A Vision of Loveliness (25 page)

Madge laughed so hard the top button on her skirt flew off.

Jane suddenly felt a hand on her upper arm.

‘It’s Jane, isn’t it? Long time no see.’

She turned to see a tall, quite nice-looking blond bloke. She did the shy, puzzled look she used for bridal wear and played for time while he carried on talking. She watched his eyes flicking over her. Noticing. Noticing the smart make-up, the model-girl hair, the perfect manicure, the flirty eyelids of a pretty girl who knows to the nearest orchid exactly how pretty she is.

‘I hardly recognised you, to be honest, but I remembered the outfit. You look smashing!’

So did Tony. Everything that had made her squirm had gone. It seemed that he’d moved from Hardy Amies to be head of bought ledger or something at Sharp and Butler further up Savile Row. Old Mr Sharp wouldn’t let anyone be seen on the premises in a fifty-shilling suit so for the first twelve months your wages were docked until you’d paid cost price for a bespoke Sharp and Butler single-breasted special. The haircut was thanks to a word from young Mr Butler who had also taken Tony to an unofficial sale at the shirtmakers Sharp and Butler used for the dummy in their window. It only remained for the elderly typist to leave a deodorant on his desk one lunchtime (the accounts department had had an emergency whipround) and the result was a new, improved Tony, fit to be introduced to the gang.

‘This is Tony Cole, an old friend of mine.’ He couldn’t remember that many names at once but immediately offered to buy a round so they liked him anyway.

Jane could see the cash register in Suzy’s eyes clocking up the eleven-ounce made-to-measure blue worsted, the Jermyn Street shirt and tie. Not bad at all. Like Prince Philip without the uniform.

‘Janey and I have been showing off.’ She let him look at the Frockways ad.

‘It doesn’t do either of you justice.’ He smiled at Suzy but it was Jane he really wanted to talk to. He lowered his voice while the others carried on yacking.

‘You disappeared off the face of the earth. None of the girls at Drayke’s knew where you’d gone. Just pulled faces and said you’d had two weeks in lieu and that was that.’

‘Old Drayke never let anyone work notice. Reckoned they just caused trouble and nicked all the stock – or let their friends nick all the stock. I’m only sorry I didn’t get a chance to thank you for the dress and coat. That was so thoughtful of you.’

‘Miss Winter insisted. Like it was made for you, she said. So. You still living in Norbury?’

A spasm crossed her face as if someone had trodden on a corn and he tumbled at once that Norbury was a no-no. She papered smoothly over his mistake.

‘No. Auntie’s still down at the cottage in Norbley,’ she fantasised, suzily. The picture still tickled her. Doreen was on a sunny seat in the orchard this time, shelling peas for lunch. ‘I did want to stay with her but the journey was taking far too long so I’ve moved up to town with Suzy.’

‘Whereabouts?’

Hooray. Hooray. She had been lying in her beautiful blue and gold bath, dreaming about bumping into old friends and boyfriends – she was usually wearing the violet dress and coatee, funnily enough – and telling them where she lived and what she did. But she was beginning to give up hope. When did Norma and that crowd ever come to Piccadilly?

‘Suzy’s got a place in Massingham House – just behind the Dorchester.’

It was his face’s turn to do a little dance this time.

‘Strewth. That must cost a packet.’

She had been going to rattle off the widower-in-Hong Kong story. She’d told it often and she told it well but she didn’t think Tony would believe it somehow. His sharp rag-trade eyes had already totted up Suzy’s Harry Popper suit; the Bond Street coiffure; the shiny black crocodile bag. Clothes no honest woman could afford to buy. Even the top photographic models didn’t earn much more than a tenner a day. His face sort of winced then he turned back to Jane.

‘So. Will you finally let me buy you dinner?’

‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Tilt head three-quarter left profile to three-quarter right profile, lowering and raising lashes. ‘I can’t tonight.’ Never tonight – she’d grown as strict as Suzy about that and besides she had a dinner date and tomorrow was supposed to be a double date: her and Johnny; Suzy and Henry. She didn’t fancy it much. She might let Tony take her out for supper on Sunday. It always seemed a pity to spend so many hours getting sanded down and varnished and then not get any appreciation. Tony was bound to be very appreciative. It all depended where he wanted to go.

