Wild Lavender (9 page)

I lifted my trembling leg to step onto the platform and ended up stumbling onto the stage. The brightness of the lights was a shock. I stood there, dazed, unsure of what I should do.

A man with a coarse voice roared with laughter. A woman cackled. My skin smouldered. I was sure my face was glowing. Another man joined in the laughter, but his voice held something besides mockery. Anticipation? Somehow that laugh loosened me and woke me from my stupor. ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’ I sang in a warbling voice that mimicked the chorus girls. At first I wasn’t sure the voice was mine; it carried itself past the orchestra pit and echoed back to me, much fuller than the thin voices of the other girls. More people laughed and some started to clap. ‘Aloha, Mademoiselle!’ someone shouted. ‘What next?’

I dared to look out at the audience. Two men in the front row were watching me with interest. I smiled at them and shimmied. The audience went wild. I didn’t dance with any finesse, but the more the audience cheered and clapped, the more my body relaxed and the more wildly I jiggled. My self-consciousness vanished and I moved easily and gaily, bowing my legs and batting my eyelids, letting my arms
and legs do whatever the music told them to. A thrill ran over my skin. Every face in the audience was looking at me.

We had been in such chaos before the number that no one had told me how to end the dance. I gyrated in a circle and when I faced the front again the chorus girls had left the stage. I threw my arms up in the air and posed like a statue, incongruous with the performance but a gesture of Camille’s from her Egyptian number that had impressed me. The curtain came down and a tidal wave of applause burst from the audience. I ran off the stage, barely able to breathe.

Monsieur Dargent, Madame Tarasova, Albert and the others were waiting for me in the wing. Albert lifted me up, sat me on his shoulder and paraded me around. Monsieur Dargent was grinning from ear to ear. Madame Tarasova rushed forward and grabbed my cheeks. ‘You know what you did is what every performer wishes for. You got them, Belle-Joie!
You got them!
’

A
t my first dance rehearsal with Le Chat Espiègle I felt like an imposter. As part of my contract, I was to practise with the chorus girls each afternoon at two o’clock in the basement beneath the stage, except for Thursdays and Sundays when there was a matinée to perform. The room was kept locked and I sat on the dust-flecked stairs along with the other girls until Madame Baroux, the ballet mistress, arrived with Madame Dauphin, the accompanist. When she did, the girls scrambled from their slouched positions and I followed them. Only Claire and Ginette dragged themselves up with the listlessness of participants in a funeral procession, but if Madame Baroux noticed she didn’t show it.

‘
Bonjour
, ladies,’ she sang out, leaning on her walking stick. She tugged a key on a piece of string from around her neck and pushed it into the locked door.

‘
Bonjour
, Madame Baroux,’ the girls answered, their voices ringing out like students in a convent.

Madame Baroux’s eyes turned to me and she nodded. I assumed that Monsieur Dargent had explained who I was. The chorus girls were required to train every day to keep themselves supple, but that wasn’t Monsieur Dargent’s intention for me. He wanted me to understand what the girls were doing so I could mimic them on stage. Also, he wanted me to gain elementary dance training in case I was required for the next show or to fill in for someone who was sick. I had to earn my pay.

After several shoves, courtesy of Madame Dauphin’s
shoulder, the door creaked open and we trailed into the room after Madame Baroux. Madame Dauphin sat down at the piano and lifted the battered lid. She warmed her fingers on the keys with a tune that made me think of butterflies skimming over long grass. Her unkempt curls and floral dress were the antithesis of Madame Baroux, who wore her hair swept up with combs and kept any individuality tucked away beneath the crisp white blouse and crocheted shawl of an elderly Frenchwoman.

‘Stretch!’ Madame Baroux commanded, banging her stick on the parquet floor.

The girls threw themselves to the floor, transforming into a sea of sprawling limbs, their twisted figures doubled in mass on account of the mirrors that lined the basement walls. I dropped down too. The grit on the boards stuck to my palms and I brushed my hands down the sides of my tunic before studying what the girl in front of me, Jeanne, was doing.

‘Like this,’ Jeanne whispered, stretching out her leg and bending her chest towards her knee. Her mouth twisted and her cheeks turned red. I followed her example and, to my surprise, accomplished the pose without too much difficulty. I was congratulating myself when I felt Madame Baroux’s stick tapping into the small of my back. ‘Keep your spine straight. You are a dancer not a contortionist. All your movements must flow gracefully from your vertical axis.’

Although they were chorus girls and not ballerinas, most of the girls were experienced in classical dance. I was lost among them. What was I doing here? What
was
my vertical axis?

‘Yes, Madame,’ I said, correcting myself as best as I could. But when I glanced up, Madame Baroux had already moved on.

‘Not much grace required in her act,’ I heard someone in the front row mutter. I peered through the mass of headbands, tights and slips to see who it was. Claire? Paulette? Ginette? I may have saved the show, but that
didn’t mean that there wasn’t resentment at someone from wardrobe being given a featured role.

