Everyone nods obediently, anxious to impress.
The French girl behind me smiles nervously, so I smile back in comradeship.
I’m glad I have a friend down here, just in case I was wrong about the whole ghost thing.
“This,” the lady continues, “is going to be the highlight of Paris Couture Week. The eyes of the world are on us, every big newspaper will be covering it and the most major fashion players on the planet will be in attendance, so please listen to the following instructions carefully.”
There now isn’t a sound in the chamber.
I’m pretty sure fifty girls are holding their breath simultaneously: too terrified now to even respire.
“You all have numbers,” she continues. “Once the audience is positioned and the music starts, you will walk, precisely fifteen seconds after the girl in front of you.”
There’s an abrupt “ah ah AH CHOOO” and the lady freezes while the muscles in her neck tighten like wires.
“Sorry,” the model who just sneezed whispers in shame. “Dust.”
Then there’s a sharp, disgusted silence while we all sympathetically pray our basic body functions take the hint and stop completely.
“At some point along the tunnel,” the creative director continues, “you will find an enclave with your number. When you reach it, stop. Choose a position and stay as still as possible. When the bell rings, change position. And so on until the end. Is that clear?”
There’s another silence.
“Is that clear?” she barks again.
We all break into fervent nods and the room is suddenly filled with a cacophony of terrified whispers: “yes” “oui” “da” “si” “yah” “hai” “diakh” “shi” “ja” “haan” “hanji” “ano” “evet”.
I blink in amazement: just how many different nationalities from all over the world are crammed into one tiny space?
Ooh: maybe while we wait I can find out.
“Good,” the creative director says sharply. “I’ll only tell you once.”
A badly placed light from the wall is hitting just under her chin and up her slightly round orange dress, unfortunately transforming her into a glamorous glowing Halloween pumpkin. “We have twenty-six minutes until the show starts and the only way to access it is via this corridor. To maintain an illusion of drama, I don’t want to hear a single sound from any of you.”
I glance around at all my potential friends.
Ah, sugar cookies.
What a wasted opportunity.
“Ah-ah-ah-CHOO,” the girl sneezes again. We all turn round. “I’m sorry,” she whimpers again. “I think I’m allergic to dead people.”
Then we turn back to the creative director.
“We are about to make history,” she says, folding her arms tightly. “Starting right now.”
lot can happen in twenty-six minutes.
In twenty-six minutes, one and a half thousand planes will take off around the world.
In less than half an hour, nearly seven hundred people will get married, six and a half thousand babies will be born and 2,782 people will die. Three billion packages will be sent and Oprah Winfrey will make $14,000 dollars.
More than seven billion hearts will beat, two thousand times each, and fourteen billion lungs will breathe.
And under the pavements of Paris, standing in the dark and cold, fifty young models from around the world are currently doing none of those things.
I’m pretty sure even our blood has stopped pumping.
That’s how terrified of screwing this up we all are.
*
Time feels like it’s stopped.
As we shift from leg to leg en masse, trying to stay comfortable in our extraordinary outfits without making a sound, it’s hard not to think about the six million people around us who no longer hop, or breathe, or sneeze: who used to shake and worry and dream like us, but are now lying in the dark.
And I can’t help wondering, if spirits actually exist, what 18th-century Parisians would think of how fifty lucky and privileged girls are currently spending our Saturday afternoon.
Clad in satin and lace and elaborate head-pieces and bows and beads, staying as quiet as possible.
Actually, given what I’ve read about the French Revolution, they’re probably quite empathetic.
They may have seen it before.
Finally, there’s a loud chime.
From the walls, a deep, slow beat reverberates and the sound of an organ begins to wind around it: ascending and descending slowly, like a creepy spider. The air is filled with discordant singing voices and piano and violins, then a startlingly plinky xylophone and a faint wolf howling, even though there haven’t been wolves in Paris for many hundreds of years thanks to deforestation.
Quietly, a man wearing a razor-sharp black suit makes sure we’re all in numerical order and gives the girl at the front a nod.
“Allez,” he says, opening the curtain.
She swishes out and he starts counting backwards from fifteen in French.
“Allez,” he says again.
Another confident, composed swish.
Fifteen seconds later: “Allez.”
“Allez.”
“Allez.”
“Allez.”
And as the line gets shorter and shorter, I can feel my heart start to pound and my hands quiver, the cold shivering down my back in icy trickles.
“Allez.”
“Allez.”
“Allez.”
Breathing hard, I lift my chin.
“Allez.”
With my eyes shut, I hold my shoulders back and try to focus on my centre of gravity: from what I’ve measured, it’s somewhere just below my belly button. I am a mysterious spectre. A phantom of constructed femininity, a shadowy bird-woman siren.
“Quinze, quatorze, treize, douze, onze, dix, neuf, huit, sept, six, cinq –”
Bracing myself, I open my eyes again.
“Quatre, trois, deux.”
