Folly's Child (17 page)

Gary was in the workroom when Paula arrived, pinning a length of vibrant pink chiffon sarong-style around one of his models. His mouth was full of pins. ‘ What are you doing here?' he asked without moving his lips.

Paula perched herself against the cutting table trying to look nonchalant. ‘I've left Mattli,' she said.

Gary stared at her for a moment, pins spewing from his mouth and catching on the front of his black jersey. Then he unpinned the length of chiffon and let it fall to the floor. The model stood motionless, clad in nothing but her bra and stockings, waiting for his instructions.

‘We'll leave this for now, Claudia', he said. ‘See if you can rustle up a cup of tea for Paula and me, please.'

The girl pulled on her wrap and moved to the door looking back over her shoulder as she went and Paula was aware of the hostility in her gaze. Why was it all women hated her so, even when they didn't know her? She shrugged. Oh well, she should be used to it by now …

Gary got up, took Paula by the arm and led her over to the low sofa.

‘What's all this about, lovey? You can't have left Mattli.'

‘I have.' Paula related what had happened and saw Gary turn pale.

‘Oh Lord! You mean she thinks you've been spying for me! If she sues I'll be ruined. Even worse, someone of her stature could make a hell of a lot of trouble for me, even if she doesn't.'

‘But Gary – I haven't been spying for you! I haven't even mentioned a single detail of the Mattli collection.'

‘You know that and so do I. But suppose I've done something similar? It happens every season – by sheer chance and law of averages some of the ideas are bound to come up. There are always accusations of piracy and copy-catting, though they can't usually be substantiated. But if she can prove that you and I …'

That's nonsense! We haven't done anything wrong.'

Gary ran a distracted hand through his mop of fair hair. ‘You're going to have to describe the Mattli collection to me. Every detail.'

‘Gary!' she objected, shocked. ‘You're an original. You can't steal their ideas!'

‘No, idiot – not so that I can steal them. So that I can go through my designs and make quite certain that there is not one collar, not one cuff detail, not the slightest influence that they could accuse me of copying from them. Oh Jesus Christ! – suppose there's something major? My peg top evening gown – my beautiful cerise lace – I could end up having to rethink the whole collection!'

‘For goodness sake stop panicking!' Paula said, though she could feel the seeds of panic herself. ‘I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.'

‘I only hope you're right!' he said in anguished tones.

The model came in with the cups of tea, still glowering darkly at Paula from beneath her fringe of false eyelashes. It was clear she was blaming Paula bitterly for the interrupted afternoon and her boss's drastic change of mood.

‘That girl is a dog!' Paula said when they were alone again. ‘I'm sure she can't do justice to your designs. And with a miserable face like hers I'm surprised you ever get any work done at all.'

Gary looked crestfallen. ‘She's the best I could get …'

‘Oh what rubbish!' Paula said roundly. ‘Anyway, you've got me now so you can get rid of her.'

‘What do you mean?' Gary asked. He looked like a worried small boy.

‘I told you – I've left Mattli. I'll come and work for you.'

‘Oh Paula!' Gary's expression became even more anxious. ‘You know I'd give my right arm to have someone as good as you to model for me! But I told you before – I couldn't afford to pay you what you're worth. Well, not for ages, anyway. It's going to be a long struggle getting established and until I am I don't see how …'

Paula smiled. For the first time she felt the stirrings of something like power. It was not unlike the feeling she experienced when men looked at her and wanted her though she knew it could not be that for there was nothing sexual between her and Gary and never would be. But it was just as exciting, nevertheless. It made her feel strong, invincible almost, and just a tiny bit as if she had drunk too much wine. Her smile spread.

‘Pay me what you can, Gary,' she said. ‘You're going to make it big one day, I know you are, and when you do I shall claim my dues. Until then … well, I'll help you out. After all, isn't that what friends are for?'

He looked at her with something close to adoration in his eyes and the feeling of power swelled again. Oh yes, it would be pleasant to have a top designer owing her his undying gratitude – and that was what he would be one day, she was certain of it.

