Elegance and Innocence (11 page)

‘Do those reports need to go downstairs? I’ll take them.’

‘But, Louise, you’ve only just come back from there. We can take them down later.’

‘Oh, it’s no trouble. No trouble at all.’

And I’m off, roaming around the building like a creature from a fairy tale, doomed by some evil curse to wander the earth forever in search of her own reflection.

This continues for a while, we see each other, we stare at each other and I run away. And then one day, when I absolutely can’t stand it any more, I invite myself out for a drink with him.

He’s smoking in the foyer. It’s the opening night of a new play and the revolve on the stage isn’t working properly. He’s got all the techies putting in overtime while he works his way through a pack of Marlboro Lights.

I’m meant to be gone, or rather, I’m not even meant to be in today, but that’s how it is for me during this time. I find myself ‘popping into work’ for no reason, hanging about in the foyer, walking around the halls, possessed and saucer-eyed, one millimetre away from hysteria at all times.

I spot him and then race immediately to the Upper Circle Ladies and check my make-up. Then I check it again.

I take deep breaths, pray and then saunter over to my Nemesis.

‘Hey, how are you?’

What this costs me, you’ll never know. My voice is about three octaves higher than normal and my hands are shaking. This doesn’t prevent me, however, from imagining that I’m the sexiest, most alluring creature on the planet and that I’m in fact, part of a living movie, complete with thrilling sound-track, mood lighting, and a cracking script.

He eyes me in that way smokers do when they exhale,
not quite winking, not quite frowning, just avoiding the stinging smoke of their own fags. ‘Great, Louise. What about you?’

Ah! He speaks! My heart convulses, palpitates, chokes on secondary smoke.

‘I’m, well … I’m thirsty,’ I rejoin, tossing my hair back. ‘That’s how I am.’

He stares at me like I’m demented. ‘Thirsty?’

I smile. How different it is when he looks at me like I’m demented than when my husband does!

‘Yes,’ I persist. ‘Ever so thirsty. One might even say parched.’

And then the penny drops, almost audibly. He laughs and swings the door open. We walk out in the cool evening air and cross the road to his favourite pub. He buys me a drink and we sit on dangerously high barstools, attempting to make conversation.

Alas, every relationship has its Waterloo. Conversation proved to be ours.

It’s difficult to have a conversation if your basic premise is not to reveal anything about yourself. He asks me a question, for example: where do I come from or what am I doing in London, and I try, in the most charming and amusing way possible, not to tell him point blank that I’m married. I twist my hand around like a claw on the bar, trying to hide my wedding band. I don’t know why I don’t take it off. I guess I can’t. It’s as simple as that. So I sit there, with my hand in a
casual fist, giggling maniacally and volleying each question with another one.

‘So, how long have you been in London?’

‘I don’t know – ages. What’s your favourite colour?’

‘My favourite colour?’

(It’s charming to be infantile … isn’t it?)

He lights another cigarette. ‘Ah … well, that’ll be green, I guess. What about you?’

‘Hot pink and the colour of gold sequins.’

‘That’ll be gold, won’t it?’

‘Well, not really. Not flat gold. I only like sequined gold.’ Oh God, I’m trying
way
too hard. I shove the claw that passes for my hand into my hair and examine the bottles behind the bar like an alcoholic out of change. Please, please don’t let there be a moment of silence! What can we talk about, what can we …‘What about your father?’

He raises an eyebrow and gives me what I take to be the Look of Total Riveted Fascination. ‘What was he like?’

‘Old. What about yours?’

That was quick.

‘Honest,’ I say, forlornly, caught off guard. ‘My father’s a very honest man.’

And because I’ve said something true, he looks at me with real interest.

‘That’s a good quality.’

‘Yes … I suppose it is.’ And I stare at my drink like it’s a crystal ball, going to tell me my future.

We last about twenty minutes before Oliver excuses himself on the grounds that the opening night won’t occur if he doesn’t sort a few things out. Like the set.

We walk back as slowly as possible without actually stopping in the middle of the road.

‘So, when can I buy you a real drink?’ he ventures, squinting sideways at me through a stream of smoke.