I take one last breath.
“Un.”
And – like a monstrous vision of the night – I plunge into the catacomb.
here’s a first time for everything.
And I think clomping stridently through a dank giant underground crypt to the sounds of wolves howling while wearing a gown of glossy black feathers and a pair of freaking wings is definitely one of them.
Swaying and swishing and trying not to wobble off my velvet platform heels, I move through the dark.
Just ahead, I can see the trailing black ruffled skirt of the girl in front of me, brushing along the stone floor, and behind me I can hear my new French friend clipping along in her even more enormous heels.
Keep walking, Harriet.
The walls are starting to widen now.
As the music begins to get louder, screaming and wailing, we walk and twist round dark corners and the ceiling starts to lift: opening up until we’re in what looks like an underground chapel. Stone arches rise above us and in the dips of grey walls are hundreds of flickering candles. Shadows quiver, the air thickens and simultaneously gets colder, and white crosses are wedged aggressively into the corners.
Condensation drips gently on to the floor.
Crouched against the walls like silent spiders are dozens of black-clothed photographers with enormous cameras, waiting for us quietly: clicking and flashing as we glide by.
Along the sides are black chairs, neatly lined up like a sartorial funeral.
In them are dozens of important men and women, glossy in expensive shades of white and ivory, fur and lace: the royalty of the fashion world. Leaning forward in total silence, holding notepads, watching us intently.
And above us, carved in rock, it says:
Unless I really shouldn’t have got a B for Year 9 French that means:
STOP.
This Is The Empire Of The Dead.
And it seems like good advice – not to mention a pretty territorial attitude from the afterlife – so it
takes every single bit of willpower I have not to obediently draw to a halt and then retreat in open terror.
Instead, I keep walking.
Down past the lines of people, round another corner and an even larger, hollowed-out chamber edged with yet more beautifully dressed people sitting in chairs, lit by candles.
Except this time the walls are no longer made of stone: they’re bobbly and bumpy and greyer, composed of differently sized pieces, cemented together.
Some of them are tiny, the size of the end of my finger, and some of them are larger, the size of my upper leg. Scattered throughout them in neat and coordinated patterns – as if somebody centuries ago was playing a weird game of Tetris – are rounder bits with huge black holes in them.
And as I swish straight through – trying to focus directly ahead of me through my candelit, glittery tunnel vision – a thrill runs across my shoulders, neck and the back of my head.
They’re bones.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of bones.
Femurs and metacarpals; phalanges and humeri; shoulder blades and collarbones. All glued together to form the walls.
I am literally walking past the exposed craniums and gaping eye sockets of hundreds of dead people.
And all of a sudden my urge to wander off into the dark on my own or measure the temperature of the catacombs on my iPhone app isn’t quite as fervent any more.
Maybe I’ll leave that for another visit.
Shaking, I walk on.
Round yet more corners: past yet more stylish, perfectly groomed people in white.
The organ chimes; the wolf howls; the xylophone plinks; the drums pound.
The discordant music swells to a creepy crescendo.
And – just as it feels like I’m going to be walking in the dark forever, and I can’t work out whether this is the entrance to hell or we’re now definitely inside it – the model in front of me turns a corner and disappears completely.
Teetering on my heels, I almost slam to a stop.
Then I look to the side: in an enclave lined with yet more bone-walls, the number ‘33’ has been drawn on the floor in chalk.
Abruptly, I turn into it.
Panicking, I put one hand on my hip, bend my shoulder forward at an extreme angle, curve my neck back and my head up.
I freeze like a statue.
And realise – with a sudden pang of horror – that I think I might need the toilet.
ere are some facts I’m thinking about right now:
I’m trying to focus, really I am.
But – slowly and surely – my body is beginning to take over from my brain: as it always does in times of emergency.
Gradually, my attention is shifting from bone categorisation and awareness that I’m part of such an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime sartorial experience, to the terrifying sensation that my bladder might be about to explode everywhere like one of the water balloons Alexa threw at me in Year 9.
Never mind dead people: every muscle in my very-living body is starting to burn, my tummy is spasming, my shoulder hurts, my spine aches.
Insects don’t have bladders because they never need to pee, and honestly I’ve never wanted to be a beetle more in my entire life.
I think this pose I’ve struck was definitely another error.
Ding.
With the loud chime, I swiftly swing my neck in the other direction, push out my other hip, hold a hand in the air and face the other way: exactly as the famous Venus de Milo statue would have done before her arms fell off.
Then I hold this pose as carefully as I can.
All of the other models must have found their places now, because slowly the audience is starting to leave their seats and walk past: photographers begin to appear in front of me, wielding their cameras like enormous weapons.
Click click click. Flash.
Ding.
Panicking, I try to think of another position that will give my bladder a break.
Twisting round, I look upwards and hold both my arms above my head like a Degas ballet dancer in the gloomy half-light, trying to keep my face as vacant and enigmatic as possible.
