Fiction preview from The Emerald Twins (published May 25)

I curl up in the back seat of her car and weep until the black kohl Coco made me up with smudges the starched white collar of the suit she had made for me and I’m crumpled and spent as a husk. I just want my maman.

I hear Coco making arrangements, directing people, the priest thanking her for her immaculate presence in her white mourning clothes like a medieval queen, the neighbours anxiously asking her to take care of me, to keep in touch with my whereabouts and welfare. She deals with them all efficiently and I surrender to my sobs, relieved to give them permission, not to be a grown-up.

My golden maman with burnished hair, swinging me in a sunlit garden, always there. Holding my hand on the way to school, listening to tales of algebra and best friends and playground fall-outs. Telling me the name of shells on our little beach – abalone, rose murex, variegated scallop - and making up stories about the lives of starfish who light up the rocks in blazing constellations when humans aren’t looking. The sunlit days when we packed a beach picnic of chocolate and bread and strawberries after failed attempts to cook a ‘sensible’ dinner.

I run the evening before she died through my head over and over again. I was so nervous about Jacques, and she told me I was beautiful and clever, and it was he who should be nervous. She kissed my cheek and told me to go out and be carefree and young, and let her do the worrying, that’s what mamans are for, she told me, placing the thin strap of my dress just so. My hurtful words to her, the last words I said to her. And… I can’t think any more.

Coco sits in the back of the car with me, my head on her bony lap. Her crepe skirt is soaked with my tears, and she holds me tight and says one word: courage, little Nina. It’s what she said to me the night Odette was taken, and now I understand why maman went to bed for a week, because when the sadness is so great, your body doesn’t work and you must give into it to try and numb the pain.

The car speeds through the night, along the corniche, up into the hills. She takes me to her summer villa, guides me through the cool colonnades, gives me a room overlooking the pines and the sea beyond.

‘Cry it all out,’ says Coco. ‘If you don’t cry, you no longer believe in happiness.’

I lie staring at the ceiling, hear her giving orders to servants who bring my bag into my room. They creep in, blink sympathy at me, then retreat as an owl hoots despair to the big moon that shines careless and bright when the world is so dark. A green glass ring is all I have left of my family. I put my head in my pillow and close my eyes, and see maman in every shadow, shut away in her lead box, and a part of my heart stays in there with her.

Coco makes me feel safe, despite the parties that swirl around this glamorous house. Her acolytes worship at her feet – they are gods in their own right -  Dalì, Picasso, Cocteau – but she walks among them as she pleases, a harsh goddess, toying with them; vivacious and witty, scathing and cruel in turn. She’s an athletic, tennis-playing society hostess despite her seventy years, and she outshines the statuesque beauties all this talent and power attracts with her magnetic allure, her pearls and chains, her aching minimalist chic, her tough insights and bons-mots. No one can resist.

At night I shut out the music and talking and dancing and try to conjure up maman, keep her with me, look for signs in the shadows. By day I wander the house like it’s a stage set peopled with the rich and famous, figures from another world, numb with sadness, the spectacles a momentary diversion from the realisation every morning that maman is gone.

Coco tells me about Maman’s illness. She’d had cancer for years, never wanted to tell me, desperate to see me grow and be happy. I confide in Coco about the last words I said to her, which have haunted me every night, the first words which come to me every morning. My life isn’t fair, I told Maman, when all she ever did was care for me and work and make up for losing you, Odette. She asked me to come home on time, and I stayed out too late.

‘Those are the words and actions that gave her permission to go,’ says Coco firmly. ‘Every child must rebel, or the pain of leaving would be too much for you both. She never wanted a perfect child. There is no such thing. What she wanted was a happy, independent one, and you showed her that is what you are. She needed to go, and you let her. You can honour her by living your life to the full. That is ultimately all every maman wants.’

Chanel takes my hand. Hers are strong and large for such a petite figure.

‘Let her go. Come with me to Paris.’

‘What about Odette?’ I say. ‘We’ve always lived in one place in case she needs to trace us.’

Chanel taps my middle finger, where I always wear the replica. ‘You have my ring. You can bring her with you.’

Coco wastes no time, packing up trunks, instructing me to fold up my few belongings in a suitcase. We drive away from the south, and the landscape changes; the fields become greener, but the skies darken. The journey takes two days and with each stop I whisper another goodbye to maman, to my childhood, but not to you, Odette.