‘I might be free on Sunday.’

‘How about the Guinea? Only round the corner from you. They do a pretty good steak.’ Very nice too.

‘That would be lovely. I should be ready by eight.’ He lit her cigarette and she gave him the full works, sucking hungrily on the filter as she looked up into his face with those big, blank brown eyes. It was too easy really.

‘Party time, darling,’ whispered Suzy, who had just checked her smart new wristwatch. She slithered neatly off her stool –
Don’t ruin the whole effect by pulling down your girdle
– stubbed out her cigarette and kissed Pete’s cheek goodbye. It was a long time since Pete’s hand had strayed above the fifteen denier but Suzy was very good at staying pals. You never knew when you might need that glass of stout.

‘You ladies back here tomorrow lunchtime?’

‘Very possibly, darling, but right now we’ve got to love you and leave you.’

‘Can I give you a lift?’ Tony again. His car, quite a smart-looking Zephyr Consul, was parked on the corner outside. First the suit and now this.

‘Not bloody likely,’ laughed Suzy, who’d been taken to
My Fair Lady
three times. ‘I’ve got the taxi waiting, darling.’
Darling
. He wasn’t her bloody darling.

Chapter 19

A man should date a girl purely for the
privilege of her company, not to buy her
intimacy. Her pleasure in his hospitality
and her warm thanks for a lovely
evening should be reward enough.

It was just seven when they got upstairs. Suzy, having spent the whole day being beautified, just peeled off her suit and her girdle and lay down on the pink satin eiderdown for a little beauty sleep. Jane undressed and slipped into the bath Annie had run.

She had a date with the under-manager of the posh grocer’s in Piccadilly – two more smoked-salmon sandwiches and he was eating out of her hand. She wasn’t convinced the first time he asked her. He could only be on about a tenner a week but it turned out he was learning the family business and it was going to be dinner at Prunier’s and then dancing. She wouldn’t get much more than a box of chocolates out of it although the sick flatmate might pull in a hamper. He’d already sent an orchid – plain white, thank goodness. Those big, bruise-coloured ones never went with anything. She decided to stick it in her hair. Very mumsy, corsages.

What to wear? He didn’t look like the red velvet type. Too showy. She called through to Suzy who had had her nap and was now wriggling into a rhapsody in pink organza. She was seeing Henry at least two nights a week now and she liked to build in plenty of variety. She was going through a fluffy,
jeune fille
phase lately.

‘Is the forget-me-not faille clean?’

‘Give or take. Annie’s been over it with the Dabitoff, haven’t you, darling?’

Jane, all dried and lotioned, was dribbling the glass stopper of the Jolie Madame bottle behind her ears and down her front.
Make the most of your chosen scent. Let the world know that someone lovely has drifted by
. She had been using Miss Dior but a girl who worked on the scent counter in Selfridges told her that Ruth Ellis always used to wear it which made her feel a bit funny so she gave the bottle to Annie and then took Sergio shopping.

The blue faille was very, very tight. What Yanks called a Willpower Dress because it helped you say ‘no’ to food – say ‘yes’ and you either threw up or blew off. It looked fabulous, though, once Annie had trussed her into it. The bodice looked quite demure from the front but from above her tits looked like two fat dollops of ice cream. That should keep the waiters on their toes.

Quick check of her three reflections in the dressing-table mirror. Hair fat and glossy; skin powdered and peachy; lips young and pink as berries and eyes . . . eyes like little brown bits of wood. Even Jane could see that. Dead eyes.
All the eye make-up in the box will not make your glance appealing if your eye is merely on the main chance.

The phone on her dressing table rang. Henry had arrived early and Annie was busy shoe-horning Suzy into the organza (she’d lost a few pounds over the last fortnight but a size eight was a size eight) so Jane went into Maid Mode with a nasty Norbury voice.

‘Yais? Mayfair 3515.’