‘I’m … I’m not sure …’ I stammer.

Strange as it seems, I’m caught off guard. It’s one thing for me to fantasize and project like a mad woman; it’s quite another for the object of my delusions to respond. And besides, what am I doing? I can’t make a date, I’m married! But there’s another voice in my head, a soft, compelling voice whispering, ‘Hey! What’s the problem? Chill out. It’s not like you’re sleeping with him … you’re … you’re just … having a drink, that’s all. Right?’

And then I’m back in the movie again, trying my best to play the femme fatale.

‘I think I’d like to go somewhere I’ve never been,’ I parry, smouldering at him from behind a sheaf of Veronica Lake hair.

The ‘Are you demented?’ look is back.

‘Well,’ he sounds irritated, ‘how am I meant to know where you’ve been?’

Good point.

I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly and walk straight into a restaurant hoarding.

‘Oh, Jesus! I’m so sorry! Fuck! What am I doing? I’m apologizing to a wooden sign!’ He watches as I struggle to detach myself from the specials of the day. Once free, he takes my arm with the kind of solicitous authority usually reserved for the elderly and steers me back safely to the theatre entrance.

‘About that drink …’ He waits, but I can’t think. It has to be somewhere perfect, somewhere private, somewhere away from restaurant hoardings and people who know me …

He’s starting to get restless.

‘Why don’t I give it some thought?’ I suggest.

‘Please do.’

He smiles and, with that, disappears into the rapidly filling foyer. I stand transfixed on the front steps, my heart pounding, palms sweating. The crowd engulfs me, swirling around me like fast moving water around a stone in a brook.

I’ve done it. I’ve taken hold of my life and, for better or worse, nothing will ever be the same again.

A week later, I drop a small note into Oliver Wendt’s mailbox. In the bottom right hand corner of an emerald green card I’ve written,

I’ve never been to the Ritz

The days pass and I hear nothing.

Nothing at all.

I
Ideal Wardrobe

For an Elegant Woman:

9 am
.
Tweed skirts in the brown autumn shades and harmonizing sweaters, worn under a fur coat of one of the casual varieties. Brown shoes with medium heels and a capacious brown alligator bag. (A really elegant woman never wears black in the morning.)

1 pm
.
A fur-trimmed suit in a plain colour (neither brown nor black) and a matching fur hat. Underneath the jacket, a harmonizing sweater, jersey blouse, or sleeveless dress
.

3 pm
.
A wool dress in a becoming shade that matches or contrasts with: A pretty town coat in a vivid colour
.

6 pm
.
A black wool dress, not very décolleté. It will take you everywhere, from the bistro to the theatre, stopping en route for all the informal dinner parties on your social calendar
.

7 pm
.
A black crêpe dress, this one quite décolleté, for more formal dinners and more elegant restaurants. A white mink hat
.

8 pm
.
A matching coat and dress that is called a ‘cocktail ensemble’ in Paris, but in reality is often far too dressy for the occasion, although perfect for theatre first nights and elegant black-tie dinner parties
.

10 pm
.
A long formal evening dress that can be worn all the year round (which means you should avoid velvet and prints)
.

9 am
and I’m at the top of Whitehall, wearing a navy gabardine suit, with a brown V-necked knitted top from Kookai and a pair of black T-bar shoes. The Kookai top is beautifully form fitting but has a tendency to unravel under the arms. Must remember to keep my jacket on. Am popping into Sushi Express for my breakfast – a fruit smoothie and an order of green tea to take away. Part of my new
regime. I will not eat sugar today. I will not. I buy an extra banana, just in case. The sun is blinding as I race across the street to catch the light. I’m good at running in high-heeled shoes now – I have to be. I’ve been promoted to manager in the box office and spend all day running up and down the stairs between the window in the lobby and the office upstairs. A bit of a wild-card candidate for the job, no one was more surprised than I was when I got it. It’s been a huge boost to my self-confidence. And the constant activity is a godsend. My husband and I have, as far as I can tell, stopped talking. The new job makes it easier for us to pretend that we are too busy or just too tired to communicate. Neither of us is ready to hear what the other has to say.