“I like this very much,” a woman in a white dress says, peering at me over the top of her glasses critically. “It’s atmospheric. A bit je ne sais pas. This girl genuinely looks scared.”
I am, just not for the reason she thinks.
And I do know why: I might be about to pee myself in a couture dress that is worth more than twenty-two years of university fees or my family home.
An eternity passes, then:
Ding.
Shifting, I crouch over and turn slightly so that my wings are more on display and my face is cast in shadow. In the process squishing my stomach and causing even more pain. Ouch.
Eventually the ladies move on and another set pass with murmurs of approval, making notes in their little pads.
Click flash click.
Ding.
“That dress is magnificent,” somebody says as – in a moment of brain-blank and excruciating relief as I move again – I straighten with my legs in a Y shape and stupidly put my fists on my hips as if I’m Superman.
Haute Couture, Harriet. HC.
Not DC.
“I love how the structural shapes of these dresses have an innocence to them,” a man in a white shirt and pale grey trousers says as a woman gets two centimetres away from me and goes “mmm, mmmm”. Right. In. My. Face.
“There’s a real luminosity to the collection.”
“I agree. Dark but also light, simultaneously.”
“Eerie but relatable.”
“Absolutely. True genius.”
Ding.
And in my self-induced pain I can feel my mind starting to separate from my body: floating a couple of metres above my shoulders like a hot-air balloon. What are the other models doing in their separate enclaves? What kind of shapes are they pulling?
Is there a public portaloo down here and will anyone notice if I slip into it, leaving my wings hanging on the wall outside?
Can I just squat behind a wall of bones?
What happens to your eternal soul if you accidentally pee on dead bodies?
Ding.
Pressure unbearable, I cross one leg in front of the other and squeeze them together tightly.
That’s better.
Then I close my eyes. Come on, Harriet. Get through it. Hold on just a little longer. You are the master of your fate, the captain of your … undercarriage.
Click click click. Flash.
Ding.
Shifting again, I keep my legs crossed and straighten, putting an awkward hand on my own shoulder. This feels like the worst game of Musical Statues ever.
Ding.
Finally – when I can hardly bear it any longer – I lift my head, cross my legs the other way, put my claw-like hands into a Vogue box shape round my face and open my eyes.
And nearly lose the game completely.
Because standing directly in front of me, dark dress sucking the candlelight out of the room, magenta lipstick gleaming and eyes narrowed – like the world’s most fashionable arachnid – is the only person on this planet who could make me pee myself without a full bladder.
The most terrifying woman or human or mammal I’ve ever met in my life.
And one I definitely thought I’d never see again.
Yuka Ito.
h, sugar cookies.
eriously: sugar cookies from hell.
LL the nightmare sugar cookies.
ith little icing horns and forked tails.
pparently if you’re over forty-five years old, the world’s population has doubled in your lifetime.
Which is good to know.
Because without counting, I can tell you for a fact there’ll be about three hundred trillion people roaming the earth by the time this moment is finally over.
Minute after minute ticks by in silence.
Unable to even blink, I continue to hold watery eye con
tact and Yuka continues to stare at me. Face mask-like and stony; thin body straight. Long black lace dress immaculate as always. Little sideways pillbox hat, perched on top of her long, black glossy hair as if somebody just hit her with a miniature black omelette.
She might be one of the world’s biggest fashion designers – and the woman who gave me my first big break – but Yuka Ito has obviously eschewed the dress code and is actually permanently styled as if she should be modelling in this show or possibly part of this crypt, not watching it.
And she knows.
She knows.
I don’t know how she knows, but she does.
Somehow – with one cold, Narnia-like stare – Yuka Ito is peering into the middle of my heart and body and she knows that I desperately need the toilet.
Probably because these are similar to the positions I pulled when I was trying to secretly study for a physics exam while advertising her perfume.
Inexplicably, she always sees straight through my subtle modelling tricks.
Motionless, I stare back.
The music continues to soar, the wolves continue to howl: my skin is starting to crawl with fear. Forget the bones; forget the skulls; forget the tomb of six million rotting skeletons. This is by far the most scared I’ve been since I got down here.
I hear a sneeze echo down the tunnel and pray fervently that I’m not allergic to dead bodies too. Cold sweat is starting to prickle on my throat and between my shoulder blades.
And all I can think of is the last time I saw Yuka – when she brutally fired me in Tokyo – and the last contact we had: when I quite rudely refused to take my job back, by email.
And how much she looks like her nephew.
Who she’s probably seen recently.
But will definitely – without a shadow of a doubt – tell all about this, probably over a hearty family breakfast in the near future.
The seconds tick by, clunk by clunk.
Time stretches out eternally like a hot elastic band.
Finally – just when I can’t hold any of it any more – there’s a ding. In a move of sheer desperation, I lift my taloned hands and hold them firmly in front of my panda eyes so I can’t see a single thing.