Garlic and sapphires

Duncan Fallowell

Chanel Edmonde Charles-Roux (Jonathan Cape £6.95) 'Hullo, Margot. Sorry I'm late.'

'Hullo, darling. What've you got there?' 'A new book on Chanel.'

'Oh yes, how beastly for you. Have some tea.'

'What does one say about her?'

'I don't think it matters. So long as it's in French, darling. They're the only people who give a damn about these needlewomen. And what a bitch she was—get that across.'

'I suppose you knew her. That's why I wanted to see you actually. You've worn her clothes.' For Margot Ingot was a rich woman.

'They're very comfortable, they always were. But I didn't know her at all. Nobody did, except a few catty minor poets. She affected an intimacy with Picasso and Stravinsky. I don't think it was authentic.'

'But you must have met her some place.'

'A few times in Paris after the war, after her Comeback. Once or twice before the war. At Eaton Hall. Churchill used to be there too.' A very rich woman.

'I gather she had a thing with the Duke of Westminster.'

'The second Duke. Of course—he was the richest man in England. In the late 'twenties it was. I'd call her a mannish woman, a man's woman, very capable, self-opinionated. And mad about the English.'

'Those classic suits.'

'They'd never been worn by women before. Except in the presence of animals. What a comfort suddenly!'

'I suppose that was her English Period.'

'Mad about us she was, everybody was. She thought the French were a petulant little tribe. Frills, furbelows, whalebone, gone—Chanel killed the Belle Epoque. 1916. The Charming Chemise Dress. My first shift.'

'Were the Grosvenors always horse mad ?' 'Mad! And yacht mad. It was the perfect combination for her.'

'How did she meet him ?'

'Oh, by then she was probably the most famous woman in the world. Came from nothing, of course. Illegitimate, orphanage, nuns, chip on the shoulder, all the classic beginnings.'

'For the oldest profession.'

'And in France the most conventional too. Always chose her lovers with great acumen which not all of them did. Boy Capel, now he was a dear. He set her up in her first business in Deauville. Poor Boy! Killed in a crash motoring down to Cannes in 1919. He'd only just married Diana Wyndham too. It all came out when Boy's will was published, that Chanel was still his mistress-----not to mention an Italian countess whom nobody knew about. Quite a scandal in our tiny circle. More tea?'

'Thanks. Was she upset ?'

'Chanel? I expect so, don't you ? Because she ran straight to the arms of the Grand Duke Dmitri who was always such a solace. He was eleven years younger than she was. Chanel liked younger men, being fairly butch herself.'

'Wasn't it Dmitri who helped Yusupov to kill Rasputin?'

'A right couple of scamps, those boys. Yusupov went wild in the Mediterranean after 1917. Wild.'

'Her Slavic Period.'

'Yes, the early 'twenties! Low slung waists, the Russian Ballet, Boyar embroidery! Do you know, darling, I've never been quite normal ever since.' Another instalment of ash dropped inadvertently into the sugar bowl from the end of Margot's cigar. 'I mean, my boobs, darling. They've never returned.'

'So when was Chanel No. 5?'

er, 1920! Desperately exotic . . . you probably can't understand but it had all been lavender water before that, heliotrope, attar of roses, unhand-me-sir. Chanel's had eighty ingredients. I was told she pinched it from Coty who'd been sitting on the recipe, wondering if they dare!' Margot proffered a powdery ear-lobe disfigured by a kind of platinum golf ball on a hook. It smelt like sunset across the Nile.

'Still divine, isn't it,' she said. 'The old witch made fifteen million dollars out of it all told.'

'Well, it mounts up. She did last a long time.'

'God, eighty-eight years! It cost me a fortune. Eighty-eight years hiding in the Ritz. That must be why your book is so big Filling in the silence.'

'Incredible padding. You know what the French are like about these types. The fate of the League of Nations has got to hang on Chanel's scissors. Listen to this—'.

He opened the volume at random and read : "In March, Hitler reinstated compul sory military service and announced that Germany was at last about to acquire an army she could be proud of. Lucky Ger mans! But really was it possible to flout the clauses of a treaty so flagrantly? What treaty ?What clauses?"

'She's mad!'

'Maddening—this, er,' he glanced at the cover. 'This Edmonde Charles-Roux, she writes like a beast of burden. The prose is always asking itself questions.' He took a sip. 'Like a donkey with a mission. Here's another bit: "On September 21, 1938, the

western powers abandoned Czechoslovakia to its fate. At Hradcany Palace in

Prague, Benes woke with a start at two in the morning. The governments of London and Paris were informing him of their treason, and Masaryk's successor could not keep back the sobs. In the peaceful Bubeno district General Faucher -" ' 'Stop, stop !'

'There's heaps more. None of it has the slightest connection with the heroine.'

'I've met people like that. I prefer Chanel. Simple.'

'OK, what've we got so far?'

He wrote on the tablecloth 'Credit' and under it listed—Dressed the modern woman intelligently, graciously; in at the start with headbands, swimming costumes, bobbed hair; Poiret said, 'What did Chanel invent ? Poverty de luxe.'

'And Chanel No. 5,' said Margot. The first abstract perfume: name, smell, label, bottle, all abstract.

And next to it he wrote 'Debit' and listed inhuman; met everyone between the wars, went everywhere, but always with pins in her mouth; stark, spiteful, no cross-fertilisation with others.

'There was some funny business in Paris during the Second War. She'd shut down as soon as war was declared. And took a German lover, got involved with the chief of German Intelligence, and had to flee to Switzerland after Liberation. It's often said that only a 'phone-call to Churchill by old Westminster saved her from being bumped off by the Clean-Up Committee.'

'Always an exceptional woman. She even survived it to make a Comeback in the 'fifties, didn't she?'

'Yes, that started first in America. Do you know what she said to me the last time I met her? "It looks well, Mrs Ingot, but even I can't perform miracles. Jacqueline Kennedy was wearing a Chanel suit in Dallas." That's how I'll always remember her.'