Chapter 23 #3
‘Of course you don’t, and that’s a credit to you. But you need more than just someone being good to you in a life partner. There’s passion and fun and the meeting of minds, and so much more—can you truly say you have that with James?’
Audrey said nothing for a moment. ‘I wasn’t looking for that … I was looking for safety. Peace.’
‘Oh, Audrey! We all need safety and peace—but we need the rest, too. And besides, safety and peace aren’t the same as sleepwalking into someone else’s tedious routine. On the other hand, jumping from the never-sizzling pan to the raging bushfire might not be the best plan either.’
Audrey knew her friend was right. She knew she must be careful.
And she would be. But she had to give herself time to understand what she really felt, about Alex, about the future.
The one thing she was certain about was that she must speak to James soon.
Not tonight though. She was bone-weary, the broken sleep catching up with her.
After a few more words with Kristy, she ended the call and went back to bed.
It was as she was drifting off to sleep again that it swam into her half-awake mind, like the flash of a swift tiny fish in murky water.
A flash, not about Alex, not about her situation, but something about the letter.
But she was too unfocused to grasp exactly what it was, and the flash of insight vanished under the fathomless depths of sleep.
It had been thanks to Alice’s old art teacher in Biarritz that she had obtained a place in a course at the prestigious art school the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse.
He knew people there and assured her mother that not only was the Académie eminently respectable and a safe place for young ladies, but also that following its art classes would in no way divert Alice from her career as a fashion illustrator; quite the contrary, in fact.
For not only was contemporary fashion illustration itself deeply indebted to the artistic movement known as Art Deco, but fashion designers themselves were often inspired by art and artists, and vice versa.
Artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Dalí, Magritte, Chagall, Tamara de Lempicka and others inspired the bold colours and unusual patterns of some designers, while some artists took inspiration from the great designers for their own works, or even occasionally designed clothing themselves, as Picasso himself had once done, creating extraordinary costumes for the celebrated dance troupe, Les Ballets Russes.
And Christian Dior, who was to become famous as one of France’s greatest fashion designers, started his trajectory in Paris not in fashion, but in art, as a partner in an art gallery which opened in 1928 and was the first to sell works by Salvador Dalí.
Meanwhile, at her Académie art classes twice a week, Alice worked hard, learning all kinds of techniques, but she also enjoyed the atmosphere, the smell of paint, the swish of brushes, the buzz of being among people for whom art was very much a valid way of life.
Occasionally, she caught glimpses of well-known artists who popped in to speak with the director—including, on one memorable occasion, the extraordinary Paris-based Francophile Japanese artist Tsuguharu Foujita, instantly recognisable in his short bowl haircut and owlish glasses.
His natural confidence, extraordinary talent, extravagant clothes, love of throwing parties and impish sense of humour had ensured him a valued place in the Parisian art world.
And his striking artworks, which deftly mixed contemporary French painting and ancient Japanese ink wash traditions, were popular not just with the art-buying public, but with other artists, including Picasso, who had bought several of his canvases.
Designers, too, were fascinated by his work, and in an interview Elisabeth Fontaine herself mentions she had gone to his studio and been struck by the variety, originality and beauty of his work as well as his knowledge of and skill in design.
For Foujita—who saw no distinction between art and craft, between artist and artisan—was very interested in clothes as an art form, knew many couturiers, and like Picasso had designed theatre costumes, as well as creating a range of designs to be printed on silk and making actual outfits for his friends and lovers.
When his star rose high again recently in the art world after being almost forgotten for decades, you could clearly see the attention he paid to the clothes in his paintings, including a magnificent 1926 portrait of the poet and socialite Anna de Noailles, wearing a beautiful golden dress whose details of embroidery and beading Foujita lovingly rendered.
But what Alice records in her notebook was a more personal detail: Foujita didn’t just pass through the art school workroom on his way to see the director, like the other celebrated visitors, he stopped to look at the students’ work in progress and even gave a few encouraging words, including to her.
It was that kindness she remembered, most of all.
As to her daily job, it was not always easy.
Unlike what Alice had imagined, it wasn’t just dashing off a few sketches as she had done at home, but a painstaking matter of studying a new model, making several sketches and layering them through tracing paper to get the final thing exactly right so it could be printed properly in the department store catalogues that were the bread and butter work of Dumas Illustration.
At first, Alice had to start again and again and again, her sketches discarded, the tracings redone, and that could be very tiresome indeed.
But bit by bit, Alice worked more carefully and deftly, until one day she got a word of praise from Madame Dumas, a day she underlined with red pencil in her notebook.
And it was the very next day that, sent on an errand to Tissus Tellier, she caught her second glimpse of Elisabeth Fontaine as she was whisked through the store, on her way to survey a new delivery of the finest silks from Lyon.
The manager Madame Jeanne, the deputy manager, Mariette’s sister Annie, and a couple of senior assistants, all in their soberly classic black and white, surrounded the petite, stylish figure, her face framed by a close-fitting dark hat.
The designer was dressed in a tailored black coat trimmed with fur, under which could be seen glimpses of a high-necked cream-coloured blouse and the elegant swing of a skirt the deep colour of red wine, her feet in heeled shoes of the same colour.
Alice says she drew a picture of the scene that night, but unfortunately it is not one that has survived, for it isn’t in her notebook.
Yet we still have her description of that small glimpse, which stayed with Alice all her life, especially as Elisabeth Fontaine died only a few months later.
A good deal of Alice’s notebook, however, is filled not with brushes with fame or the day to day of her job, but with her life as a bright, curious young woman discovering the most exciting city in the world, having new experiences with Mariette and other friends—Cocktails!
Nightclubs! Jazz! Picnics by the Seine!—and enjoying the admiration of a wide range of young men.
She knew to be careful; she may have been very young but she had not been brought up particularly conventionally.
Drug and alcohol abuse, predatory men, the underworld—she knew that trouble came in many forms. But completely avoiding possible sources of trouble also meant you were restricted in what you could do.
You might as well, as Alice wrote, just hide at home like a frightened mouse, and what kind of a life was that?
It was during one of those night-time escapades that Alice met the young man who she was to fall in love with and marry, my great-grandfather Charlie McGregor, who was part of an arty circle in Edinburgh.
He was in Paris on a holiday with friends and they went for a night out at a famous Montparnasse nightclub where known artists—including Foujita, Man Ray and others—gathered, along with their models.
That was the night that Alice and Mariette decided to go there, too.
And it was to be a night that would change Alice’s life.