Wild Lavender (36 page)

‘How is the hotel in London doing?’ Monsieur Blanchard asked him.

Felix rubbed his head, which was so flat and hairless it gave him the look of a salamander. ‘I shall need help setting it up,’ he answered, flashing his eyes at André.

‘You will have to seek it elsewhere,’ said André, good-naturedly. ‘I am taking Mademoiselle Fleurier on tour.’

Guillemette glared across the table at me. ‘And what about the serious enterprises?’ she said, turning to André. ‘You seem to be neglecting the hotels.’

André had told me that when he went into business with his father, all the hotels would be handled by Felix.
I guessed that was why Guillemette was so concerned about them.

‘Ah, come now,’ said Monsieur Blanchard, dabbing his lips with a serviette. ‘There will be time for all that when André turns thirty. I have promised him that he has until then to enjoy himself in any way he chooses.’

Monsieur Blanchard smiled at me and winked. It was all I could do not to cringe. I glanced at André, but he appeared not to notice his father’s behaviour. I was surprised to see how André was with his family. When I was with him, I found him lively and a good conversationalist. But around his family, he retreated into his own world.

Madame Blanchard, who had not spoken directly to her husband for the entire meal, turned the conversation to lighter topics. She chatted about the fortified town we would visit that afternoon and her charity work with orphans. I felt that she, André and Veronique were the welcoming side of the Blanchard family, while the others verged on hostility. I was so uncomfortable in the company of André’s sister and brother-in-law that if Madame Blanchard had not made such an effort to include me in the conversation, I doubted I would have ended up saying anything at all.

‘Tell me, Mademoiselle Fleurier, do you never get stage fright? You look so at home in the spotlights,’ Madame Blanchard asked me.

How to answer a question like that? Stars were not meant to reveal their failings; unless they were ‘publicity whimsies’ such as a liking for fresh raspberries and cream after a performance or a partiality for smoking Indian pipes.

‘I am always excited before a performance, Madame Blanchard,’ I answered. André smiled into his fist but didn’t look at me.

‘Excited’ was the euphemism André and I had coined for the shakes, sweats, watering eyes and endless trips to the bathroom I experienced before the first number of a performance. The opening night had been the worst, but the shortness of breath gripped me every night when I
climbed into the car to make my trip to the theatre. I had developed a habit of taking Kira to the dressing room with me, although this did get us in trouble once when the dresser left my costume out and Kira, with her attraction for shiny things, chewed off all the sequins.

Part of my ritual to calm my nerves was to never dress until the last minute. When I received my stage call, I would open the locket with my parents’ wedding picture in it and leave it that way on the dresser until after the final curtain call. During the breaks I lit a candle with my wish to give a good performance scribbled on the side of it—something my mother had suggested. The rituals and cups of chamomile tea did little to calm my nerves, however. The dizzy feeling and the churning in my stomach left me only when I stepped out on stage and sang the first note. Then, like magic, my head would clear and my limbs steadied like a boat sailing out of a storm into a calm sea. Everything would be fine after that.

‘I have heard that Mademoiselle Fleurier is the most composed performer in Paris,’ said Monsieur Blanchard. ‘Most can’t make themselves go out on stage unless they have had something to drink.’

‘Mademoiselle Fleurier never drinks before a show,’ said André, proudly. ‘She doesn’t let anything affect her performance.’

‘They all start like that,’ said Guillemette. Her tone reminded me of a priest delivering a sermon warning of impending doom. ‘But the lack of sleep and always being in the public eye gets them in the end. Nobody has the nerves for living that fast for too long.’

‘Thank you for the gloomy prediction, Guillemette,’ said Madame Blanchard, smiling at me.

‘That didn’t go too badly,’ said André, the following day on our drive home.

He had to be joking, I thought. Having grown up with Uncle Gerome and the strain of being in his debt, I couldn’t claim that I had come from the happiest of families. But I had always been loved by my parents and Aunt Yvette.
Poor André was adored by his mother and Veronique, but any light those two shed was snuffed out by the rest of the Blanchards.

‘I don’t think your sister likes me,’ I said.

