Secrets and Showgirls Read online

  SECRETS and

  SHOWGIRLS

  Occupied Paris ...

  A glitzy cabaret where nothing is as it seems ...

  Copyright © Catherine McCullagh

  First published 2021

  Copyright remains the property of Catherine McCullagh and apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.

  All inquiries should be made to the publishers.

  Big Sky Publishing Pty Ltd

  PO Box 303, Newport, NSW 2106, Australia

  Phone: 1300 364 611

  Fax: (61 2) 9918 2396

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.bigskypublishing.com.au

  Cover design and typesetting: Think Productions

  Proudly printed and bound in China by Jilin GIGO International

  For Cataloguing-in-Publication entry see National Library of Australia.

  SECRETS and

  SHOWGIRLS

  Occupied Paris ...

  A glitzy cabaret where nothing is as it seems ...

  Catherine McCullagh

  For those who sang, danced and performed their way through the occupation but never lost their patriotism.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 The red-hued cabaret

  Chapter 2 Variety is the spice

  Chapter 3 Creatures of the mind

  Chapter 4 A shrill portent of war

  Chapter 5 Ragged, all-pervading fear

  Chapter 6 An iron resolve

  Chapter 7 The bitter tide of invasion

  Chapter 8 Patriotism duly shelved

  Chapter 9 Playing with the enemy

  Chapter 10 A delicious diversion

  Chapter 11 Racketeers and revelations

  Chapter 12 The delicate question of identity

  Chapter 13 A certain uniqueness

  Chapter 14 The crushing cost of survival

  Chapter 15 The unexpected acrobat

  Chapter 16 An odious interloper

  Chapter 17 Madame Gloria’s culinary conundrum

  Chapter 18 God’s inescapable will

  Chapter 19 A rare breed of nun

  Chapter 20 Trussed-up trouble

  Chapter 21 An inconvenient corpse

  Chapter 22 A powerful ally

  Chapter 23 Yellow stars fading

  Chapter 24 Dirty Dietrich comes to call

  Chapter 25 A mercy dash with a difference

  Chapter 26 A dose of red-tinged optimism

  Chapter 27 The budding subversive

  Chapter 28 A goose behind the door

  Chapter 29 The whisper of betrayal

  Chapter 30 A tricky pursuit

  Chapter 31 The bell tolls for Madame Claudette

  Chapter 32 A quest for divine assistance

  Chapter 33 Exquisite timing

  Chapter 34 The shrouded beast

  Chapter 35 Knee-deep in contraband

  Chapter 36 Fomenting insurrection

  Chapter 37 The barricade king

  Chapter 38 The LPDB defeats its arch-enemy

  Author’s note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The red-hued cabaret

  She was tall, lamp-post thin and slightly giraffe-like as she gazed up at the lifeless neon sign. ‘Le Prix d’Amour’ she read aloud to no-one in particular, her freckled nose wrinkling its incomprehension, ‘the price of love’. She stopped and stared, dropping her bulging tapestried carpet bag and tatty, overstuffed suitcase on the pavement at the front of the building as she studied the sign. ‘So, what is the price of love?’ she asked, as if expecting the premises to explain itself. The building was low and broad-fronted with a series of huge glass doors under a heavy iron lace edifice. Above the edifice was the enormous neon sign that proclaimed the building’s sumptuously theatrical name, its solid rectangle outlined in coloured bulbs that promised to ripple at night, directing all passing pedestrian traffic through the glass doors beneath. This was Le Prix d’Amour cabaret, one of the most popular nightspots in the Paris of 1938. The building was smartly appointed, its brassy gold and scarlet paint brightly hued and garish, the black edging at the corners adding a touch of gravity as if to curtail an excess of frivolity. It suggested an air of mystique, an aura of cabaret naughtiness, as if secret desires and longings jostled and thronged within. This was a building with a come-hither call, a magnetism that few could resist.