1 pm
and I’m in the changing room of the gym, along with about thirty other women, all of whom have only an hour to squeeze themselves into their lycra ensembles, work themselves up into a sweat, shower, dry their hair and tear back to the office. Since I renewed my membership several months ago, I’ve managed, miraculously, to show up four times a week. Not since my dancing days have I pursued any form of fitness with this much success. And it’s starting to show.

The gym locker room is also where you learn about the reality of other women’s bodies and wardrobes. We all spend as much time surreptitiously examining one another
as we do on the treadmill. Everyone freezes simultaneously as the tall, tanned blonde emerges from the shower. We pretend to be adjusting our hair but really … yes! She does have cellulite!

Life is full of surprises. Who would’ve guessed that the newsreader with the Armani suit and the mobile phone attached to her ear (‘I’m at the gym! T-H-E G-Y-M!’), would wear dingy white M&S knickers with a black see-through bra? But the surprise transformation of the week goes to the mousy-haired, be-fringed girl in the 1984 Laura Ashley floral ensemble who undresses to reveal a bright pink silk bra and knicker set with matching garter belt, stockings and a pair of legs that would make Ute Lemper weep. Even the tall blonde stands agape in the centre of the shower room. I pull on a bright blue crop top, a matching pair of stretch trousers and some hideously expensive Nike trainers. I’m sure I burn more calories just trying to squeeze myself into this outfit than the whole workout put together.

3 pm
and I’m back in the office, showered, hair not quite dry (competition for the three blow-dryers is fierce) and back in my navy suit. The only difference is, I’ve given up on my black T-bar shoes. There’s only so long a woman can be expected to bounce around on the balls of her feet before someone has to die. The temperature has shot up and my jacket is hanging over the back of my chair, leaving
the unravelling Kookai top in full view. I will repair it. I will. Tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll just get rid of this stray thread that’s hanging down … I watch with a strange sense of detachment as half the remaining sleeve comes undone in my hand.

I’m meant to be completing a weekly sales report but have hit my mid-afternoon slump. This is a biological glitch that renders me incredibly depressed between the hours of three and four o’clock each afternoon without fail. My theory is that I’m genetically programmed to have a nap at this time but unfortunately don’t live in a climate that favours siestas. The consequences are dramatic. The will to live seeps away and, instead of focusing on figures and performance breakdowns, I’m visualizing various methods of suicide. Dangling from a rope, passed out on a bed, floating in a stream. Or a drastic haircut.

The phone rings on the desk opposite, and as I scramble to get it, my foot catches on an invisible snag in the grey carpet tiles. My stocking runs and I still manage to miss the call. Luckily, Colin puts the kettle on (he’s intuitive in this area) and magicks up a box of Jammie Dodgers. (‘Two for the price of one, darling. Only
slightly
crushed.’) I desperately grapple for my spare emergency banana and find it at the bottom of my handbag, beaten into a kind of brown pulp. Fuck it. Spirits rise with the sugar intake and Colin assures me that Sinéad O’Connor was a fluke; that most women would be unable to successfully carry off a shaved
head with any real sense of style. Unless they had ambitions of a professional wrestling career.

6 pm
never fails to bring with it an inevitable second wind. The malaise that immersed the office at 4:45 – that hopeless hour when going home seems like a cruel, unsubstantiated rumour – evaporates and at 5:55 is replaced by a carnival atmosphere. There’s dancing, singing, the telling of jokes. Colleagues pat each other on the back and hold the door open for one another as they run, laughing and singing, out of the office. The night shift takes over, looking like they’ve just been sentenced to life imprisonment. I’ve got just over an hour to go home and get changed before I’m due at the theatre for the opening night of my husband’s new play. He’s having dinner after the show with his agent and the director and they expect me to be there, proud and supportive in my role as ‘the wife’. I feel a headache coming on just thinking about it. I decide to take off my stockings, as the run is just too bad for public display, and force my swollen feet back inside the T-bar shoes. On goes the jacket and I’m tearing out the door, flapping my way down Whitehall towards home.