ‘Not even in the needlework department in Liberty!’

Coco looked smug. ‘Try it on.’

‘May I?’

‘Of course! And – let’s see . . .’ She took down a black crêpe-de-Chine dress that boasted panels of equally intricate embroidery, and passed it over. ‘The square décolletage is most becoming. You’ll need a coat, naturally: this one is superb – a work of art. And I
love
this jersey skirt and jacket ensemble – it looks like nothing on the hanger, but in motion it is as elegant as a poem.’

Jessie regarded her benefactress gravely over the exotic fabric that had been heaped into her arms. ‘Coco – how can I repay you?’

‘That’s easy,
mon amie
,’ said Coco, with an eloquent shrug. ‘Everywhere – but everywhere you go in Paris, you will wear my clothes. You will be a walking advertisement for my
maison de couture
.’

‘But I’m not a socialite! I’m nobody – nobody important. My real name is Jessie—’

‘Hush!’ Coco touched a finger to her lips. ‘I don’t need to know your identity. To me – to anyone who matters – you are Perdita.’

Feeling defeated suddenly, Jessie slumped. The bravado that had kept her buoyant since she donned her new persona had deserted her. ‘I can’t carry this charade off! I’ve never been a fashion plate – never will be.’

‘But don’t you see?
this
– this is not fashion. Fashion goes out of style. It is style alone that endures. Audacity and style combined are most effective weapons – I should know! And – forgive me, my dear, but it would appear that you have no option other than to be audacious. Gervaise told me earlier on the telephone that his new protégée is destitute. Is this true?’

Jessie nodded. ‘Yes, it’s true. If Count Demetrios had not come to my rescue—’

‘Demetrios? You know him?’

‘He was responsible for staging that stunt in the Boulevard Péreire.’

‘
Tiens!
Take care,
petite
. The count is a dangerous man. You are lucky that it was a gentleman he delivered you to, not some debauchee who would gobble you whole and spit you out. Gervaise is a good man. He will be a protector to you, as my Boy has been to me.’

Jessie looked down at the pattern of hearts and flowers that embellished the neckline of the crêpe-de-Chine dress, and then looked back at her new friend. ‘May I ask you a personal question, Coco?’

‘You may. You’ll find that I am not easily offended.’

‘Do you – do you
love
your Boy?’

‘Whether or not I do is irrelevant. Love doesn’t enter the equation in arrangements such as ours. You must know that fortune has smiled on you. To be a
succès de scandale
is not something every woman welcomes, but the clever ones make it work to their advantage. I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today – look! Just look at my apartment. But all this beauty comes at a price. You know the analogy of the swan?’

Jessie shook her head.

‘So beautiful on the surface – so unruffled, so serene! But underneath the water, what is she doing? She is paddling like the very devil to make headway. That is how women like you and I must always appear, Perdita. Outwardly insouciant, carefree and sparkling: inwardly striving, toiling, forever thrusting ourselves forward, forever elbowing the opposition out of the way. The Great War may be over, but the war for the emancipation of women continues.’

‘I’ve always considered myself to be emancipated,’ said Jessie. ‘I’ve always associated with freethinkers and liberals and—’

‘Listen to me. Something tells me that your outlook on the world is a trifle naïve, Perdita. Something tells me that up until now you have led a comfortable, happy, reasonably privileged life. Am I right?’

‘Yes.’

Coco smiled. ‘Let me tell you a little about myself. My father was an itinerant peddler. My mother died when I was twelve. I was brought up in an orphanage, I wore second-hand boots. When I was twenty I passed round the hat in a music hall in Moulins. Now? Now I have all this.’ With an expansive arm, she indicated her surroundings. ‘Do you think it just fell into my lap?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Believe me – you make your own luck, Mademoiselle Perdita. You make your own fate. You grab it with both hands and you wrest it into shape. You’ve been given a god-sent opportunity. Make the most of it – hit your mark, centre stage. If you don’t, you’ll find there are a thousand more Perditas waiting in the wings.’ She raised a cautionary eyebrow. ‘Now – go try on my beautiful clothes, and I will have Rose bring you a glass of champagne. We’ll toast to our mutual success,
oui
?’

And with a sideways smile and a switch of her hip, Coco Chanel turned and left Jessie to it.

LISA WAS IN
the back of a limousine, gliding toward the Pacific Palisades, where the unveiling of the Lantier painting was to take place in the Riviera Country Club. A flunkey handed her a champagne glass as she entered the Grand Ballroom, and Fred Crane sprang forward with a light for her cigarette. On a dais stood an easel, swathed in spangled midnight-blue velvet: the portrait, waiting to be unveiled. Lisa made her way towards Ziggy Stein, who was holding court on a Louis XIV sofa, a Havana cigar jammed between his teeth, a battalion of fedora-wearing press photographers surrounding him. As she glided across the floor, silk chiffon drifting in her wake, several B-movie starlets bared their teeth at her. Envious eyes followed her progress; swanlike necks snaked towards each other to hiss venom in bejewelled ears, slim shoulders were shrugged in affected indifference.