  The leggy girl with the freckle-kissed face and a head of tousled, dark brown curls was not about to try. She gave the cabaret one last questioning look and, when no answer was forthcoming, retrieved her baggage with a heave and shouldered her way through the glass doors, falling inside in an untidy tangle of long legs and luggage.

  The squat faςade of the building opened to a plush foyer entirely fitted in red velvet and gold. On one side of the room, soft, blood-red carpet gave way to heavy, gilt-fringed, red velvet drapes that hid the wall. A facing wall held glass-fronted ticket booths and a cloakroom counter, while the other disappeared into solid, golden double doors, the gateway to the cabaret proper. Intricately wrought, gold-framed billboards stood in clusters around the foyer flaunting posters of leggy showgirls peering from the soft foliage of ostrich plumes and arching in sequined gowns slit to the thighs. Pouting red lips and provocatively swayed hips, taunting expressions and beckoning, kohl-rimmed eyes teased from the billboards. Cameos of celebrated artistes with star-studded lure punctuated the glittering images of the dancers. Le Prix’s jewels were displayed for all to see.

  The long-legged girl picked herself up, utterly mesmerised by the scene in which she was now immersed. She studied the glitzy billboards at length before suddenly recalling the purpose of her entry into this realm of pleasure.

  ‘Hellooo!’ she yodelled, ‘anybody there?’

  ‘Oui, Mademoiselle,’ answered a voice promptly as a wizened janitor sprouted suddenly from behind the cloakroom counter startling the girl.

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ she yelped, ‘where did you spring from? You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  ‘Pardon, Mademoiselle,’ the gnome-like janitor replied gravely, ‘I was dusting behind the counter.’ He emerged into the foyer waving an enormous purple feather duster that almost dwarfed his diminutive form.

  ‘I’m looking for Madame Claudette,’ began the girl tentatively as if still uncertain whether the gnome belonged to the realm of reality.

  ‘Ah, Madame Claudette,’ he responded brightly, ‘follow me, please!’

  He swished his voluminous duster in a sweeping, vaguely beckoning movement and headed for the golden double doors. The girl gathered her luggage with an effort and plunged after him, keen not to lose her little guide as he proceeded into the dark unknown that lay within.

  It was the smell that hit her first. As she followed the gnome into the cabaret proper, a strong, sweet smell of stale alcohol rose to greet her entry into this darkened zone. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out knots of circular tables attended by gilt-edged, red velvet chairs dotted throughout what was an enormous theatre. To one side was a bar, its mirrored ceiling hung with upended glasses of every shape and size, a frosted cave with rounded glass stalactites. Shifting her eyes from the bar, the girl turned towards the direction in which her miniscule guide was rapidly disappearing and studied the enormous and lavishly appointed stage that dominated the theatre, its edges bedecked with the same red velvet curtains that fringed the foyer. A deep orchestra pit ran along the front of the stage and disappeared into the void beneath. The ceiling of the stage was a mass of mirrored balls, the backdrop a mesmerising wash of shi
mmering colour. The girl stood, gazing in admiration, her brown eyes wide with awe and her jaw dropping in wonderment. A small cough from the gnome reminded her of her mission and she gathered her dishevelled thoughts, loping after him with gracefully angled strides, intent on avoiding the tables and chairs that appeared out of the gloom as if hell-bent on tripping her.

  At the back of the theatre proper was a labyrinth of dressing-rooms, costume and prop stores and wooden-floored practice rooms complete with barres and mirrors. In the largest of the practice rooms a collection of a dozen or so lithe-limbed girls in a motley array of clothing capered, kicked, pranced and danced on a slightly raised wooden dais that covered three-quarters of the room’s floor. A thirty-something fluffy-haired pianist, vaguely female in a drab brown cardigan, peered at her music through gold-rimmed spectacles, tapping a tune with overplayed beat. Watching the girls was a tall, elegant woman in her early fifties, her soft, greying hair escaping from a green silken turban secured at the front with an elaborate diamond brooch and a large, white ostrich feather. Her face bore traces of former beauty, the high cheekbones and fine features retaining the final vestiges of youthful hue. The woman wore a paisley shift, brightly coloured and fluid, over which a sequined grey silk shawl was artfully draped. One bejewelled hand held a wafting cigarette holder at right angles to her body, the other hand was firmly planted on her hip and echoed the disapproval that shaped the red, tightly pursed lips.

