A Vision of Loveliness (9 page)

‘Very,
very
glad you and your little friend could drop by and help us celebrate.’

Jane set her eyelashes to ‘stun’.

‘Oh Dougie!’
Dougie
, honestly, she’d only just met the man. ‘Is it your birthday?’

‘No. Good Lord no. Never have birthdays. No actually it’s Mother’s.’ He had his arm along the back of the sofa and was telling Jane what a trim little figure she had and how she was like a French film star he’d once met.

‘Really?’ Whoops. It came out as ‘reel-y’. She’d have to watch that. ‘I must go and wish your mother many happy returns.’
Heppy
returns, that was better. ‘Will you intra-juice me?’

He couldn’t very well not.

‘Mummy, this is Janey, er, Janey, friend of Reggie’s. Janey, this is my mama, Frances Pillman.’

Jane shook hands firmly (but not too firmly). ‘How do you do?’
NEVER ‘Pleased to meet you’
.

Dougie’s mama was sat in state in a Chanel suit on a little gold throne thingy. She was seventy-five going on thirty-six. She bestowed one of her brisk, downward-turning smiles on Jane. Her mother had taught her to smile that way to avoid crow’s feet but a lifetime of sour half-smiles seemed a heavy price to pay for smooth cheeks. She might have had a nicer life if she’d looked like she was really enjoying herself.

Her hair was dyed exactly the colour that Doreen’s hydrangea used to be. Would all those fat artificial curls go back to being toothpowder pink if you stopped feeding her the special stuff? She wore it in a fancy, heavily lacquered bouffant (either she kept a hairdresser in the wardrobe or she slept sitting up). Her face was thickly smoothed with peach Pan-Cake, her eyelids were a pale silvery blue, her cheeks rosy with Bewitching Coral and her lips painted Lilac Rose which was already seeping into the sphincter of cross little lines that fanned out from her mouth. Her teeth were a sort of dirty Daz white and beautifully made – like Uncle George’s, only smaller. Her weedy grey eyebrows had been overwritten by new ones drawn on neatly by her maid who lived in a funny little warren of box rooms on the eighth floor under the roof. She usually managed to get them symmetrical but they were never the same twice. Today she looked very, very surprised and slightly annoyed.

Mrs Pillman had eaten a cheese football when she first sat down which had stuck to her plate and taken a lot of shifting so she’d been keeping to liquids ever since and had now clocked up four glasses of champagne which had done her temper no good at all. She’d taken an instant dislike to Connie and Iris who had ignored her after the first brief gush of introductions. She was itching to share her feelings.

‘Do you know those women?’

‘Not really.’
Rarely
. That was more like it. ‘I think they’re friends of Reggie, the chap over there in the blazer.’

‘I shouldn’t have anything to do with them if I were you, my dear. Have you ever had an abortion?’

Jane nearly choked on her Veuve Clicquot and blushed a charming Bewitching Coral herself.

‘Of course not.’

‘Exactly. Well those two harpies have talked of nothing else since they got here. They must think I’m deaf. The skinny one with the bad teeth is arranging it apparently. Can you imagine discussing such a thing
in public
?’ This seemed to bother her even more than the thought of the operation itself.

‘I should give both of them a very wide berth if I were you. A young gel like you needs to be very careful about the company she keeps. They’re tramps, both of them. I pity that poor child.’

She nodded in the direction of Virginia, Iris’s nine-year-old daughter, a skinny, serious-looking girl with big brown eyes and a bulging forehead exposed by her velvet Alice band. She wore a Buchanan tartan kilt, a bottle-green cashmere twinset, matching woollen tights and black patent-leather shoes (Iris had a friend who was an under-buyer in Harrods’ children’s department). Dougie’s mama didn’t have a lot of books but Virginia had found one that was keeping her occupied. It was the Kinsey Report on
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
. Only Dougie had noticed but he didn’t want to draw attention to it so Virginia sat there, round-eyed, boning up on impotence and vaginismus while the grown-ups got loud and drunk. One hand held the book while the other worked back and forth between her mouth and the cocktail snacks. She made short work of the Twiglets and Cheeselets – she liked those – but there was still no sign of a proper meal so she set to work on the cheese footballs and finally she was down to the olives. Bitter, vinegary things. She didn’t like them at all – they were an Acquired Taste, Mummy said. They were so sour they made her wink but she ate them anyway. Eventually, after a whole tray of nibbles and four glasses of Tizer, Virginia found that she wanted to be sick. But by now the room had filled up with noisy, boozy grown-ups smoking and eating lobster and Mummy was flirting pathetically with a big bald man in a blazer. Suddenly, Virginia spotted a lovely pineapple-shaped ice bucket. Perfect. She fitted the lid back on neatly afterwards and rinsed her mouth with a sip of Tizer.

