Page 44 of The Dressmaker's Gift
Now that I am able to understand it better, I have come to see my mother’s death in a new light. Her final act may have been to take her own life by swallowing a handful of pills and a half-bottle of brandy, but I know that what killed her was the fragility that she had inherited. Born in peacetime, she was still a child who had to carry the legacy of war and it was a legacy that bestowed upon her burdens of her own: the burden of embodying happiness; the burden of those trauma-induced genetic changes that were passed on to her; the hard-wired fear of abandonment. These were the factors that created the perfect storm of despair and hopelessness that overwhelmed her and finally led her to commit suicide.
It helps me to know this, to be able to understand so much more about my mother’s life and death. But it terrifies me as well. How can I escape the same fate? In a world that seems filled with fear and panic, what can I do to stop the cycle repeating itself? Do I carry that same fragility in my own genetic make-up? Am I helpless, or is it possible for me to retake control of my life?
I realise that I can’t find the answers to all these questions on my own. Perhaps I shouldn’t be such a stubborn, independent Breton or Brit. It’s time to be brave enough to ask for help.
And so it is, sitting within the sheltering arms of Mireille’s tree, that I summon up the courage to make an appointment with a counsellor. If it is easier for me to express myself in a foreign language, maybe it will help me talk freely, at last, about the burdens of my own.
1945
‘Mireille, there is great news!’ Monsieur Leroux seized her and hugged her when she opened the door in response to his pounding. ‘They’ve found Claire in one of the work camps! I tracked her down through the Red Cross. She is alive. She’s been ill, and they’ve been caring for her in the camp hospital, but now she is well enough to be evacuated. I’m going out there, to bring her back to a hospital here in Paris where she can continue her recuperation. And I’ll to try to find Vivi too. Claire will have news of her, surely. If Claire has survived then there’s hope that Vivi has as well. You know how strong she is! Perhaps Claire will be able to tell us where she is.’
Mireille’s heart felt as if it would burst with the mixture of emotions that bubbled up at the sight of his joyful face. ‘Where is Claire?’ she asked.
‘A camp called Dachau. Near Munich. I’m leaving today. As soon as I know more, I’ll let you know. They’re coming home to us at last, Mireille, I feel certain.’
Claire’s eyes fluttered open as sunlight streamed through the windows of her hospital room. Her hands looked as though they belonged to someone else where they lay against the clean whiteness of the turned-down sheet. At the end of her skeletal arms, their skin reddened and scarred with acid burns, her knuckles were swollen knobs of bone, her fingertips cracked and hardened. It was hard to believe these hands had ever carefully pieced together offcuts of midnight blue crêpe de Chine with stitches so tiny they couldn’t be seen, and held delicate silver beads in place as she sewed them around the neckline, creating her own constellation of tiny stars in a night sky.
She was still weak from the fever that had overwhelmed her the day after she’d watched Vivi’s body being laid in a hastily dug mass grave, alongside so many others. Even though it was April, the grip of winter had seemed loath to leave Dachau that day and it had snowed, lining the grave with ermine and drawing a soft, white shroud over the piles of corpses that lay stacked beside the muddy trench.
Typhus had swept through the camp and even after its liberation the few thousand remaining prisoners who had been too sick or weak to set off on the death march to the mountains with their fellow inmates, continued to die in their hundreds, in spite of the ministrations of the international Red Cross and the US army doctors. Claire was one of the lucky ones. When the fever had seized her in its brutal grip, she’d been treated promptly and had been well cared for in the makeshift hospital.
And yet, as her strength slowly began to trickle back into her veins, she wished she had died with Vivi. Instead of a liberation, it felt like a lifetime’s sentence: she would live with the knowledge of having been unable to save her friend. And she knew that her life would be filled, every day, with the guilt. It was her fault Vivi had been captured; Vivi had looked after her and protected her, but she hadn’t been able to do the same. She hadn’t even been there when Vivi had taken her last breath.
She had wanted to lie down beside Vivi’s body in the snow-lined grave and sleep for ever.
A nurse, taking the pulse of a patient in the bed opposite, noticed that Claire was awake. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘let me help you sit up a little.’ She plumped the pillow and said, ‘Drink this.’ Claire obeyed, too weak to protest even though the tonic tasted bitter and made her want to retch.
She drifted in and out of sleep and each time she woke she opened her eyes expecting to see Vivi’s smile, dreaming that she would hear her whisper that Claire wasn’t alone, that they were together, that everything would be alright. But she saw only the clean, white sheets that covered the broken husk of her body and an empty chair next to her hospital bed, and the only voices she heard were those of the nurses as they went about their duties. And she would drift off to sleep again, thinking – hoping – that perhaps this time she wouldn’t wake up ...