As the car rolls through the Place Vendome, all uncompromising angles, grandiose architecture, and desolate wide-open spaces, my heart is in my mouth. We’re going to stay at Chanel’s suite at The Ritz, the last place we were together, Odette.

I’ve thought about this place so often, dreamt of it, had nightmares about it, but the reality is nothing like the memories. The awnings over the windows are crisp bright white, the doorman is friendly and salutes me and Coco, the corridors are light, the thick carpets soften our step in Chinese silk, and people are smiling and laughing and eating and drinking, the sound bubbling up cheerfully as we walk past.

In my memory it’s dark, there’s an alarm blaring somewhere, and monsters in grey with skull badges on their uniforms prowl the corridors looking for children to take. There’s a nightmarish pall of horror and rawness in the rooms.

I’m glad maman’s not here to see it, people lounging in luxury at the scene of our zero hour. There’s a comfort in it too though, that life goes on. I hope yours does, too, Odette. I clutch our ring as I walk through to Coco’s suite, as if it’s a crystal ball that could show me what route you took out of here, into the world full of dark unknowns.

Chanel’s suite is different from the rest of the Ritz, more like a nun’s cell. She’s had everything stripped out, the flourishes and curlicues are gone, the colours are muted and it’s all painted white. I wish I could do the same, just feel clean and fresh and unhindered from missing you, Odette, more than ever now that maman has gone.

Coco shows me her favourite possession, a meteorite.

‘You can’t buy what comes from the sky,’ she says, turning the smooth black rock around admiringly. ‘Everything you need is already in you, here and here.’ She pats my heart and my head.

It’s late, and we’re tired, so Coco has a bed made up for me and retires. I can’t sleep and Coco’s light is still on, so I creep to her door to see if she’s still awake; she always has wise words to chase away demons, but I stop short. She’s pale, painted-on eyebrows removed, the crimson slash of lipstick gone, and she’s sitting up in bed in her white pyjamas, childlike, vulnerable, holding a syringe. She shakes it, pierces the skin of her arm with the needle, carefully presses the plunger and sinks back, closing her eyes.

I shrink away from the door, and tiptoe back to bed. Even Chanel, the great meteorite, has her demons, needs her refuge. It’s just me from now on, and you, when I find you Odette.

I’ve been here in Paris two months now, and I’m sure you’ll forgive me, Odette, because I haven’t had time to get the annual photograph done for the Red Cross as there are always a million things to do. I’m working so hard, and if I’m honest, that photograph always upset me, and now it reminds me of maman and our annual trip to the photographer, and I just can’t quite get to it and Mademoiselle Chanel (that’s what I have to call her in her Salon, like everyone else) is all-consuming.

I’m here now, in her workshop on rue Cambon, in the attic room that she keeps for her special customers - I’m already involved in the fittings of her most revered friends and clients, something most people have to work years for.

Coco is harsh, even with her favourite model, Hélène, who stands there like looking impossibly modern and lovely. She’s so beautiful, Odette. People say she’s like Coco herself when she was young, with a dark crop, black eyes, arched eyebrows to die for and wide, generous red lips.

Coco is so impressive to watch, with her scissors hanging off a white tape measure around her neck. She never sketches or sews, but she designs clothes directly on the body, pressing the bodice with the flat of her hands, digging her nails at the waist, pinning and folding the oyster silk-satin until it becomes the loveliest, most elegant cocktail dress you’ve ever seen. When she barks instructions she sends everyone fluttering like birds, scattering the petites-mains, that’s the seamstresses like me, to action with one precisely articulated instruction.

‘Make an intelligent pleat, just here and here,’ she says, pressing Hélène’s svelte flanks. I understand exactly. She gives me a rare atelier smile, a million miles away from the vulnerable waif I saw injecting herself at The Ritz, and I respect her all the more for this display of strength when I’ve seen her in her most vulnerable state.

Coco says I’m her best seamstress, that while I can sew, I will always eat. I wish she wouldn’t say that in front of the other girls. We are all lined up, each of us assigned something very particular; a trimmed pocket on navy flannel, a set of shoulder pads in English tweed, a weighted hem in heavy silk. Today Coco has also trusted me with a complicated applique panel for Hélène’s scarlet evening gown. Black, white, and blood-red are Chanel’s favourites colours, reminiscent of the convent where she grew up.

I love the neat slice of the needle through fabric, the rows of intricate stitches, each a satisfying piece of perfection, a contribution to a work of art, a far cry from the messy, unpredictable world. When Coco sweeps in, you can hear a pin drop. If someone does drop a pin, Coco is cruel.

