Lace (20 page)

“It’s my stove. I’ve bought a little saucepan and I cook on the flat side of the iron. It’s one of the new thermostatic ones—I set it at ‘linen’ for
boiling eggs or making toast and at ‘wool’ for simmering stew.”

Guy rolled his eyes. “A terrible fire hazard! You’re lucky to be alive! You know the hotel doesn’t allow cooking in the bedrooms. They’ll throw you out.”

“I can’t afford to eat at restaurants all the time, so I keep food in a suitcase under the bed.”

“You’ll have mice and cockroaches.”

“No, it’s all in a tin box.” She dragged the suitcase out to show him. “Look, I’ll boil you an egg.”

“Please don’t.” Intrigued, in spite of his disapproval, Guy said, “You Americans are undoubtedly ingenious. I see it in your fashion industry—you’re ten years
ahead of us in your manufacturing and marketing and in the way you specialise. In the States, a single firm doesn’t offer its customers every sort of garment from skirts to ballgowns, as we
do in France. A firm that makes skirts to retail between ten and twenty dollars won’t know much about skirts that retail between forty and fifty dollars. One is more likely to make money in
fashion if one specialises.”

Thinking of her own odious job, Judy sighed. “There must be a lot of satisfaction in being a designer.”

There was a pause. “Not really,” Guy said gloomily. He moved back and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, I am in a dark mood. It’s
le cafard.
It is only
because I’m tired and worried, and instead of getting on with the important work, I’ve been fiddling about all day, letting out a quarter of an inch here, taking in a quarter of an inch
there.”

“You only feel depressed because you’re exhausted and under pressure. You’ll be in love with couture again tomorrow.”

“Yes, but I repeat, I don’t want to spend my life working for a few rich women. I want to produce clothes that will make
thousands
of women feel marvellous.” He gave an
exasperated sigh. “Today, women want to look like themselves and I want to help them.” He snorted. “Haute-couture is a dwindling market—every year there are fewer and fewer
rich private customers.”

“Let me massage your back,” Judy said, turning from the window. “It’ll help you to unwind.”

He stood up wearily and started to unbutton his blue cotton shirt, still thinking aloud. “Another disadvantage is that one’s designs are always stolen by mass manufacturers from all
over the world so one’s virtually working for them, unpaid.”

Judy took the pillows off the bed, straightened the cover, spread a clean towel on it and rolled up her sleeves. Guy sat on the edge of the bed, kicked his shoes off and lay down.

“. . . But one doesn’t make one’s name in mass production, one makes it in haute-couture.” He lay face down on the bed and Judy started to work on his spine, pressing
firmly with her thumbs, starting in the small of his back, as Guy continued to think aloud. As she worked on his shoulder muscles he could feel himself unwinding, breathing more deeply.
“Shall I tell you my plan?” he mumbled. “I want to do something new, to specialise in high-quality mass production. My clothes won’t be as expensive as haute-couture, but
they won’t be as cheap as most manufactured garments. My long-term ambition is to have a business that’s halfway between the two, producing my own designs with my own label.”

Now her thumbs were on the back of his neck, firmly pressing the tension out of it. “Mmmm, that feels better already . . . I want to make exquisite, ready-to-wear clothes that have the
design, cut and fabric quality of an haute-couture garment, although the customer won’t get personal fittings. The clothes will have to be carefully designed so that they’re easy to
alter to fit. I’m starting with a collection of separates, a lot in wool jersey . . . aaah, that’s wonderful.”

“Now, turn around and face the window,” Judy said, “otherwise I can’t get at your left side properly because the bed’s against the wall. Listen, world tycoon, when
will your suits be ready, and what will you do with them?”

“My sample stock will be ready in July. I’ll hire a hotel suite and show the designs to stores and boutiques. The stores will order—with any luck—and the clothes will be
made up by a little factory in Fauchon.”

Judy gave him a gentle slap on the back and said, “You are now a new man.”

Guy stood up and put on his shirt. “Thanks.” He leaned forward and ruffled the ragged fringe of her new street-urchin coiffure. “Look, Judy, I’m
truly
sorry
I’ve been in such a rotten mood, but the entire day has been unproductive. José, the seamstress, has been off for the whole week because she strained her wrist so we’re behind
schedule. I have to do so many jobs, even the damned deliveries.”