‘We'll do great things together, you and I,' she said smugly.

‘If we don't get sued …'

‘We won't.' From the feeling of power had come confidence. ‘Now, are you going to get rid of that girl? You might as well do it straight away. Strike while the iron is hot.'

His sweet face took on a look of anguish. Paula sighed and shook her head.

‘Well if you don't want to I suppose I shall have to do it for you,' she said, pretending reluctance.

‘Would you really?' he said gratefully and Paula almost laughed aloud in delight. Oh, how she would enjoy telling that snooty cow she wasn't required to work here any more!

There and then Paula made up her mind. From now on Gary would run things her way. And she was going to love every minute of it!

‘Gary Oliver, I think it's high time you hired a secretary,' Paula said, gazing at the mound of unfiled paper spilling out of the wire trays onto the black laquered top of his stylish desk. ‘Look at this lot!'

Gary pulled a wry face. ‘I know. But there's nothing there that matters. Everything that needs dealing with is there' – he indicated another wire tray and a tall metal spike – ‘and I just about manage to keep my books in order with Bobby's help'. Bobby was a friend of Gary's – and perhaps a little more than a friend, Paula suspected – who came in for a few hours a week to help sort the accounts, pay the bills and make the relevant entries in the ledgers.

‘You can't rely on Bobby for ever,' Paula scolded. ‘It was all very well in the beginning but now you're too successful for such an amateurish approach. You need professional help and you need it fast before you go bankrupt, get arrested for tax evasion, or drown in a sea of paperwork.'

‘I'll think about it,' Gary promised, poring over his sketch pad, intent on capturing a new idea which had come to him.

‘Don't think – act,' she said, coming up behind him to peep at the design – a short evening gown with a beaded bodice and frothy net skirt. ‘The fact is I know just the person for the job.'

Gary added a few final strokes to his design and looked up at her, grinning impishly.

‘Oh, yes, I might have known this was more than just a lecture about the state of my desk. All right – who is it?'

‘My sister – Sally. She has just finished a year's course at Secretarial College and she's dying to come to London. She has all the right qualifications – shorthand, book-keeping, economics – and first class honours in typewriting. She is also very practical. She'd have you organised in to time.'

‘Practical?
Your
sister?'

‘We're not much alike,' Paula admitted.

‘No, it doesn't sound like it,' Gary teased. ‘Book-keeping, typing … you must be opposite sides of the coin, lovey.'

‘Well?' Paula pressed him. ‘ What do you say? You'll have to make up your mind pretty quickly or she'll be press-ganged by Mum into working for the Admiralty or something. Shall I get her to come up so that you can meet her?'

‘Why not?' Gary said grandly. He had been told by his bank manager that morning that a large new loan had been approved to help him expand his ready-to-wear operation – probably spending some of it on administrative help would be an investment. ‘No, don't bother with the preliminaries, lovey. If she's as good as you say she is, just get her. I don't want to waste time on unnecessary interviews.' He got up, going to a shelf and pulling out a bolt of beige chiffon and another of coffee-and-cream lace. ‘Now come over here, there's an angel, and let me drape this on you. I want to see if it looks as good together as I think it will …'

Smiling as she always did when she got her own way. Paula did as he asked.

From the first moment when she stepped off the train into the smoke-blackened glass dome of Paddington station Sally knew she was in love with London.

Perhaps it was because she had wanted to come here for so long, she thought, as she ducked to avoid a kamikaze pigeon. Her mother and father had tried to dissuade her – it was bad enough to have lost one daughter to the city they regarded as a den of vice – to lose two was unthinkable. But Sally had been determined. To her London was synonymous with glamour and excitement – to follow Paula there would be to have a little of the gloss rub off onto her in much the same way she had expected to attract some of Louise's Frenchness when she had borrowed her dress for the youth club dance all those years ago.

