Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky by Chris Greenhalgh

Author:Chris Greenhalgh [Greenhalgh, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A clock ticks audibly on the kitchen wall. Marie is washing up, and Joseph is drying the dishes with a coarse white cloth. The windows are open and the piano sounds distinctly from Igor’s study. Voices drift in from the garden. A new swing has been installed in a corner of the lawn. It sways metronomically as the children take their turn.

“I don’t know what to make of these goings-on,” Joseph says, wiping a steaming plate with an overlapping motion of the cloth.

“You don’t?” Marie asks, sardonically. She plunges her hands into the soapy water and pulls out another dripping dinner plate. A white cup and saucer follow.

Joseph stacks them on the table. “Has she said anything to you?”

Faintly outraged at the suggestion, Marie frowns. “Of course not.”

“Do you think Madame Stravinsky knows?”

“She has eyes and ears like the rest of us. Unless, of course, she’s deceiving herself.” Marie sees her fingers have wrinkled finely in the water.

Outdoors the boys are messing around with a hosepipe, spraying each other. Suzanne is pushing Milène vigorously on the swing.

Marie carries on, “Even your own daughter’s old enough to understand what’s happening.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s only fourteen.”

“She’s not as naïve as you think, Joseph.”

A wineglass gulps as she puts it in the water. The dregs in the bottom make a sharp red stain.

“All right. I suppose she must have an idea. But the worst thing would be for it all to blow up.”

“God! Men are such cowards,” Marie says. And then, with a force that almost pulls her forward: “I’ve half a mind to tell her myself.”

“Remember, darling, where our loyalties lie.”

“I would tell her if she weren’t so haughty.”

Joseph wipes away a thumbprint from the side of a glass and puts a stack of plates into the cupboard. Clearing things away, returning each bright pot to its allotted place, is his way of coping with the turmoil that has disturbed the calm of the house. “Like it or not, Mademoiselle Chanel is our employer. Her best interests reflect our own.”

“I think it’s perfectly disgraceful the way she carries on.”

“It’s not for us to judge, Marie.”

“Somebody has to.”

Through the window, Joseph sees Milène on the swing twisting the ropes around tighter until they begin to kink.

“Well, it’s not our place. Remember what happened last time.”

“I don’t need reminding.”

“I think you do. Each change of lover brings with it a fresh change of domestics. You know the rule.”

As Milène releases her feet from the ground the ropes of the swing unravel, sending her spinning around and around.

Relenting. “All right, I know.”

“We can’t afford that to happen again.”

Marie pulls the plug from the sink. Ringingly she wraps the chain around the tap. She adds, “I don’t know what she sees in him anyway.”

“Mm.”

“It’s pretty obvious what he’s after, though.”

“Oh, stop it!”

Just then, the Stravinskys’ cat trots into the kitchen and stalks around.

“Nothing left here, I’m afraid, Vassily.”

“Scram!” blurts Marie, less charitably.

The water drains from the basin with a long-drawn gurgle, then a vortical roar. Marie runs cold water around the congealed scum at the bottom of the sink.

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