“I’m going to take you out to dinner,” Judy said.

“Judy, you’re an angel, but it’s not possible. I must do the bookkeeping before paying the wages tomorrow. It is the bookkeeping that drives me the most crazy—it’s
only about an hour a week but somehow there never
is
an hour.”

“If you like, and if it’s
really
only an hour a week, I’ll do it for you,” Judy offered. “You can pay me when you can afford it. I process orders and
invoices at the office and I’ll get Denise, our office bookkeeper, to show me whatever else is necessary. I could do it on Thursdays.”

“Angel! Shall I pay you in advance with a suit? The blue silk with the low V neck to the breasts? You can wear it in the evening with nothing underneath, just pearls.”

K
EEP STILL, AND
breathe in,” urged Judy, heaving on the zipper. “Now for heaven’s sake don’t breathe out.”

One of the four models had let them down, so Guy was showing his first collection on only three girls. Voile curtains stirred in the slight breeze, but the July heat was still almost
unendurable, even here in the Plaza Athénée. Guy was checking the accessories list and laying things out on the three trestle tables that had been set up by the hotel in place of the
usual twin beds, which had been taken away for the day. Three hundred invitations had been sent out, but only thirty people were expected.

Having worked almost nonstop for the past four months, Guy was gray with fatigue and understandably tense. He was going to supervise the models. Judy, who had taken a week’s vacation from
her job, would usher guests to their seats and announce the models. Most of the important couture houses of Paris had already shown their collections; clothes were still pretty but uncomfortable,
with voluminous skirts, boned waists and breasts squashed flat under jackets that were stiff with padded interlining; Guy’s simple, comfortable clothes would certainly look different. Every
evening, Judy had rushed to buy newspapers in order to read the reports of the collections that had been shown that day, and Guy anxiously telephoned around for backstage information.

First through the gilded double doors was Guy’s mother with a group of friends, then, one by one, his private customers appeared. Aunt Hortense gave Judy a conspiratorial wink and
whispered, “You can get your order book out, I’m going to buy two outfits even if he’s showing shrouds.” A couple of Guy’s friends from the Jacques Fath studio also
showed up, but none of the press appeared and only three of the buyers who had been invited from the smarter shops and stores of Paris.

The first model appeared from the hallway, wearing a garnet suit with a short, straight jacket and box-pleated skirt. She wore a black sailor hat on the back of her head and dragged the cinnamon
raincoat. As if to an audience of thousands, she gave a radiant smile, advanced into the room with the gait of a nervous racehorse, then pirouetted very slowly. Because of the missing model,
appearances were to be dragged out as long as possible in order to give the other girls time to change.

Once in the bedroom the model moved on the double. The seamstress held her second change ready to step into, the cutter snatched up the discarded clothes and Guy, standing by the door with his
stopwatch to time each model’s departure, held her accessories ready for her to grab.

At the end of the collection there was a round of polite applause, then champagne was handed around by a waiter who had strict instructions to keep the glasses full. Behind the scenes, Guy paid
the models in cash, as was the custom, while his two helpers packed up the clothes. All the private customers gallantly placed orders. Guy’s mother waited to see what nobody had
ordered—a cream wool battledress-top suit that did not flatter a middle-aged figure—and then ordered it. Aunt Hortense bought the cinnamon raincoat, a saffron velvet jacket with a short
skirt, a long skirt and matching chiffon blouse, but she declined the drain-pipe pants. The private clients all left together, still trilling encouragement.

As soon as the last one had gone, Guy slumped into a pale blue brocade armchair and buried his head in his hands. “Not
one
, not
one
order, except from friends!”

Back in Judy’s room at the Hôtel de Londres he slumped on the edge of the bed, staring in despair at the blowsy roses on the opposite wall. “Lie down and I’ll make you a
cup of tea,” Judy said, gently pushing him back on the bed, but by the time the iron had boiled the water, Guy was already asleep. Judy took his shoes off and arranged him tidily on the bed
as if he were dead or drunk, then lay down beside him. She, too, was exhausted. Alas, she thought, there wasn’t going to be much invoice work . . .