She had dreamed about it whilst struggling with the unintelligible squiggles of Pitman shorthand and breaking her nails on the metal-circled keys of the ancient Imperial typewriter that was cunningly concealed in her classroom desk and the dream had spurred her on, making her determined to conquer both the squiggles and the stubborn keys. Now it all proved worthwhile. She stood on the platform, excited and nervous, and feeling a little as if she were about to launch herself from a very high precipice into a new and unknown world far below.

Paula was at Paddington to meet her and she took Sally by taxi to the flat in South Kensington where she now lived and which Sally was to share with her. Though she realised the taxi was an extravagance typical of Paula, Sally was slightly disappointed. She had been looking forward to going by tube. But there would be plenty of opportunity for that, she reminded herself. Paula might be able to afford taxis – she certainly would not be able to.

The flat was tiny – no more than a bed-sitter – one large faded room furnished with a lumpy sofa bed, table and chairs and an ancient cooker. Paula also had the use of a kitchen and a bathroom, the key for which had to be collected from the landlord who lived in the basement. The flat was not at all what Sally had expected – there was certainly no glamour here, not in the sofa bed, which was still made up with sheets and blankets from the previous night, not in the grease-caked oven or the rings onto which milk had boiled over, not in the heavy old furniture and faded furnishings.

Oddly Paula, always so immaculately turned out, seemed not to mind or even notice her seedy surroundings. She had been glad to get the place, she told Sally, and it was very convenient because Gary had a larger flat downstairs where she spent a great deal of her time.

As soon as they arrived she took Sally down to meet him and they shared a supper of fish and chips which Gary fetched from a nearby take-away while Paula picked at a few lettuce leaves and a pot of cottage cheese.

‘Is he really the other way?' Sally asked Paula when they went back upstairs again. She had never met a homosexual before.

‘Yes.'

‘And he never even bothers you or tries to get you into bed?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Does he have boyfriends?'

‘I suppose so. Honestly, Sally, I don't really think of Gary that way at all. He's just a friend. What he does for sex is none of my business – or yours.'

Sally said nothing but her mind was boggling as she tried to picture neat, slight, effeminate Gary with another boy doing whatever it was they did. But soon there were more pressing problems to occupy her – what she could do with all her belongings, for instance. Paula had cleared a couple of drawers and a tiny space on the curtained rail where her suits and dresses hung, but it was nowhere near enough, even for Sally's meagre wardrobe.

‘I'm sure Gary will let you put some of your stuff in his flat,' Paula said. ‘ He has plenty of room.'

Gary was approached and agreed, just as he always did to Paula's suggestions – bulky items like coats and jackets could be kept in his cupboard.

Sally was not too happy with the arrangement – though she liked Gary she still felt curiously ill at ease with him. He was pleasant to work for, so grateful to be relieved of the headache of the paperwork that he left her to her own devices, and apart from occasional outbursts about the demands some client was making on him he was easy going. But Sally was puzzled by the close relationship he and Paula shared, closer in many ways than existed between the two sisters, and more often than not she felt shut out by it. Besides this she was still fascinated – and slightly repelled – by the fact that he was ‘different'.

I must be old fashioned, she thought, Paula is relaxed with him – I've never seen her so relaxed with anyone before, boy or girl. Why can't I be? But the uneasiness persisted.

At first Paula enjoyed showing Sally around the capital, doing the tourist sites as well as her own favourite haunts. It made her feel very worldly wise. But it was less fun – and a good deal more expensive – than being squired by one of her string of boyfriends and when Sally had been in London for about six weeks Paula decided it was time to do something about it.

‘How would you like to go to a club for dinner and dance?' she asked Sally one evening. ‘I've talked to Graham about it and he says he'll bring along a friend for you.' Graham was ten years older than she was and had a used car business in Clapham – not quite Paula's ideal, but he was good looking in a rather smooth way, generous, liked the high life and owing to his business drove a succession of impressive motor cars.

‘I haven't anything to wear,' Sally said feebly, experiencing an attack of nerves, although she had been dying to see something of the London scene nightlife.