Folly Du Jour - Barbara Cleverly [44]
‘The stars are my best source. Now – Josephine! She’s incredibly generous and if you know just when to show your face – as I do – she’ll shower you with stuff she doesn’t want or gowns she’s only worn once. We’re much the same size and sometimes she asks me to model a gown for her to help her make up her mind.’
So that accounted for the head-hugging hairdo with the over-sized curl slicked on to her forehead. Francine had a dark complexion for a Frenchwoman, Josephine had a light skin for a black American. The two girls met somewhere in the middle. But the conscious attempt to mirror the looks of the star was more than just flattery. Josephine must have found it useful to see herself from a distance in this bright young woman. And the thought came to him: ‘Probably enjoys her company, too.’
‘You get on well with the star?’
‘Yes, I like her. We French do like and admire her. It’s the Americans – her own countrymen – and the English who give her a rough time. Her dancing is too scandalous for some and she’s black. There are those – and some are influential people – who’d like to see her closed down and put on the next liner home. Not the French. We don’t care at all about her colour. And her morals . . .’ Francine shrugged. ‘Well, that’s up to her, isn’t it? She’s entertaining and stylish and we love her for it.’
‘I expect she suffers professional jealousy – one so successful at such a young age? What’s the name of the Queen of Paris Music Hall? She must be feeling a bit miffed!’
‘Mistinguett? Yes, she’s a rival but she’s big-hearted, you know. Reaching the end of her career . . . she must be in her fifties, though she still has the best legs in Paris. She can afford to rise above it. But there are two younger stars, French, both, at the Casino de Paris and the Moulin Rouge, who hate Josephine’s guts. She’s rather stolen their thunder. Either one might have hoped to inherit Mistinguett’s ostrich feather crown as meneuse de revue. And one of them has a very wealthy protector. A banker. You’d know his name. He sends his Rolls Royce to the stage door for his little mouse every night.’
‘Does Josephine mind? All this antipathy?’
‘Too busy enjoying herself. I’d say she doesn’t give a damn! In fact,’ she added dubiously, a sly, slanting question in her eyes, ‘those close to her think she doesn’t care enough. For public opinion or her own safety.’
Joe seized on the word: ‘Safety?’ he murmured.
‘Everyone thought when she had her accident last year –’
‘Accident?’
‘Not actually. It could have been nasty . . . In one of her acts, she’s lowered in a flowery globe down over the orchestra pit. A breathtaking bit of theatre! Luckily she’d decided to rehearse in the damn contraption before the actual performance.’ Francine shuddered. ‘She was on her way down from the roof in this thing when one of the cables jammed. That’s what they said. A mechanic was sacked afterwards and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. The globe suddenly tilted over and swung wide open. She ought to have been thrown out into the pit. But she’s a strong girl with fast reactions. She jumped for one of the metal struts and hung on like a trapeze artist until someone could get up into the roof and haul her up again.’
‘Good Lord! What would have happened if she’d fallen?’
‘She’d have been dead. Or so badly injured she’d never have walked again.’
‘Dangerous place, the theatre.’
And a breeding ground for all kinds of overheated nonsense, he reckoned. Scandal, exaggeration, petty jealousies. He was allowing his own tolerance of gossip to put him off track and guided Francine Raissac back on to the subject he wanted to pursue. ‘These clothes the generous Miss Baker gives you – where do they come from?’
‘Gifts. They arrive at the theatre in boxes for her to try. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll tell me to take it away. I found her knee deep in Paul Poiret samples the other day. Wonderful things! She’d just had an almighty quarrel with him and