The Designer(20)

‘You’ll come too, my love?’ Bérard demanded of Dior.

‘Of course.’

‘I shall sing at the graveside,’ Suzy announced.

‘But not “Lili Marlène”, if you please.’

‘No, no. Something simple, but dignified. Perhaps “Chant des adieux”.’

Copper’s heart was sinking at the prospect. It wasn’t clear whether they were joking or serious.

There was another knock at the door and a dark, serious-faced young man in a beautiful camel-hair overcoat came in cursing the cold. ‘It’s like Moscow out there, damn it.’

Dior introduced him to Copper. ‘My colleague at Lucien Lelong, Pierre Balmain. Far more talented than I, of course.’

‘That’s not true,’ Balmain replied, shaking Copper’s hand. ‘Don’t listen to a word he says.’

‘We’re all going to Copper’s friend’s funeral tomorrow,’ Bérard announced. ‘Suzy will sing and I will make an oration. You must come, Pierre. It’s going to be quite an occasion.’

‘A funeral is hardly the place for your antics, Bébé,’ Balmain rejoined, raising his eyebrows. ‘My condolences on your loss, Mademoiselle.’

‘Thank you,’ she murmured. Two more young men arrived, both gazelle-like and soigné. They were introduced as dancers from the Ballets des Champs-élysées, and were evidently on excellent terms with Bérard and Dior, though she forgot their names a moment after she heard them. The room was warming up as it filled. The heat, the Calvados, the wine she had already drunk and Christian Bérard’s endless cigarettes were making her feel quite dizzy. Nor did it help that Suzy Solidor was now pressed up tightly beside her and caressing the nape of her neck with her fingertips. It had been a dreadful day and all she wanted to do now was get into her bed and sink into oblivion, but that was impossible.

‘Are you unwell, chérie?’ Suzy murmured.

‘I don’t feel too good,’ Copper admitted.

‘You are pale. But it suits you.’ Her eyes were a rich, luminous brown, set under strongly marked eyebrows. Her face was handsome rather than conventionally pretty. Her figure, too, was striking, with the athletic arms and shoulders of a swimmer or tennis player, yet with a rounded bosom and full, mobile hips. She wore a watch set with emeralds, and a single bright diamond on a platinum chain around her throat.

Dior had a gramophone and wound it up to put on a recording of Chopin nocturnes. These were dismissed by the others as too melancholy, but the Strauss waltzes he chose instead were decried as being too Germanic. He threw his hands up and invited them to choose for themselves. An argument arose around the golden trumpet of the gramophone as records were plucked from their sleeves and stuffed back in. Eventually, they settled on Milhaud’s Le B?uf sur le toit. She felt a little daunted at finding herself in such exotic and opinionated company.

Bérard was still wrangling with someone over Coco Chanel’s behaviour, but Dior and Balmain had entered into a quiet conversation about work.

‘I don’t want to let Lelong down,’ she heard Dior say in a low voice. ‘He’s been very good to me.’

‘And to me,’ Balmain replied. ‘But we’ve given him five years apiece, Christian. Ten good years between us. And the war is coming to an end. Now’s the time to strike out on our own.’

‘All very well to say that, but where’s the money to come from? You, at least, have an obliging maman. I have nobody.’

‘You have genius. You could raise the money in a month if you wanted. Aren’t you tired of being told what to do and what not to do?’

‘It would be nice to be allowed to design what I liked,’ Dior sighed. ‘But I feel I’m still learning.’

‘You’ve learned all that Lucien Lelong has to teach you,’ Balmain replied. He had a forceful, emphatic manner. ‘You simply have to make up your mind to break free.’

‘The truth is that I’m too lazy to break free,’ Dior said with a slight shrug. ‘I don’t mind obscurity at all. I don’t have your commanding personality. I can’t see myself at the head of a business. I would feel dreadfully awkward impersonating an entrepreneur. Besides, freedom has a price, you know. If we were entrepreneurs, we wouldn’t be having this congenial evening with friends. We’d be brewing ulcers over the accounts.’

‘Well, I’m going ahead,’ Balmain said decisively. ‘The old guard have had their day – Worth, Lelong, Molyneux and the rest. The fashion business needs new blood.’

‘I shall miss you terribly when you leave,’ Dior said, and Copper saw that there were tears in his eyes.

Balmain gave his friend a kiss on the cheek. ‘You won’t be long behind me. You’ll see.’ He produced a notebook from his pocket, and the two friends were soon engaged in sketching and discussing designs.

‘When Dior went into couture, do you know what they said?’ Suzy murmured in Copper’s ear. ‘They said, “Christian has thrown himself away. He’s taken the easy way out. He could have been anything he wanted.” He’s one of the cleverest men in Paris and one of the most cultured. And one of the most popular. But look at him – as sensitive as a snail, drawing in his horns at every knock. He would rather grow old in Lelong’s back rooms than show his face in the street.’