Don’t throw away your chances on a man.’
Ada swallowed, nodded.
‘I won’t be so tolerant next time,’ Mrs B. added.
‘Thank you,’ Ada said and smiled.
*
Ada stretched her slender fingers, took a cigarette and drew it to her lips. Legs crossed and wound round each other like the coils of a rope. She breathed in, inclined her head with the smile of a saint, and watched as the plumes of smoke furled from her nostrils. She leant forward and picked up her Martini glass. The Grill Room. Plush, red seats, golden ceilings. She glanced in the mirrors and saw herself and Stanislaus reflected a thousand times. They became other people in the infinity of glass, a man in an elegant suit and a woman in Hollywood cerise.
‘You’re very beautiful,’ Stanislaus said.
‘Am I?’ Ada hoped she sounded nonchalant, another word she’d picked up at Mrs B.’s.
‘You could drive a chap to distraction.’
She uncurled her legs, leant forward and tapped his knee. ‘Behave.’
A whirlwind romance, that’s what Woman’s Own would call it. A swirling gale of love that snagged her in its force. She adored Stanislaus. ‘It’s our anniversary,’ she said.
‘Oh?’
‘Fourteenth of July. Three months.’ Ada nodded. ‘Three months since I met you that day in April, in the pouring rain.’
‘Anniversary?’ Stanislaus said. He smiled, a crooked curl of his lip. Ada knew that look. He was thinking. ‘Then we should go away. Celebrate. Somewhere romantic. Paris. Paree.’
Paris. Paree. She longed to see Paris, hadn’t stopped thinking about it, since that day in Richmond Park.
‘How about it?’
She never thought he’d suggest going away so soon. Not now, with all this talk of Hitler and bomb shelters. ‘Isn’t there going to be a war?’ she said. ‘Perhaps we should wait a bit.’
‘War?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s not going to be a war. That’s just all talk. Hitler’s got what he wants. Claimed back his bits of Germany. He’s not greedy. Believe me.’
That wasn’t what her father said, but Stanislaus was educated. He was bound to know more.
‘You said you wanted to go,’ Stanislaus continued. ‘You could see some real French couture. Get ideas. Try them out here. You’d soon make a name for yourself.’
Ada opened her mouth to speak but her tongue rucked up like a bolster. She bit her lip and nodded, calculating quickly. Her parents would never let her go to Paris, not with all this talk of war, much less let her go with a man. They knew she was courting, but even so. She knew they wouldn’t like a foreigner. She told them he brought her home each night, made sure she was safely back. She told him her parents were invalids and couldn’t have visitors. She’d have to miss work, invent some excuse for going away otherwise she’d get the sack. What would she say to Mrs B.?
‘Do you have a passport?’ Stanislaus said.
A passport. ‘No,’ she said. ‘How do I get one of those?’
‘This isn’t my country.’ Stanislaus was smiling. ‘But my English friends tell me there is an office which issues them, in Petty France.’
‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ Ada said, ‘in my lunch hour. I’ll get one straight away. Will you wait for me?’ She’d tell her parents Mrs B. was sending her to Paris, to look at the collections, to buy new fabrics. She’d ask Mrs B. if she would really let her do that.
Only the man in Petty France said she needed a photograph, and her birth certificate, and seeing as how she was under twenty-one, her father needed to complete the form. They could issue it in twenty-four hours but only in an emergency, otherwise she’d have to wait six weeks.
‘But,’ he added, ‘we don’t advise travel abroad right now, Miss, not on the Continent. There’s going to be war.’
War. That was all anyone talked about. Stanislaus never mentioned war, and she liked him for that. He gave her a good time.
‘Can’t worry about what’s not here.’
The man frowned, shook his head, raised an eyebrow. Perhaps she was being a bit silly. But even if war was coming, it was months away yet.
She sniffed and put the papers in her handbag. She couldn’t ask her father to fill out the form. That would be the end of the matter. She’d never told Stanislaus how old she was, and he’d never asked. But if he understood she was a minor, he might get cold feet and lose interest in her. She was a free spirit, he’d said, he’d spotted it the first time they met. How could she tell him otherwise?
The solution came to her that afternoon, watching Mrs B. make out the bill for Lady MacNeice. Ada’s father wrote with a slow, careful hand, linking the arms and legs of his letters in a looping waltz. Ada had always been entranced by the way he choreographed his words, had tried to copy him when she was young. It was an easy hand to forge, and the man at Petty France would be none the wiser. She knew it was wrong, but what else could she do? She’d get her likeness taken tomorrow, in her lunch hour. There was a photographer’s shop in Haymarket. It would be ready at the weekend. She’d go to the public library on Saturday, fill in the form, take it in person on Monday. It would be ready in a few weeks.
‘Then it has to be the Lutetia,’ Stanislaus said. ‘There is simply no other hotel. Saint-Germain-des-Prés.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Have you ever been on a boat?’
‘Only on the river.’ She’d been on the Woolwich ferry.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘August is a good month to sail. No storms.’
*
Ada had it worked out. She’d have to tell her parents, but she’d do it after she’d gone. Send them a postcard from Paris so they wouldn’t call the police and declare her a Missing Person. She’d have hell to pay when she got back, but by then Stanislaus and she would be engaged in all likelihood. She’d tell Mrs B. she was going to Paris on a holiday and would she like her to bring back some fabric samples, some tissus? She’d say it in French. Mrs B. would be grateful, would tell her where to go. That’s kind of you, Mademoiselle, giving up your holiday. It would give her something to do in Paris, and she could pick up ideas. In the meantime, she’d bring the clothes she planned to take to Paris with her to work, one at a time. She sometimes brought sandwiches for lunch in a small tote bag. It was summer, and the dresses and skirts were light fabrics, rayon or lawn. She knew how to fold them so they wouldn’t crease or take up space. She would hide everything in her cupboard at work, the one where she hung her coat in winter and kept a change of shoes. Nobody looked in there. She would need a suitcase. There were plenty in Mrs B.’s boxroom which was never locked. She’d borrow one. She had the keys to the shop. Come in early on the day, pack quickly. Catch the bus to Charing Cross, in good time to meet Stanislaus by the clock.
‘Paris?’ Mrs B. had said, her voice rising like a klaxon. ‘Do your parents know?’
‘Of course,’ Ada had said.