‘To the barre, ladies!’ cried Madame Baroux. I looked up and saw that the rest of the class were waiting in position by a wooden railing along one of the walls. I trotted after them and took a place in the row. Madame Baroux sent me a grimace, barely passing it off as a smile.

‘Arabesque,’ she said.

I glanced at the girl next to me and extended my leg backwards in imitation. Madame Baroux moved along the line, pushing back shoulders and lifting hips. I gripped the splintery bar and imagined the vertebrae from my neck to my tailbone lined up like marbles. I held my leg steady, ignoring the burn in the back of my thighs. But Madame Baroux walked past without a glance in my direction. It wasn’t that I was perfect; it was that I wasn’t worth correcting.

‘She looks like a baby in that get up,’ Ginette whispered to Madeleine loud enough for me to hear. I compared their sleek jersey leotards to my calico tunic, pieced together from some cloth I’d brought with me from the farm. ‘Well, she has been put in the show to make people laugh,’ Madeleine giggled.

I bit my lip and fought back tears. Wasn’t this what I had wanted—to be in the theatre? Yet I’d never felt more awkward, ugly or alone.

The tension between me and the chorus girls came to a head some time later. We were crammed in the dressing room, getting ready for a performance. I had been allocated a spot in the back corner, squeezed between a painted-over window and a withered palm. It had been hot during the day, and although all the unbroken windows had been flung open there was still no breeze. Our costumes were due for laundering but Madame Tarasova was overrun and someone, possibly Marion, hadn’t
washed her feet since rehearsal. The air was loaded with a stomach-turning concoction of cologne, clammy skin and dank shoes. Only three of the ten bulbs on my mirror worked. It is just as well, I thought, shaking my head at the smears of colour above my eyes. I hadn’t got the hang of make-up, although Madame Tarasova had done her best to teach me. I was trying to blend in the greasepaint at my jawline when Claudine pulled up a stool beside me.

‘The show is going well because of you, Simone. I heard Monsieur Dargent say that he has just broken even,’ she said.

I picked up my eyebrow pencil and nodded. I liked Claudine but I was wary of Claire, who sat behind me. She had taken Anne’s place in the line and made no secret of the fact that she thought I was one person too many in the dressing room. No matter how careful I was, each time I pulled out my stool I seemed to knock the back of hers. ‘Watch it!’ she’d snap. ‘If you tear my tights, you can pay the fine.’

Sure enough, she spun around now and growled at Claudine. ‘The first act is terrible. It needs to be scrapped immediately!’

‘Why?’ asked Claudine, shifting her stool to face Claire. ‘A new act would mean weeks of unpaid rehearsals.’

Marie glanced up from her mirror. ‘It’s unnecessary now anyway,’ she said. ‘Simone has saved the show. The audience numbers are up and last night we were filled to capacity.’

I bent down to fasten my anklets and avoid anyone’s gaze. Everyone had been friendly to me when I was a dresser, but getting a role in the show had changed things. The girls were divided in their opinions of me. Claudine, Marie, Jeanne and Marion, who treated their role in the chorus line as a job, were happy to have me join their act because it meant they didn’t have to be away from their children to rehearse a new one. But some of the other girls, like Claire, Paulette, Ginette and Madeleine, had ambition. They wanted to be stars, and I was a threat.

Claire wrinkled her nose. ‘Bah!’ she huffed, dismissing Marie with a wave of her hand. ‘The numbers are up because the Bastille Day celebrations are over and people are looking for something to do.’ Some of the other girls murmured their agreement.

‘I think we should speak to Monsieur Dargent after the show,’ said Paulette, wrapping her greasepaint-stained gown around her shoulders. ‘The audience comes because they want to see beautiful girls dancing. Simone makes us look like fools.’

‘You spoke to Monsieur Dargent last week,’ tittered Claudine. ‘And he fixed the problem by hiring Simone.’ She patted my shoulder and beamed at me. I knew that she meant well but wished she would stop. ‘And what’s more,’ she said, ‘he is so pleased with Simone, he’s thinking of putting her name on the billing for the show.’

The hum of voices in the room ceased. All eyes turned to Claudine. No one looked at me.

‘It’s true,’ Marie said, rouging her cheeks. ‘I heard him talking about it with the cashier yesterday. People have been asking if this is the show “with the funny girl in it”.’

Paulette turned back to her mirror and tore her brush through her hair. Madeleine and Ginette exchanged a look.

‘If she gets her own billing, I’m out of here,’ said Claire, hunching her skinny shoulders. ‘She’s nothing more than a dresser. She won’t last long on the stage. It’s not enough to behave like an idiot. You have to be able to dance.’

‘She’s no beauty either,’ said Madeleine, her nose in the air.

I stood up and rushed to the door, stepping over slippers and bags. Once in the safety of the hall, I dabbed my forehead with the back of my wrist and leaned against the balustrade. The nastiness of the chorus girls had bruised my confidence. Perhaps they were right and I wasn’t cut out for the theatre.