The next time she awoke there was someone sitting in the chair. The figure bent towards her, and for a moment her breath caught in a gasp as she looked into Vivi’s clear, hazel eyes.
But then, as she focused, she realised it wasn’t Vivi.
It was a man, who reached for her hand and held on tight, as if he would never let it go.
Harriet
The office at Agence Guillemet is once again a frenetic hive of activity. The usually quiet hum becomes a crescendo of ever-more-frantic conversations as Paris Fashion Week approaches and the pressure mounts on the account managers to handle last-minute crises (models going AWOL, a shipment of shoes stuck in French customs, requests for radio and press interviews ...). Simone and I are run off our feet, helping get everything ready and keeping the coffees coming. We work all through the weekend and barely stop to grab a sandwich for lunch on the Monday, the day before the official launch of Fashion Week. My year-long internship is up, but Florence has asked me to stay on for an extra few weeks to help with the busiest time of the year. I’ve put off thinking about what I’ll do next. I’d love to stay on in Paris, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to Florence about the possibility of a full-time position at Agence Guillemet. I know it must be a long shot, though, or she’d have suggested it before now. Maybe I’ll have to go back to London and try to get a job there. Every time I think about leaving Paris, I feel a wrench of sadness, as if the tentative roots I’ve put down here are about to be wrenched up as I start somewhere new all over again. The pattern of my life – the constant upheavals, the packing and unpacking, the next move to another place where I don’t really have any sense of belonging – seems inexorable and inescapable.
I try not to think about that today, though. Work is the perfect displacement activity so I immerse myself in it. I’m just finishing up, putting the final touches to some goody bags filled with our client’s eco-cosmetics that will be handed out to guests at one of the catwalk shows, when Florence comes through reception. ‘You’re working late, Harriet.’ She smiles. ‘And thank you, those look wonderful.’ She fishes in her handbag (a classic Mulberry, naturally) and brings out a couple of white cards. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘I have two extra of these. I think you and Simone more than deserve them. I’ll see you there.’
She gives a little wave as she sweeps out of the door, calling, ‘Bon courage!’ as she heads home to prepare for the biggest week of the year in the fashion capital of the world.
I examine the cards. Embossed across the top is a logo that is instantly recognisable.
I run up the stairs to the apartment, taking them two at a time, and am so out of breath by the time I get to the fifth floor that I can scarcely get the words out to tell Simone that we have invitations to theVogueparty. And it’s being held at the Palais Galliera. So now I know exactly how Cinderella felt when she was told that she’d be going to the ball.
As we join the procession of the glamorously famous climbing the steps of the museum, I’m so excited I can hardly breathe. In the background, the Eiffel Tower flashes as if clad in silver lamé and then sparkles as if covered in sequins. It’s been the headline of all the papers, a light show commissioned especially for Fashion Week. There’s a sense of magic in the air, which is heightened by the sight of the museum building as we approach, lit so that the pure white of the stonework appears ethereal against the black of the night.
Inside, the hall and main gallery are filled with people dressed in a dazzling range of outfits, from the avant-garde of those who are trying hard to grab the attention of the movers and shakers in the fashion world to the classically understated of those who have no need to try at all. Cameras flash and a film crew circulates, capturing the glittering array of guests. Music pumps from hidden speakers and both the temperature and the volume of conversation in the room soar. Clutching our glasses of champagne, Simone and I weave our way through the crowd, nudging each other as we recognise models, actors and fashion editors. Florence catches sight of us and waves us over to where she is in conversation with a man whom she introduces as one of the directors of ParisVogue. She is generous in including us, but we are aware, too, that this is a business event for her and so we soon drift away, leaving her to her high-level networking. Simone bumps into a client of the agency who she’s met before and I leave them to chat as I circle the room. I can hardly believe this is the same place that I’ve come to for refuge, seeking out the peace and reassurance of the history it contains. It’s the perfect setting for this glamorous party, of course, but a little bit of me resents the invasion. How many of the people here have even noticed the exhibits, I wonder.
Setting down my empty glass, I slip through into an adjacent room which is almost empty. Everyone wants to be where the action is, hoping to be snapped in one of the photographs that will appear inVoguemagazines from New York and London to Delhi and Sydney. So it’s easy to find a little peace and quiet away from the hubbub in a room where a series of Belle Époque evening gowns are displayed in glass cases.
As I stand looking at a beautiful crystal-encrusted satin creation which would overshadow any of the party outfits in the next room, a voice says, ‘Hello.’
I turn to see the woman with the silver-white hair. Tonight, instead of her tailored jacket she is wearing a black dress which is cut to drape elegantly around her neat figure. It looks deceptively simple, but I think that Mireille and Claire would have appreciated the technical complexity of the design, made to flatter and flow, balancing the monotone severity of the garment with a series of tucks that give the dress its structure.
‘Good evening,’ I reply.