‘Guillemette doesn’t like anybody,’ said André. ‘It’s my father’s opinion that counts anyway. And you made a good impression.’

I thought Monsieur Blanchard had liked me too, but then I remembered the way he had looked at my breasts, and the wink, and I felt uneasy.

In June I received a telegram to say that Uncle Gerome had died. Lebaron cancelled two shows so I could return home in time for the funeral.

‘He died in his sleep,’ Bernard told me on our way to the farm from the station at Carpentras. ‘It was for the best. He had started to deteriorate again.’

The whole village attended the cemetery. There were also people from Sault and Carpentras as well as dozens of faces I had never seen before. There was even a photographer from the Marseilles press. Given the unpopularity of Uncle Gerome, it was clear they had come to gawk at me. I was embarrassed to stand by the graveside in my silk Charmeuse dress while my mother and aunt were attired in the same black cotton dresses they had worn for years.

At the wake, Monsieur Poulet stood up to give a speech. ‘I want to say how proud we are of Simone Fleurier, and I hope that when she gets married she will come back to her village church and our little town hall for the ceremony.’

It was nice to be welcomed so warmly, but I thought it in poor taste to toast me when it was Uncle Gerome’s funeral.

The following morning, I opened my shutters and saw my mother carrying buckets of water into the house. I ran downstairs to help her with the backbreaking task, and sat with her in the kitchen while she boiled a pot over the fire
to make us coffee. There were strands of grey in her hair and a painful-looking vein snaked up her ankle. I thought of Mistinguett. She was old enough to be my grandmother, but compared to my mother’s appearance, their ages could have been reversed.

‘What if I bought you a house in Carpentras or Sault, or even Marseilles?’ I asked Bernard while he brushed down the donkey and unharnessed it from the cart. ‘Life would be easier for you all.’

‘Easier. But not a life,’ he answered. ‘Not for us. We love it here. But I promise to use the money you have been sending me to make life more comfortable for your mother and aunt.’

The truth was that the pace of life on the farm, even the making of the morning coffee, was so slow that it gave me time to think. And thinking made me question if I were truly happy. Uncle Gerome’s death drove home how terrible it was to live with regrets. I had thought that being a star would be glamorous and exciting, but, once the initial rush wore off, it was draining. I cared deeply for André, but my love had to remain buried, and there was little real fondness between me and his family. Furthermore, the gossip fuelled by his patronage of me was the lifeblood of the lowest Paris magazines.

Simone Fleurier must be as good in her boudoir as she is on stage, if the quality of the men who visit her dressing room after her show is anything to judge by…How did this scrawny unknown become the toast of Paris? You would have to look between—the lines?—to know that.

Was this really the life I wanted to lead? Things were much simpler on the farm. There was gossip in the village but it was not usually the vindictive kind. Guillemette’s words had stuck with me: ‘
Constantly being in the public eye gets them in the end. Nobody has the nerves for living that fast for too long
.’ Hadn’t I learnt that in Berlin? The Germans lived faster than anybody, and by the time I had opened at
the Adriana, Ada Godard had collapsed on stage and died from a brain haemorrhage at twenty-two years of age. I might not drink to excess or take drugs, but there were days when the pressure made my heart palpitate.

I had to leave the farm the following morning to return to the show. ‘Promise me that you will visit me in Paris,’ I said to my mother and Aunt Yvette. Now that Uncle Gerome was gone, Bernard would be able to manage for a week or so on his own. I kissed my mother and aunt goodbye before getting into the car with Bernard. The women’s faces were stony but their eyes shone with reserved strength. I could see they were proud of me.

I breathed in the lavender, rosemary and wisteria scents permeating the air. No, I thought, I love the farm, but I could never live there again. Paris had changed me.

When ‘
Paris Qui Danse
’ reached the end of its run in February 1929, I put some of my songs from the revue onto record before André and I set sail for New York on the
île de France
. The famous Broadway impresario, Florenz Ziegfeld, had invited me to perform in his musical, ‘Show Girl’. I didn’t have the lead part; that was going to Ruby Keeler. I was to be a guest star in a scene titled ‘An American in Paris’. But we took the opportunity to go to the United States to make contacts for the future and also to do a short tour of Brazil and Argentina afterwards.