  Alongside the elegant woman stood a natty little man wearing a striped suit and a look of benign concern. His green eyes were lively and small crinkles at the corners told of a man who laughed often and sported a keen sense of humour. His reddish hair was speckled with white and receded gently at the front, but had been swept carefully back in a stylish demi-wave, while his matching reddish moustache showed no signs of receding at all. As if to contradict the thinning propensity of his hair, the moustache was full and bushy, although trimmed into orderly edges like a well-kept hedge. Behind the man with the topiary moustache and towards the back of the room sat another woman, possibly in her early thirties, her mousy brown hair pulled back into a severe bun and whose waif-like figure was lost in a shapeless dress, predominantly charcoal grey in colour. She nursed a voluminous garment which she was busily sequinning, the thin line of her mouth sprouting a series of pins, her eyes darting from dress to dancing girls to elegant woman in restless mobility.

  The girls finished prancing and stood, posed and dramatic, as Madame Claudette’s pursed lips opened to emit a voluble sigh.

  ‘No, no, no!’ she pronounced, the crescendo of her voice rising with the final ‘no!’ to a bellow that echoed around the room, freezing the expressions of the girls and adding a tinge of alarm to the myriad pairs of eyes.

  ‘Again!’ she ordered, her direction prompting an immediate rearrangement of the bodies on the dais and a frantic flapping of pages at the piano. Madame Claudette drew heavily on her cigarette, pausing to allow the tendrils of smoke to seep in a dense, flattened cloud from her open lips.

  ‘There is no passion!’ she hissed to the natty man beside her, ‘no vibrancy, no joi de vivre! Maurice, mon cher, they are truly soulless without la belle Sybilla.’

  The man’s ginger moustache twitched and he looked up at Madame’s anguished face.

  ‘Ah, cherie, it will come with time and practice, we should not expect too much at this early stage.’

  The pianist resumed her tortured fingering and the dancers fell back into their routine, high kicks interlaced with fluent movement, flowing arms, pointed legs and twisting bodies, puppets controlled by the keyed rhythm of the piano. As the movements gathered pace and the dance sequence’s climax approached, a sudden flurry from the side saw a tall shadow throw itself into the front line of dancers and execute a dramatic flourish with a coloured chiffon scarf that echoed the swing of a matador’s cloak and captured the last few beats of music, completing the routine in an extraordinary finale. It was a perfect, precise movement, no less graceful for its precision, the girl’s arms and legs moving in fluid unison. This was a dramatic, eye-catching and show-stopping action that made her the instant centre of attention.

  A stunned silence ensued as the chorus line froze and the pianist stopped abruptly, her hands raised from the keys and petrified in midair. Madame Claudette stood stock still, her eyes narrowed to skewer the intruder, her usual frown of disapproval now forming great crevices on her face, her cigarette smouldering in red-eyed condemnation. The impasse was broken by a spontaneity that shocked them all.

  ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ cheered Monsieur Maurice, his stocky form jiggling with glee. Madame Claudette turned to him with a look of deep disapproval and pronounced disdain. He ambushed the approaching reproof.

  ‘Don’t you see, my darling? The matador! This is exactly what we need here! Flourish, sweeping flourish, blood-red fury, drama, then death!’ Madame’s icy glare continued to bore into him, her disapproval steadily deepening, the looming death possibly his own. But Maurice remained spectacularly unmoved. Instead he turned to her, took her hand and dropped his voice to a soft murmur.

