This is me? I thought, staring at the grim-faced girl who was less Venus than a sour housekeeper checking the surfaces of her soft furnishings for dust.
This time I think he even felt sorry for me. I suspect I was the plainest model he had ever had. ‘It is not you, Mademoiselle,’ he insisted. ‘Sometimes … it takes a while to get the true essence of a person.’
But that was the thing that upset me most. I was afraid he had already got it.
It was Bastille Day when I saw him again. I was making my way through the packed streets of the Latin Quarter, passing under the huge red, white and blue flags and fragrant wreaths that hung from the windows, weaving in and out of the crowds that stood to watch the soldiers marching past, their rifles cocked over their shoulders.
The whole of Paris was celebrating. I am usually content with my own company, but that day I was restless, oddly lonely. When I reached the Panthéon I stopped: before me rue Soufflot had become a whirling mass of bodies, its normally grey length now packed with people dancing, the women in their long skirts and broad-brimmed hats, the band outside the Café Léon. They moved in graceful circles, stood at the edge of the pavement observing each other and chatting, as if the street were a ballroom.
And then there he was, sitting in the middle of it all, a brightly coloured scarf around his neck. Mistinguett, her associates hovering around her, rested a hand possessively on his shoulder as she said something that made him roar with laughter.
I stared at them in astonishment. And then, perhaps compelled by the intensity of my gaze, he looked round and saw me. I ducked swiftly into a doorway and set off in the opposite direction, my cheeks flaming. I dived in and out of the dancing couples, my clogs clattering on the cobbles. But within seconds his voice was booming behind me.
‘Mademoiselle!’
I could not ignore him. I turned. He looked for a moment as if he were about to embrace me, but something in my demeanour must have stopped him. Instead he touched my arm lightly, and motioned me towards the throng of people. ‘How wonderful to bump into you,’ he said. I began to make my excuses, stumbling over my words, but he held up a great hand. ‘Come, Mademoiselle, it is a public holiday. Even the most diligent must enjoy themselves occasionally.’
Around us the flags fluttered in the late-afternoon breeze. I could hear them flapping, like the erratic pounding of my heart. I struggled to think of a polite way to extricate myself, but he broke in again.
‘I realize, Mademoiselle, that shamefully, despite our acquaintance, I do not know your name.’
‘Bessette,’ I said. ‘Sophie Bessette.’
‘Then please allow me to buy you a drink, Mademoiselle Bessette.’
I shook my head. I felt sick, as if in the mere act of coming here I had given away too much of myself. I glanced behind him to where Mistinguett was still standing amid her group of friends.
‘Shall we?’ He held out his arm.
And at that moment the great Mistinguett looked straight at me.
It was, if I’m honest, something in her expression, the brief flash of annoyance when he held out his arm. This man, this Édouard Lefèvre, had the power to make one of Paris’s brightest stars feel dull and invisible. And he had chosen me over her.
I peeped up at him. ‘Just some water, then, thank you.’
We walked back to the table. ‘Misty, my darling, this is Sophie Bessette.’ Her smile remained, but there was ice in her gaze as it ran the length of me. I wondered if she remembered me serving her at the department store. ‘Clogs,’ one of her gentlemen said from behind her. ‘How very … quaint.’
The murmur of laughter made my skin prickle. I took a breath.
‘The emporium will be full of them for the spring season,’ I replied calmly. ‘They are the very latest thing. It’s la mode paysanne.’
I felt Édouard’s fingertips touch my back.
‘With the finest ankles in all Paris, I think Mademoiselle Bessette may wear what she likes.’
A brief silence fell over the group, as the significance of Édouard’s words sank in. Mistinguett’s eyes slid away from me. ‘Enchantée,’ she said, her smile dazzling. ‘Édouard, darling, I must go. So, so busy. Call on me very soon, yes?’ She held out her gloved hand and he kissed it. I had to drag my eyes from his lips. And then she was gone, a ripple passing through the crowd, as if she were parting water.
So, we sat. Édouard Lefèvre stretched out in his chair as if he were surveying a beach while I was still rigid with awkwardness. Without saying anything, he handed me a drink and there was just the faintest apology in his expression as he did so, with – was it really? – a hint of suppressed laughter. As if it – they – were all so ridiculous that I could not feel slighted.
Surrounded by the joyful people dancing, the laughter and the bright blue skies, I began to relax. Édouard spoke to me with the utmost politeness, asking about my life before Paris, the politics within the shop, breaking off occasionally to put his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and shout, ‘Bravo!’ at the band, clapping his great hands high in the air. He knew almost everybody. I lost track of the number of people who stopped to say hello or to buy him a drink; artists, shopkeepers, speculative women. It was like being with royalty. Except I could see their gaze flickering towards me, while they wondered what a man who could have had Mistinguett was doing with a girl like me.
‘The girls at the store say you talk to les putains of Pigalle.’ I couldn’t help myself: I was curious.