The Designer(29)

He drew her attention to the earrings in the tiny ceramic ears and the bangle on the ceramic wrist. ‘Gold and diamond,’ he murmured. ‘Made for us by Cartier.’

For all his shyness, Dior took on a quiet confidence when talking about his designs. Whereas Lelong’s authority came from the status of ownership, Dior’s came from an artist’s inner certainty that his work was good.

Lelong himself stood by proprietorially, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other holding a cigarette. He had been an officer in the Great War, and years of leading Parisian fashion had not erased his military bearing. There could hardly be a greater contrast, Copper thought, between this vigorous martinet and the gentle Dior; but Lelong evidently knew the value of his employee.

She listened carefully to what Dior told her, and made abundant notes. She also took several photographs, trying hard to make sure they were going to come out well. She had to be serious about this new career of hers – and she, too, had to take on the poise of someone doing a job confidently and well.

Back home on the place Victor Hugo, and seated in front of George’s typewriter, she had something else to consider – the awkward task of explaining to her family, not to mention Amory’s, that she had left him. Or he had left her. In any case, that they had parted company in the middle of a war, thus fulfilling all the dire predictions both families had made about the marriage. After some thought, she wrote two letters: a short one to Amory’s father, which explained very little; and a long one to her eldest brother, which explained a great deal.

She read through both letters when she’d finished. Sending them was yet another grave step on the path to separation from her husband. Once mailed, they could not be recalled. The stark state of her marriage would be revealed to all at home. Everyone would know. Patching up the marriage (not that she had any intention of doing that) would be much more difficult, if not impossible.

But if she was serious about any of this, it had to be faced.

She sealed both letters in the US Army Priority envelopes that they’d been given, and put them on the hall table to be mailed. Then she went back to George’s typewriter – her typewriter now – to work on her article.





Five

She started writing straight away. She was inspired by the subject. Her experience doing George’s articles for him also came in useful; she knew enough to keep her sentences short and lively, and to give vivid impressions of the weird and wonderful characters of the Paris fashion world. Human interest was the key to successful journalism. The result, after a day or two of work, was not unpleasing. Even better, it was certainly not unprofessional.

The fly in the ointment was the photographs she had taken. The contact prints the laboratory sent back to her showed that all the interior shots were much too dark. If she was going to be taking lots of indoor photographs, she was going to have to invest in a flash lamp; something George had never bothered with since all his photographs were taken in daylight. And that meant yet more expense.

There was one good shot of Christian Dior, but all the shots of the dolls were useless. She would have to get more on succeeding visits, once she’d equipped herself with a flash.

A visit to the bric-a-brac markets that flourished along the banks of the Seine every afternoon proved fortuitous. Photographic equipment was scarce, the Nazis having confiscated everything they could during the Occupation. But now that they’d left, various oddments were coming out of hiding. She found an old man with a collection of pre-war cameras and accessories laid out on a rickety table. Among them was a battered aluminium flash lamp that could be synchronized with a camera – or so it appeared from the faded instruction manual that had been printed in some strange language, perhaps Czech. At least there were diagrams. The old man assured her that the thing worked. Better still, he had a box of the magnesium bulbs the lamp used. She haggled fiercely for the lot, and eventually got them at what she thought was an exorbitant price.

‘Be careful of the bulbs, pretty lady,’ the old man warned her as he packed all the bulky equipment into a cardboard box for her. ‘They sometimes set things on fire.’ That sobering news was offset by the pleasure of being called pretty lady. She had posted her letters to America that morning and it seemed like a good omen.

She took her treasure back to the apartment and set about working out how to attach the apparatus to the Rolleiflex. It proved something of a puzzle and the Czech instructions didn’t help. Whatever she did, she couldn’t get any of the bulbs to go off. Perhaps the old man had swindled her and they were all duds.

While she was scratching her head over the problem, there was a knock at her door. She opened it to find a young woman on her doorstep. Copper recognised her instantly. It was the busty brunette Amory had absconded with on the night George had died. They stared at one another for a moment.

‘He’s gone,’ Copper snapped and slammed the door in the other woman’s face. Or tried to, but she had stuck a foot in the way. The shoe was not very stout, and the resulting thump was painfully loud.

‘Ow!’ the brunette yelped, hopping on one leg as she clutched her injured toes. ‘Bloody hell. What did you have to go and do that for?’

‘You shouldn’t have stuck your foot in the door,’ Copper retorted. ‘He’s not here, so you can take a hike, sister.’

‘I’m not looking for him,’ the brunette said, gingerly putting her foot back on the ground to try it out. ‘Good riddance, if you ask me.’