There was a huge television in the corner, boxed away to look like an antique chest of drawers. A man in an Argyll cashmere slipover was watching
Grandstand
and trying to get his bookmaker on the phone.

‘What do you mean “no each ways on this race?” All right. Thirty bob to win. Bastards.’ He growled as he put the phone down and sat back for the race.

Reggie asked Jane to put another record on to drown out the sound of Peter O’Sullevan. There was a big teak gramophone unit with dozens of records racked in wooden compartments. Jazz mostly. She’d never heard of any of them so she chose the one with the prettiest cover. All the others had coloured men on the front.

‘Jazz fan, eh? Girl after my own heart.’ Reggie put his hand round her waist and pulled her against him for a dance. His other hand was behind her, stroking her cashmere and wool backside. He smelled of brandy and cigars and dirty twinfold poplin. This was all too much for Iris. No one was stroking Iris’s backside (not that she had much to stroke) and she wanted an explanation.

‘Reggie! I need to ask you something!’ Jane escaped and had a bit more lobster and a sip from the wine glass Dougie had given her. Lobster was lovely. Chablis wasn’t so lovely but it was what you had with lobster, apparently, so who was she to argue.

Suzy was now sat on Pete’s lap telling the other men the elephant’s foreskin story which went down a storm although Iris’s daughter had to be patted on the back when Tizer went down the wrong way. Suzy left ’em laughing and got up to pour herself a drink at the dinky little bar. Jane watched her do it. She tonged a few ice cubes from the ice bucket (this one was shaped like a beer barrel) and tipped up the gin bottle as if pouring herself a good strong measure – only she hadn’t taken the top off. She then filled up the glass with tonic water. She caught Jane’s eye and pulled a sheepish smile.

‘I’d get pie-eyed otherwise but they hate it if you don’t keep pace. Ted the barman at Carpenter’s looks after me as well – holds the glass up to the measuring thingy but doesn’t push. What are you up to this evening, Janey?’
Janey
. It was nice. Janey.

‘Nothing special.’ Or, more probably,
Dixon of Dock Green
and
Billy Cotton’s Band Show
followed by half an hour pulling faces in the dressing-table mirror.

‘I’m going out for dinner with a friend of mine but he could easily get a date for you if you like and we could all go dancing.’

Why was she being so friendly? What was she after?

‘I’d have to go home and change.’

Girls do wear their daytime skirts and jerseys in smart restaurants but they will need to be extremely pretty to pass muster
. Jane thought glumly of her only evening dress: full-length chartreuse velvet. She’d bought it in a panic for the firm’s Christmas party. It was a swine. Doreen said she looked like a streak of snot in it.

‘Where’s home?’

‘Well. I’m living with an aunt in Norbury at the moment.’

Life with Doreen sounded a lot better put like that. And it sounded suddenly, miraculously, temporary.

‘Oh God, that’s miles. Look, I’ve got stacks of evening things you could wear. And the flat’s ankle-deep in shoes. What size are you? That’s amazing! Glenda used to model shoes but she’s gone to Spain with the boyfriend. Bit of a spiv, but he paid three months’ rent in advance and she didn’t have to take a stitch with her. You can sleep in her room if you like. Come on, let’s go. I’ve had about enough of this.’

‘Who’s going to help Dougie clear up?’ worried Jane. There were empty glasses everywhere.

‘Oh don’t worry about that. Iris does it. It’s the only reason she gets asked. That and the cabaret. Ooh look. Here we go.’

