leant over the side of the ship, hoping the breezes would sweep out the panic lodged inside her head like a cannon ball. She was not ready for this. She thought he was a gentleman. Those society women, they were all loose. That’s what her father always said. Stanislaus thought she was one of them. Didn’t he see it was all a sham? The way she dressed, the way she spoke. A sham, all of it. She took a deep breath, smarted as the salty air entered her lungs. Stanislaus placed his arm round her shoulders. Free spirit. He pulled her close, cupped her face in his hand, tilted it towards him, and kissed her.
Perhaps this was what it took, to become a woman.
*
The hotelier apologized. They were so busy, what with all these artists and musicians, refugees, you know how it is, Monsieur, Madame … The room was small. There were two single beds, with ruched covers. Two beds. What a relief. There was a bathroom next to the bedroom, with black and white tiles and a lavatory that flushed. The room had a small balcony that looked over Paris. Ada could see the Eiffel Tower.
By night, Paris was as dark as London. By day, the sun was hot and the sky clear. They wandered through the boulevards and squares and Ada tried not to pay attention to the sandbags or the noisy, nervous laughs from the pavement cafés, or the young soldiers in their tan uniforms and webbing. She fell in love with the city. She was already in love with Stanislaus. Ada Vaughan, here, in Paris, walking out with the likes of a foreign count.
He held her hand, or linked her arm in his, said to the world, my girl, said to her, ‘I’m the happiest man.’
‘And I’m the happiest woman.’
Breeze of a kiss. They slept in separate beds.
Left bank. Right bank. Montmartre. Rue D’Orsel, Place St Pierre, Boulevard Barbès. Ada caressed the silks against her cheek, embraced the soft charmeuse against her skin and left traces on velvet pile where she’d run her fingers over. Stanislaus bought her some moiré in a fresh, pale green which the monsieur had called chartreuse. That evening Ada crossed the length across her breasts, draped the silk round her legs and secured it with a bow at her waist. Her naked shoulder blades marked the angles of her frame and in the bathroom mirror she could see how the eye would be drawn along the length of her back and rest on the gentle curve of her hips.
‘That,’ Stanislaus said, ‘is genius.’ And ordered two brandy and chartreuse cocktails to celebrate.
Ada stared with hungry eyes at the Chanel atelier in the rue Cambon.
‘Bit of a rough diamond, she was,’ Stanislaus said. Sometimes his English was so good Ada forgot he was foreign. ‘Started in the gutter.’
He didn’t mean it unkindly, and the story Stanislaus told gave Ada heart. Poor girl made good, against the odds.
‘Mind you,’ Stanislaus winked, ‘she had a wealthy male admirer or two who set her up in business.’
Distinctive style. A signature, she thought, that’s the word. Like Chanel. A signature, something that would mark out the House of Vaughan. And help from an admirer, if that’s what it took too.
‘Paris,’ she said to Stanislaus, as they strolled back arm in arm through the Luxembourg Gardens, ‘is made for me.’
‘Then we should stay,’ Stanislaus said, and kissed her lightly again. She wanted to shriek Yes, forever.
*
On their last morning they were woken by sirens. For a moment Ada thought she was back in London. Stanislaus pushed himself off his bed, opened the metal shutters and stepped onto the balcony. A shard of daylight illuminated the carpet and the end of her bed, and Ada could see, through the open doors, that the blue sky was no longer fresh and washed. They must have overslept.
‘It’s very quiet out there,’ Stanislaus called from outside. ‘Unnatural.’ He came in through the open door. ‘Perhaps it was the real thing.’
‘Well, we’re leaving today.’
They were going home and Stanislaus hadn’t proposed, nor had he taken advantage of her. That would count for nothing if she had to tell her parents. She would lie. She had it worked out. Mrs B. had sent her to Paris with one of the other girls, for work. They’d shared a room. The hotel was ever so posh.
‘Get up,’ Stanislaus said. His voice was clipped, agitated. He was pulling on his clothes. Ada swung her legs over the side of the bed.
‘Wait here,’ he said. She heard him open the lock, shut the door behind him. She sauntered into the bathroom and turned on the taps and watched as the steaming water fell and tumbled in eddies in the bath, melting the salts she sprinkled in. How could she go home to a galvanized tub in the kitchen? A once-a-week dip with the bar of Fairy?
An hour passed. The water grew cool. Ada sat up, making waves that washed over the side and onto the cork mat on the floor. She stepped out, reached for the towel, wrapped herself in its fleece, embracing the soft tufts of cotton for the last time. Paris. I will return. Learn French. It wouldn’t take long. She had already picked up a few phrases, merci, s’il vous plait, au revoir.
She stepped into the bedroom and put on her slip and knickers. She’d organize a proper trousseau for when she and Stanislaus married. He’d have to pay, of course. On her wages, she could barely afford drawers. She’d buy a chemise or two, and a negligee. Just three days in Paris and she knew a lot of words. She glanced at the bedside clock. Stanislaus had been gone a long time. She flung open the wardrobe doors. She’d wear the diagonal striped dress today, with the puffed sleeves and the tie at the neck. It had driven her mad, matching up all the stripes, so wasteful on the fabric, but it was worth it. She looked at herself in the mirror. The diagonals, dark green and white, rippled in rhythm with her body, lithe like a cat. She sucked in her cheeks, more alluring. She was grateful that Stanislaus left the room when she dressed in the morning, or undressed at night. A true gentleman.
There was a soft knock on the door – their signal – but Stanislaus barged in without waiting for her to reply. ‘There’s going to be war.’ His face was ashen and drawn.
Her body went cold, clammy, even though the room was warm. War wasn’t supposed to happen. ‘It’s been declared?’
‘Not yet,’ Stanislaus said. ‘But the officers I spoke to in the hotel said they were mobilized, ready. Hitler’s invaded Poland.’
There was an edge to his voice which Ada had never heard before.
War. She’d batted off the talk as if it were a wasp. But it had hovered over her all her life and she had learned to live with its vicious sting. It was the only time her father wept, each November, homburg hat and funeral coat, words gagging in the gases of memory, his tall frame shrinking. He sang a hymn for his brother, lost in the Great War. Brave enough to die but all they gave him was the Military Medal, not good enough for the bloody Cross. He had only been seventeen. Oh God, our help in ages past …
War. Her mother prayed for Ada’s other uncles whom she’d never met, swallowed in the hungry maws of Ypres or the Somme, missing presumed dead, buried in the mud of the battlefields. A whole generation of young men, gone. That’s why Auntie Lily never married, and Auntie Vi became a nun. That was the only time her mother swore, then. Such a bleeding waste. And what for? Ada couldn’t think of a worse way to die than drowning in a quagmire.
‘We have to go home,’ she said.