  ‘Don’t you remember, Claudette?’ he crooned. ‘Don’t you remember all those years ago when you gave the world the matador? You were magnificent, feted, celebrated and loved by an adoring public for the genius that you brought, the touches of brilliance that set you apart from the rest. Don’t you remember?’ The little man’s eyes had moistened, although his obvious joy remained undiminished. He held Madame’s gaze and watched it soften as the mists of memory cleared.

  ‘She’s you,’ he whispered so that only Claudette could hear. ‘She’s you ... all those years ago.’ Madame seemed to wake as if from a dream and a tiny smile played across her face, dissolving the crevices of disapproval and illuminating the traces of that long-forgotten youth.

  ‘Ah, Maurice, mon cher, was I ever so young?’ The tiny smile played briefly, she squeezed Maurice’s hand and, with a long draw on her cigarette, turned back to the girls, who had been watching in quiet astonishment. Madame was never interrupted and they now waited for the intruder to feel the full force of her ire. The Sword of Damocles was poised and ready to fall.

  But Maurice’s words had struck a chord and Madame’s ire had been neatly deflated.

  ‘Enough for now, we will have a little break ... I will call you to resume directly.’

  She watched as the girls jostled off the dais, pointing an elegant, bejewelled finger at the lanky intruder.

  ‘You,’ she ordered, ‘come here.’ The girl hesitated and approached meekly, her throat flushed and her freckled face creased with concern.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Madame ...’ she began before the besuited gentleman interrupted.

  ‘You answered the advertisement, didn’t you?’ he asked, his face beaming with sudden recognition. The girl’s face lit with a responding half-smile.

  ‘The advertisement,’ she echoed with increasing enthusiasm, ‘yes, that’s right —’, but the dapper little man had turned to Madame.

  ‘This is Sybilla’s replacement,’ he told her, ‘Mademoiselle Lily ...’

  ‘Lestrange,’ Lily supplied helpfully, ‘Lily Lestrange.’

  ‘Aah,’ replied Madame, clearly yet to be convinced that Lily Lestrange was a desirable addition to her dance troupe.

  ‘Mademoiselle Lestrange has danced at Le Troc in Marseilles and in Spain, in Madrid ...?’

  ‘That’s right Monsieur, in Marseilles and Madrid . ..’ agreed Lily, opening her mouth to add more detail to her portfolio of chorus line experience. But Madame and Monsieur were now interested only in their own conversation.

  ‘At Le Troc? In Madrid? Hmm ... impressive.’

  ‘I think she could add some flourish to our routines ... a little colour here, a touch of panache there ...’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Both turned to regard the lissom showgirl at the same time as if worked by the hand of an invisible puppeteer.

  ‘You’re hired,’ announced Maur
ice brightly, ‘go and tell the girls and they will look after you.’ Lily was overwhelmed, both by the prospect of instant employment and the recognition that her impetuosity could have proved her undoing.

  ‘Merci, Monsieur, merci, Madame!’ she replied effusively, throwing her thanks over her shoulder as she trotted happily after the noisy throng of showgirls, bent on settling quickly into her new life. Paris was a long way from Marseilles — even further from Madrid — and she was ready for her next challenge.

  Monsieur Maurice and Madame Claudette exchanged glances. You had better be right about her, said Madame’s narrow-eyed look as she swirled the skirt of her shift and set off in search of a replacement cigarette for her holder. But Maurice responded with a broad, confident beam. He did not have her dancer’s instincts, but he had a good head for business and he nursed his own hunch about the willowy miss he had just hired. She might be just the boost his cabaret needed right now.

  Chapter 2

  Variety is the spice ...

  ‘You the new girl?’ this from a flossy blonde with a red dancer’s shift split to the thighs.

  ‘Lily,’ smiled the newcomer shyly as heads turned and names tumbled at her, raining in an incomprehensible torrent. The torrent abated abruptly with an acid comment from a buxom, flame-haired dancer who regarded Lily through heavily lidded, kohl-rimmed eyes.