The following day the telephone woke them in midmorning. It was José phoning from the downstairs workshop. The Galeries Lafayett boutique buyer wanted to know when Guy could show to
them.

Five weeks later Guy bounced into Judy’s room, jumped on the bed and leaped up and down on it, giving Indian war whoops. “First my problem is failure, now
it’s success,” he shouted. “We’re completely sold out of the winter collection and I’ve had to turn down two million francs’ worth of orders—that’s
eight thousand dollars, isn’t it? The orders are
flooding
in! It’s frightening because I haven’t got enough money to finance a bigger turnover and I don’t want to
find myself in a liquidity crisis. My father says that’s what generally happens if you expand too fast.”

“Since when has your vocabulary included such phrases as ‘liquidity crisis’? And stop jumping on that bed. The chambermaid hasn’t reported my food suitcase but she
couldn’t avoid reporting a broken bed.”

Guy sat down and stayed seated on the end of the bed. “My father has changed his tune. He’s really being quite helpful. We went through the figures last night, and I think he was
surprised to find I’m so businesslike—entirely due to you, of course. . . . Anyway, he says it’s vital to make only a certain number of each design, and not to take more orders
than I can afford to produce. I’m to tell latecomers that I’m very sorry but my production schedule is booked up.
And it is!
Put your suit on. I’m taking you to the Ritz
for a glass of champagne.”

“Isn’t there a better way of saying no?” Judy asked slowly, as she slipped into the pale blue silk suit—suitable for all seasons—that was her only decent dress.
“Isn’t there some way that won’t exasperate customers but will make them order faster next time? How about giving away a couple of suits to celebrities, on condition that
they’ll go around saying they’re
mortified
that they weren’t allowed to order more than two?” She pulled up the zipper. “It could make your collection seem more
select. Instead of trying to hide the fact that you can’t finance your orders,
flaunt
it.”

“But I don’t know any celebrities. And I can’t afford to give away clothes. I haven’t sweated for years to give presents to strangers.”

Judy quickly buttoned the jacket and snapped on a gilt dog collar. “Guy, you have to pay something for publicity. Europeans
never
understand that! Nobody is going to blow your
trumpet for free. Dammit, I wish you could afford to hire
me
full time!”

“As soon as I can afford it, you’re hired,
mon chou.
Right now I need all my cash to buy you a drink at the Ritz. No, no,
not
the black patents, the cream
pumps.”

In spite of her friendship with Guy, Judy missed Nick more than she cared to admit. For the obligatory two years of National Service, Nick’s regiment would be fighting
terrorists in Malaya. Although he wrote to Judy every week, Nick’s letters arrived irregularly, sometimes three in two days, sometimes none for a month. Judy’s replies were similarly
spaced, because she only wrote when she had something special to say. Then she would scrawl a few lines in green ink, just as if she were speaking to him, with a total disregard for grammar and
punctuation. She wrote to Maxine, Kate and Pagan in the same way. The only person to whom she wrote regularly, neatly and once a week was her mother, and Judy hated doing it. Writing home was like
doing homework.

By the end of August, Paris was sweltering and the very cobblestones of the streets seemed to melt in the heat. Still, it was probably even hotter in Malaya, thought Judy, as she saw a pale blue
airmail envelope in her pigeonhole and eagerly ran toward it. Standing by the wilting palm tree in the hotel lobby she tore open the envelope and then gasped.

“Darling Judy,” wrote Maxine, “I have some very bad news. At first we hoped it wasn’t true, but we have checked with the War Office and there is no doubt. I don’t
know how to tell you, but Nick has been killed on duty . . . in a Communist ambush in Malaya.”

Judy read the rest of the letter with her eyes but she didn’t absorb the contents. Stunned, she moved mechanically up the seven flights of stairs to her room, carefully locked the door,
ran over to the washbasin and threw up. Then she carefully cleaned the washbasin, took her shoes off, lay neatly in the middle of the bed and started to shiver in spite of the heat.

The concierge, the chambermaid and Guy were arguing in the passage.

“It’s true, I haven’t been able to get into her bedroom for two days; it’s chained from the inside,” said the chambermaid. “We should break the door
down.”