‘Here’s my leading lady!’ Ziggy drew his protegée down beside him and slung an arm around her. Sending practised smiles at the cameras that flashed and popped until her head swam, Lisa accepted compliments and fielded invitations and laughed at unremarkable
bons mots
from junketeers, all the time scanning the crowd for Lochlan.

Finally she located him. He was framed in the arc of one of the ceiling-high French windows that led onto the terrace, talking to a gimlet-eyed Lolly Parsons. As Lisa watched she saw Judy join him, saw her reach for her husband’s hand and entwine her fingers in his. Encircling her slender waist with his arm, Lochlan smiled down at his wife, whereupon Louella’s calculating expression broadened into one of beneficence, as if bestowing a priceless gift upon the happy pair.

Lisa couldn’t bear it. Smiling up at Ziggy, she said: ‘Mind if I inveigle Lochlan outside, so that the boys can get some shots of us together?’

‘Good idea,’ said Ziggy. He turned back to the assembled hacks and raised a hand. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press – there’s a photo op waiting for you across the room, if you can persuade Mr Kinnear to peel himself away from his lovely wife. May I suggest the terrace, with the ocean as a backdrop?’

Lisa gathered up her skirts and rose gracefully to her feet. As she headed towards the French windows, questions were fired at her by the accompanying hacks. Exchanging her empty champagne glass for a fresh one, she took another hit of Moët before approaching Lochlan and his coterie. Then, feeling faintly ridiculous, she waited for an opportunity to attract his attention. She saw Judy throw her a glance.

‘Why, Lochlan,’ she observed drily. ‘Here’s your leading light.’

Lochlan turned and looked Lisa directly in the eye. It was a hard look, charged with warning. ‘Lisa!’ he said. ‘You look utterly ravishing. You’ve met Judy, of course—’

Judy blew a plume of smoke in her direction.

‘—and you know Miss Parsons, too, I think?’

‘Indeed. Delighted to meet you again, Miss Parsons.’

‘Likewise, dear Lisa.’

‘Mr Kinnear?’ A photographer stepped forward. ‘
Photoplay
magazine. May I trouble you and Miss La Touche for a picture on the terrace?’

‘Happy to oblige,’ said Lochlan, smoothly. With a gracious smile at Miss Parsons and an indulgent one at Judy, Lochlan moved towards Lisa and placed a mannerly hand on the small of her back. ‘How’re things?’ he asked in an undertone, guiding her through the French windows.

‘I need to talk to you,’ she murmured, as the press pack clustered around, exhorting them to ‘Smile!’ Draping chiffon becomingly over the balustrade, Lisa sent a doe-eyed look at the
Photoplay
photographer.

‘That’s swell!’ the photographer enthused. ‘But would you mind please moving a little to the right, so I get that palm tree in?’

Lochlan shifted sideways, and directed his most charming smile at the lens. Lisa could feel his fingers cool against the inside of her elbow as together they segued effortlessly into a camera-friendly pose.

‘Terrific! Say cheese!’

‘What’s on your mind, honey?’ queried Lochlan, out of the corner of his mouth.

‘Not here,’ Lisa told him. ‘Can’t we find somewhere private?’

‘This is as private as it gets at an event like this. You wanna talk, just keep looking down the lens.’

‘It doesn’t feel right.’

‘It’s too dangerous for us to meet up anywhere. Louella’s on our case.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She just sent me a coded message. I sent her one straight back.’

‘What kind of a message?’

‘She hinted that life was imitating art. That our on-screen romance might have off-screen repercussions.’

‘Miss La Touche? Can I ask you to shake back your hair?’

Lisa obliged, then murmured, ‘But we’ve been so careful.’

‘I told you Louella has spies everywhere.’

Not in my john, she hasn’t, Lisa thought, as an image rose before her mind’s eye of her wan reflection in her bathroom that morning and the morning before and the morning before that . . . And then the enormity of her predicament hit her with the force of a blow to the solar plexus, and she knew she had to share the news with Lochlan, right there, right now, otherwise she would find herself reeling around the Riviera Country Club, screaming it out loud to the entire assembly.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.

Lochlan’s fingers jerked away from her arm as though he’d been burnt; she heard him suck in his breath.

‘Smile!’ cajoled a freelance jerk she recognized. The last shoot they’d done, he’d spent way too long rearranging her décolletage.