‘I’m not paying you to waste my time scrabbling around on the floor. Keep your wits about you, I only want the best. If your life doesn’t please you, it’s up to you to make the life you want to lead on your own time.’

Everyone nods primly, making a show of working diligently. The moment she’s gone, the gossip bubbles up.

‘Alright for some make the life you want to lead. If I had a choice, it wouldn’t be this one, but it’s better than horizontal under some aristo. That’s how she got…’

‘She did what she needed to, but now she has all this,’ one of the supervisors says. ‘Talent always rises.’

‘What, like teacher’s pet over there?’ says Blanche, pointing at me.

‘My best seamstress, so like your maman… an intelligent pleat,’ says Madeleine, hands on hips, eyes burning, nostrils flared in a Chanel parody.

The girls are fierce, but I understand. Most people are here because of poverty or loss and everyone’s trying to make it somehow. I’m happy to work every hour I can so I don’t have to think. I put all my anger at the world into Chanel’s creations. I like to think that it gives the design an extra swing, creates impregnable armour for the women who come to the workshop. They may be the most beautiful, the richest, the cleverest, the most ruthless, but lots of them are broken in some way.

The rumours are that Brigitte Bardot never feels loved even though she’s the most adored woman in France; Maria Callas is tormented by the fear of failure no matter how many rave reviews she gets at the Paris opera for her transcendent voice, and Grace Kelly has an air of melancholy despite her dazzling smile. I hope to give them wings and freedom and armour with the clothes I help make. Coco says that freedom is the most important thing for a woman, that clothes which restrict them are an abomination.

Brigitte always asks for me, she says I have the most delicate touch and the best eye. She also loves to tell me about her latest conquest.

‘He’s an angel, he sent his yacht with full crew all the way from Cannes to Saint-Tropez just to pick me up for the evening. The full moon, the Mediterranean, a little black Chanel dress, bare feet on a smooth warm deck and a coupe of Dom Perignon. There’s nothing like it, with all the little night fishermen and their lights in the bay like fireflies.

I smile, but I think guiltily of Jacques, who’s one of those night fishermen creating a picturesque scene for the millionaire’s yachts. He would hate this world, and my part in it. But I like it, it’s a million miles away from hardship and sadness and memories, and I can lose myself in it, be a different person and there is no one here who would ever know any different.

Odette, you’ll never guess where I am! Pinch me because in the first summer of my sixteenth year I’m standing on a terrace of a chateau in Saint-Tropez surrounded by everyone who is anyone with a glass of champagne in my hand (with our ring on of course) and a dress fashioned by my fairy godmother, Coco Chanel. It’s ivory silk-chiffon dusted with crystals at the hem, and I feel like an angel. Coco tells me I look like one.

I’m here with the whole team that Coco sent south for the press shoot, and we had so much fun on the harbour setting it all up and making a spectacle of ourselves in the little fishing port! Hélène looked beautiful in her jersey suit and slingbacks climbing out of the e-type Jag to shop at the flower stall, and guess what, I persuaded her to wear our ring! The photographer, François, was so kind and made sure it was very prominent in the pictures.  I hope somehow one day you’ll see the pictures in Vogue and find me. I’m waiting for you, Odette and if you’re anything like me, which I know you are, you’ll love fashion and jewellery.

Funny isn’t it? There’s such a big world out there, and all my life we’ve thrown out flares in the hope that you see them somehow. Now I’m old enough, it seems like madness to have hoped. I can hardly bear to think that you’ll never see maman again.  When we meet, I’ll tell you everything, how much she missed you, how she never stopped looking, the imaginary life we led growing up together.

Oops, there’s another glass of champagne. It’s Dom Perignon, Odette. I’m raising my glass to you, and I hope you’ll forgive me in forgetting you and maman just for tonight. It’s the only way I can have fun, and while sometimes I feel like I’m running to you and getting nowhere, I’m sorry to say that since maman died I find myself running in the opposite direction, away from memories and sadness, and into the future, where I wish I didn’t have a well of sadness in me that’s always threatening to drag me under.

Coco told me that I should live for two, and tonight that is what I’m going to do. The photographer, François, is with me. He is a complete gentleman, and his photography is more than just a record, he sells dreams. No one could really lead the lives he creates with his lens, but people like to believe in fairytales. Are you one, Odette?