Completely threw June. Umming and ah-ing at this unexpected hurdle.

‘Is Miss Deeks there please? Miss James, I mean.’

‘Hi shall enquire.’

Jane put the finishing touches to her lips.

‘Hello?’

‘Jane? It’s me. June. I thought I’d better ring. It’s Auntie. Something’s happened.’

Jane studied her reaction in the three angles of the white and gold dressing-table mirror and let the drama flood across her skin. She pictured Doreen under a bus, Doreen in an oxygen tent, Doreen broken and bleeding at the bottom of the gorilla’s cage.

‘Aunt Doreen? Oh my God! What’s happened? What’s the matter?’

The Fantasy Coral lips trembling, the stiff dolly’s eyelashes clicking shut and then opening again on shiny new eyes. Not blue ones – why were dolls’ eyes always blue? – but hot and wet like melted chocolate. That was better.

‘She’s had a really Nasty Turn.’

What the bleeding hell was that supposed to mean? Definitely one of Doreen’s that was. Nasty Turn. What? Heart attack? Epileptic fit? Stroke? Brain haemorrhage? Stomach on the chest?

‘Is she in hospital?’ Jane got a little catch into her voice. She leaned forward so that she could see her breasts (all six of them) inflating into view with each breath, brushing the fluffy blue bow affair at the front of the frock.

Doreen was at home (so the turn was only so nasty in other words). They’d put her in Jane’s old room.

‘She’s asking for you.’

This was hard to believe.

‘Is it serious?’

‘Doctor doesn’t know.’ A breath in June’s voice and suddenly, clear as bloody day, Jane could picture her sister stood in the draughty passage by the hall stand, checking her own reflection in the big old speckled mirror. Drama queen, honestly.

‘Uncle George didn’t want me to worry you.’

‘I’ll come over tomorrow about twelve. That be all right?’

She pictured herself at the side of her old bed, on the dressing-table stool looking smart, cooing sweetly. Cooling flannel? Spooning soup? No thank you. More June’s style.

She could, in theory, have taken a bus from Park Lane (number 137, change at Streatham Hill) but sod that.

Suzy was curled up on Henry’s lap in the sitting room being comforted (again). Bit late to start crying about it now.

‘Was that the lovely Sergio on the telephone?’

Suzy had stretched her leg out over the arm of the chair, letting her new pink suede Ferragamo shoe – one of the week’s nice little presents – dangle daintily from her stockinged toe.

‘No,’ compress lips grimly. ‘No. It was my aunt’s housekeeper. She’s very ill apparently.’

Hospital? No. Home? Yes. Asking for her. Got to get down to Norbury. ‘Down to Norbury.’ Made it sound a major expedition especially to those two. Henry just sat in the backs of cars reading the share prices until Bill switched off the engine and the southern borders of Suzy’s known universe only stretched as far as Sloane Square.

‘You poor darling! Is there a train or something?’

Henry wanted the conversation to stop so he could get his hands back down the front of Suzy’s pink organza dress. He looked like a man being attacked by a giant stick of candyfloss.

‘Don’t be silly. Bill can take her in the car. I’ll give him a call and tell him to be here for – eleven all right for you? We don’t need the car till tomorrow evening, do we?’ ‘We’. Not ‘I’. ‘We’.

This was very, very kind of Henry. Jane didn’t know how she could thank him enough (trembling slightly as she said it in case the randy old bugger thought of a bloody way). But he wasn’t even looking at Jane and her grateful tears would have been completely wasted if the doorbell hadn’t rung. She opened the door with bright, gooey eyes and her handsome, posh grocer was ready and waiting to whisk her down to Daddy’s Daimler which was vrooming respectfully on the forecourt below.

‘I shan’t be two seconds.’ It was imagining her suede stiletto snaking out of the passenger door that gave Jane the brainwave.

She dived back into her room. How long would she actually be spending with Doreen? Half an hour? An hour at most. At that rate Henry’s Bill could practically leave the engine running on the Bentley. Oh goody. The Bentley. She picked up the receiver and, using the end of her eye pencil to protect her manicure, dialled Joy in South Norwood.