Wild Lavender by Belinda Alexandra Page A

on top of her. Bonbon peered out from the material then slipped under the chair to watch the goings on from behind the safety of the legs. The redheaded girl I had seen before recognised me. ‘Hello again!’ she called out, smearing her eyelids with purple shadow. ‘Helping out Mama Tarasova?’ It was then I realised why her French had sounded so strange; it was because she was English.
    ‘When the girls are on stage,’ said Madame Tarasova above the commotion, ‘you and Vera should come up here and straighten out the room.’ She stopped to help a girl with the ties of her Indian costume and shook her head at a dress lying on the floor. ‘They are good girls but sometimes they forget to hang up their costumes. Don’t they, Marion?’
    The girl grinned and continued rouging her cheeks.
    A bell rang. ‘Ten minutes until showtime,’ called out Madame Tarasova.
    The pace in the dressing room quickened. The girls flung off their kimonos and slipped on their costumes. MadameTarasova and I ran between them, helping to straighten tights and smooth down wigs.
    ‘Look,’ said a pale-skinned girl, whom I recognised as the one who had complained of hunger the first night I had watched the performers arrive at the stage door. She pointed to a tear under the arm of her smock. ‘I’ll fix it,’ I said. She tugged off her costume and handed it to me. I tried to ignore her bare breasts and mound of pubic hair jutting towards me and threaded my needle. I wasn’t shy, but I wasn’t used to the sight of female nakedness paraded so casually either.
    I heard applause and the bell rang again. I helped the girl back into her costume and watched her flee after the others down the stairs. Madame Tarasova followed. The clamour of the chorus girls’ feet and the war cries they shrieked as they ran down the stairs made the floor vibrate and the walls shake.
    ‘Simone!’ Madame Tarasova called over her shoulder. ‘Come back tomorrow night. I will go to the office tomorrow and sign you up for the payroll.’
    I guessed that meant I was hired.
    Madame Tarasova said that I could live in the backstage area until I found a room of my own. Monsieur Dargent had let her and Vera stay there when they first came to Marseilles after fleeing Russia, and I understood why they were so loyal to him when they could have got better jobs elsewhere. The day after I was hired, I couldn’t wait to get my things and tell Aunt Augustine that I was leaving. It was only when I had gathered my belongings and bundled up my clothes that I noticed Bonbon sitting by the door of my room with her ears drooping.
    I picked her up. I had forgotten that if I left I would not see her any more. I climbed the stairs to Camille’s room and knocked on the door. Camille opened it, dressed in a kimono. Her pretty face was ethereal without her stage make-up.
    ‘I’m leaving,’ I told her. ‘I’ve got a job at Le Chat Espiègle.’
    ‘I know,’ she said.
    ‘But I’ll still take care of Bonbon if you bring her to the theatre with you. For free.’
    ‘Take him,’ Camille said, yawning. ‘What am I going to do with a dog?’
    Bonbon’s ears pricked up and she wagged her tail. She must have sensed the happiness that ran through me. It was a good start to a new life: my little companion could stay with me.
    Aunt Augustine was sitting in the parlour, reading the newspaper. I’d already sent a letter to Aunt Yvette that morning, telling her and my mother that I was leaving and that I had found work as a seamstress with a music hall. I had to contact them first, because who knew what lies the old woman would tell my family if I didn’t. I could not think of one redeeming quality that made me feel sorry for Aunt Augustine. She had not shown me any kindness. She had not ‘taken me in’ after my father’s death. She had done nothing but exploit me.
    Aunt Augustine’s face turned red and her nostrils flared like a maddened bull when I told her I was leaving. ‘You