Iris had started. The eighth gin had done it.

‘They’re all parasites, Dougie. You just don’t see it: drinking your drink, wrecking your mummy’s beautiful flat. They make a lot of noise but really your life is empty, Dougie. Empty. Like mine.’ She squinted sorrowfully into her empty glass of gin but perked up at the sight of Jane and Suzy.

‘And look at those four tarts! Suck you off for the price of a dinner at the Caprice. You deserve better than them, Dougie my darlin’.’ Iris’s accent was slipping down and her skirt was riding up, showing the tops of her scrawny white thighs and the grim, net-curtain grey of her nylon panty girdle.
Research tells us that seventy-five per cent of women never launder their corsets
. Little Virginia saved the day.

‘Mummy. I’m really sorry, Mummy, but I think I’m going to be sick.’ Iris magically pulled herself together and reproachfully bundled little Virginia off to the bathroom.

‘We’ve got to go, Dougie,’ said Suzy, kissing him firmly on both cheeks and letting him cop a quick farewell feel as he helped her on with her coat. ‘A man’s coming to cut my hair at half five. Crew-cut. Very Zizi Jeanmaire. What do you think?’

Jane came next. ‘I’ve had a wonderful afternoon. Such a nice surprise.’ A big smile. A bit of work with the eyelashes. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

‘Oh it’s pretty much like this every Saturday – give or take poor Mrs Moore. Sorry about that. You must come again.’

She let him have a brief grope. It seemed rude not to.

Alpaca Pete called out his goodbyes from the telly – he had a £5 yankee going.

‘Cheerio, girls. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

‘That doesn’t exactly narrow it down!’ Screeches of laughter.

They finally got downstairs. Suzy lived ‘near Cavendish Square’ she said. Jane knew the West End inside out. She had one of Kenneth’s bus maps and she used to pore over it, working out the best route from Derry and Toms to Swan and Edgar (9) or from Gamages to Selfridges (8). Jane was still running through possible bus routes in her head – 159? 13? where was Kenneth when you needed him? – when Suzy hailed a taxi.

‘Bourne and Hollingsworth please.’ She’d gone very Celia Johnson all of a sudden.

The streets were already dark and the taxi hurtled along Wigmore Street and on towards its destination. Suzy pulled the cabbie’s window to one side.

‘We don’t really want Bourne and Hollingsworth
as such,
darling. If you could take the next right, St Anthony’s Chambers is first on the left.’

It was nowhere near bloody Cavendish Square.

‘Have you really got someone coming round?’ Jane sensed that Suzy didn’t always tell the exact truth.

‘Oh yes. Big Terry.’

The taxi driver, who’d been eyeing up the pair of them in his rear-view mirror, raised his eyebrows.

‘Why’s he called Big Terry?’ wondered Jane.

You could see the cabbie straining to hear Suzy’s whispered answer. She passed a handful of silver through the window.

‘Keep the change,’ she said then looked him right in the eye. ‘And none of your business, cheeky.’

Chapter 8

These tiny details of personal grooming
might appear mere trifles when taken
one by one. But add them together and
they can make the difference between rich
and poor, married or single, happy ever
after and a miserable broken home.

If Bourne and Hollingsworth had been a bit of a let-down after the promise of Cavendish Square, St Anthony’s Chambers was a serious kick in the teeth. It was a large mansion block built of dirty red bricks with no lock on the street door and stone stairs that smelled of piss. Although there were lights on each landing, most of the bulbs were missing and you had to feel your way up the wrought-iron banisters in almost total darkness. Suzy’s flat was on the second floor. It wasn’t a luxury flat.

There were, or had been, about six locks on the front door which was scarred with the screw holes of old bolts that hadn’t quite made it.

‘Used to be burgled nearly once a week – the trouble some people will go to for the thirty bob in the gas meter – but Glenda met this very obliging locksmith. Banham deadlocks, steel plate, the works. Like the Crown Jewels, darling and very,
very
reasonable. I only moved here last summer. It’s a bit of a dive but it’s only four quid a week for the three of us and
so
central. I can be in most of the showrooms in half an hour from a standing start.’