When we arrived at Le Havre I gasped at the size of the ship. ‘I have never seen anything so big in my life!’ I told André. ‘It is bigger than the Louvre or the Hôtel de Ville.’

‘It is the most beautiful ship on the ocean,’ he said. ‘It is not the largest or the fastest but it is the most magnificent. You will see when we get inside.’

I gave my press conference on the pier, camera bulbs flashing, and announced that while I was excited to be going to America, France would always be my home. André and I made our way up the gangplank, stopping
halfway and waving to give the press another photographic opportunity. The captain greeted us when we came on board and handed me a bouquet of lilac roses before the head purser led us to the grand foyer, where we could wait until the ship was ready to leave.

‘I see what you mean about the elegance of it,’ I said to André. I was used to luxury now but the ship was grander than anything I had seen before. The foyer was four decks high and extended almost the full length of the vessel. The angular furniture, sweeping columns and red pilasters were the essence of Art Deco chic.

‘Other ships copy the interior design of manor houses and Moorish castles,’ André explained. ‘But the
île de France
is unique. The decor mimics the ocean.’

‘It feels more like a resort than a ship,’ I said.

‘That is why I chose it,’ said André, his hand dropping to the small of my back and lingering there. The warmth of his skin burned through my dress.

‘You have forgotten what you told me in Germany,’ I said, shifting my feet. Was I imagining it or was he drawing circles on my flesh with his fingertips? André had touched me dozens of times before—a hand on my shoulder, chaste kisses on my cheek. But this was something else.

André raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

‘You told me that they would work me much harder on Broadway than you did in Berlin, and since that’s where you are taking me now, this may be my first and last holiday!’

The ship’s horn sounded and I jumped from surprise. André laughed and grabbed my arm, pulling me out on the deck to join in the merriment of hoorays, whistles and rice-throwing as the ship left port.

‘Things are going to be different, Simone,’ he shouted over the noise. ‘But we will talk about that over dinner.’

I looked at André’s excited eyes and sensed that something between us was moving. If I was right, things were going to change for ever.

That evening, André and I descended the
île de France
’s marble staircase to the dining room. In my shell-pink gown I felt like a movie star sweeping her way onto a Hollywood set. With the number of Americans and their wives rubbing shoulders with Europe’s social elite, I could have been. The dining room was long with square lights in the ceiling rather than elaborate chandeliers. On the menu there was Loire pike in clarified butter along with duck
À l’orange
and
ice bombe impériale
with Vienna cream.

‘Perfect,’ said André. ‘The pike is the lead-in to what I want to tell you.’

I was still flustered from the way he had touched me earlier in the afternoon. Had they only been absent-minded caresses or was there something more?

‘What is it you want to tell me?’ I asked, not taking my eyes from his face.

He smiled. ‘When I mentioned to my father that we were travelling on the
île de France
, he told me about a friend of his who made one of the first voyages on the ship. As you know, the
île de France
was designed to showcase the best of everything French. But the British and Germans are still competing against each other for speed. Anyway, on that journey, my father’s friend was savouring his meal of Loire pike when a British ship, the
Mauretania
, raced past. A while later, the steward brought him a radio message sent by a friend of his who was on the passing ship. “Do you want a tow?” it read.’

I listened carefully, trying to decipher what meaning the story had for André and me. But it was a mystery.

André continued with his account. ‘The Frenchman picked up his crystal glass and sipped some wine then took another bite of the pike before giving the steward his reply. “Please send back this message,” he said. “What is your hurry? Are you starving?”’

‘We shouldn’t laugh,’ I said, grinning. ‘Look how we work—not like French people at all.’

‘I want to change that,’ André said.

‘How?’

‘I want you to marry me.’

I dropped my fork. It clattered to the floor. I had been aching for André to announce that he was beginning to find me attractive. I had not been expecting him to propose to me. I blinked at him, lost for words. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the wine steward making his way through the tables towards us. I sent him a glance. The good thing about French waiters was that they had a sixth sense in knowing whether or not to interrupt a conversation. The steward did a spin on his heel and took another turn around the room.