But my mood changed the moment the stage bell rang. I rushed down the stairs to take my place in the wing. I could sense the audience before I saw them: the air was charged.
The voices of the men and women entering the hall buzzed and crackled like sparks of static electricity before a storm. I pressed my hand against the rear wall to ground myself. The building itself seemed to be pulsating. Tonight was going to be a full house.

A drum roll echoed around the hall. The orchestra struck up the opening number and my foot stroked the ground in time with the Hawaiian guitars. I no longer needed Monsieur Dargent to time me in; I knew my cue by heart. At the end of the second verse I leapt onto the stage and into the lights. The crowd screamed and applauded.

‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’

My voice rang out above those of the other girls’ even more than usual. It had become stronger from nightly practice. I was able to force the sound out further without losing the tone. Claire’s shrill soprano struggled to reach over my part but she couldn’t sustain it and dance at the same time. I scanned the audience, an ocean of transfixed faces. I forgot about Madame Baroux’s pinched-faced admonitions to watch my ‘vertical axis’ and wiggled my hips and swung my legs out in all directions. The audience roared and applauded. Their laughter rolled towards the stage like a wave breaking on the beach. In an instant, the whole front row leapt to its feet and cheered. ‘Bravo, Mademoiselle Fleurier! Bravo!’

They knew my name? Butterflies trembled in the pit of my stomach. The vibration travelled up through my chest and flowed out my fingertips. ‘Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!’ I sang, with all the power my lungs could give me.

‘Only two weeks and you are already a hit!’ Madame Tarasova cried when I came offstage. ‘You’ve taken to the music hall like a duck to water. You’re a natural!’

‘We miss you down here,’ said Vera, taking my wig from me.

‘I’ll get changed then come straight down, all right?’ I told her, turning towards the stairs. ‘Monsieur Dargent wants me to help you until he has more parts for me in the next show.’

I raced up the stairs to the dressing room but stopped short when I saw the mess outside the door. I stood dazed for a moment, staring at the make-up brushes and pencils scattered there. A rouge jar lay tipped on its side, a block of mascara had been crushed to a greasy pulp on the floorboards and rice powder was sprinkled over everything like snow. A dressing table and cracked mirror were propped against the wall. I gaped at the destruction for a few seconds before I realised that the objects were mine.

I crouched down to pick up the cosmetics and noticed that the rose-bud kimono I had inherited from Anne was wedged in the door. I tugged at it, but it was stuck and wouldn’t budge unless I asked one of the girls to help me. Someone giggled and shadows moved in the wedge of light from the crack under the door. I imagined Claire and her accomplices watching me through the keyhole, congratulating themselves on their cleverness. I let go of the gown; I would rather come back for it than give them any satisfaction by begging for it.

I picked up the rouge bottle and cleaned up the rest of the mess as best I could, wiping the containers with the fringe of my grass skirt. Madame Tarasova had scraped together my make-up kit from lost and odd items that she had collected over the years. I was relieved to find the powder container was still half-full. I left the mascara; it was ruined and I couldn’t afford to replace it. If I complained to Monsieur Dargent those responsible would have their pay docked for disruptive behaviour. But if I did that, it would make the bullying worse. And there were more chorus girls against me than for me.

I scooped up the collection of spoiled cosmetics and looked around the corner. Down the hall, near the lavatories, was an alcove. The urine smell from the toilets was rank, but the alcove itself was clean and it had a frosted skylight as well as an electric light. I dragged my table and mirror there and arranged what was left of my make-up on the bench.

‘Well, Simone, it’s good to see you are making friends.’

I glanced in the cracked mirror to see Camille standing behind me, dressed in a tunic for her Helen of Troy number.

‘Welcome to show business,’ she went on.

I kept my face turned to the mirror. I didn’t want her to see me cry.

She put her hand on my shoulder and squinted. ‘Who taught you to do your make-up?’

‘Madame Tarasova showed me some things and I’ve been copying the others.’

‘Your face looks like a map of the world.’

My hand flew to my cheek. I knew that as much as I had tried, I hadn’t quite achieved the art of blending colours. I was glad that the audience didn’t see me up close.

‘Come on,’ said Camille, tossing her head in the direction of her dressing room. ‘I’ve got fifteen minutes. I’ll show you how to do it properly.’

Camille’s dressing room was cluttered with beautiful things along with some grotty ones. A lopsided cane chair sat next to a polished rosewood bureau and a Persian rug crisscrossed with a grubby cotton one on the sloping floor. The daybed was covered with Spanish shawls while the dressing table was littered with perfume bottles without stoppers. My nose twitched from the smell of the room: a concoction of incense, dust and bath soap.

Camille sat me on her sateen-covered stool and wiped at the slick of greasepaint that had gathered around my chin and nostrils. It was easy to see the mistakes in her brightly lit mirror. My eyeliner departed my lashes at different angles on each lid and my mouth sloped to the side. Another shade darker on the face and a shade lighter under my eyes and I would have looked like one of the ‘blacked-up’ jazz singers from America.