Tonight feels like one, and maybe that’s all we can hope for; fleeting moments of artifice, a reason to allow ourselves believe. François is doing his best to remind me not to get carried away tonight, but I don’t want to hear it. I know that Coco has assigned him as my protector in this big, bad world of parties and celebrity, even though he’s not that much older than me. What neither of them realise is that I don’t need protecting anymore. It’s just me and the world now and I intend to experience every little bit of it.

Let me set the scene a little for you. I’m on the terrace of a chateau, there’s a bright moon and a scintillating path across the sea, the stars are like maman’s imagined starfish constellations, chattering and undulating. I’m leaning on the stone balustrade looking out into the bay where the people here have moored their yachts. Flaming torches line the terrace, evening jasmine is floating on the air, and the grand French windows are flung open framing the ballroom hung with chandeliers, a jazz band is playing and beautiful people you’d recognise from the pages of Vogue are dancing and gossiping. Don’t make me feel guilty now, Odette. I know it’s not real and probably fleeting, and maman is dead and you might be suffering somewhere, but I am doing my best to be happy.

So, I’m going to say yes to the handsome man who asks me to dance, even though François whispers that he’s the most notorious playboy at the party and I should be careful. I can take care of myself.

His name is Alain and he must be at least thirty and he’s so sophisticated and all the girls look on with envy as he leads me onto the dance floor. We dance the Madison and the twist and he buys me another bottle of champagne and everything’s a complete whirl. He says I’m fascinating and older than my years and I can’t bear it when everyone starts to drift off, I want it to last forever, so when he asks me if I want to join the after-party on his yacht, I can’t believe my luck. François says I should leave now, enough’s enough and Mademoiselle Chanel wouldn’t approve, but Alain promises he’ll look after me and bring me home himself and I must admit that cocaine makes it impossible to stop!

We race across the bay on his little red speedboat with another couple and after a few drinks on deck and some more dancing, they disappear and it’s just me and Alain under a canopy of stars. I do feel foolish when I hear them giggling below deck, saying that I’m a little young even for Alain. I’m not sure how they know, because I told everyone I was eighteen, not sixteen, and anyway he finds me refreshing; an ingenue with more life in my little finger than all the bored society hostesses put together. It sounded so wonderful, and like he could see right into my soul, but the cocaine’s run out, and I’m suddenly so tired and there’s a little thread of light appearing on the horizon and I realise that I’m out in the bay with a complete stranger, and coming here gives him the right to kiss me which I don’t really want to do now.

He sidles closer and grabs me in a kind of cinch which is too tight and he smells sickly sweet of alcohol and acrid tobacco and I squirm away, half laughing to keep it light, and say I’m really tired and would like to go home now.

‘Not yet, just a little kiss on this beautiful night. Haven’t we had a lovely time together?’

‘Yes, and I’d love to see you again, maybe tomorrow, but now I’m cold and I feel strange and I just want to go home. I saw your crew are already up, maybe they could take me back?’ He looks angry, so I say, ‘I’m sorry,’ and suddenly feel very unsophisticated and a bit scared.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until daylight. You can sleep here, it’s very comfortable, I promise and I’ll keep you warm.’

And he tries to kiss me again and I don’t know why, but I think of you being taken by that man and it makes me angry, and it gives me a kind of sharp focus and I can see what I need to do. I smile at him and simper for a moment while I calculate the distance. We’re close enough to the shore, the sea is flat calm, and thanks to maman and growing up next to the sea, I’m a strong swimmer.

I’m on the ship’s ladder before he realises what’s happening and I plunge in, Chanel’s 1000 franc dress billowing around me, and power back to shore, elated to feel the fresh brace of the water, and to escape Alain and his floating double bed.

The fishermen look up from the port café and discreetly avert their eyes as I emerge from the ladder onto the jetty and stride defiantly past, barefoot in my soaking dress, even Chanel’s crystals looking tawdry in the early morning sun.

Back at the hotel, François is already up, looking frantic.

‘What the hell happened to you?’

‘Didn’t I tell you mermaid was amongst my talents?’ I say. He doesn’t laugh.

‘Where’s you ring?’ he says.

I know without looking. The familiar, comforting weight is gone. I hold up my hand and my heart drops to my bare feet. It’s not there. Maybe it’s at the bottom of the sea. Last night was such a blur, I don’t remember. I’m sorry Odette, sorry maman.

Coco said I should live life for two, but from now on, I only have enough strength for one and I want to forget.