Simply Divine (27 page)

'What?' It sounded positively modest by Champagne's usual standards. So why was she boasting about it?

'Four crashes because people were staring at my underwear ads when they were driving!' Champagne boomed. 'One fatal.'

'Oh, I see,' said Jane. 'How awful.'

'No, it's brilliant. Proves the ads are really working. Superbra are thrilled!'

'I'm delighted for you,' said Jane. 'Is that everything?'

'Yah, think so,' said Champagne. Then, 'Oh, no, hang on, there
is
something else. I've packed in Wayne.'

Why aren't I surprised? thought Jane.

'Just too much of an oik, really,' declared Champagne, even though Jane hadn't asked. 'Hasn't a clue. His idea of a seven-course meal is a six-pack and a hamburger. Thinks Pacific Rim is something sailors get. The last straw was when we were in a restaurant and he pronounced claret claray.
So
embarrassing.'

'Quite,' said Jane, not sure how else to respond.

'But I've met some scrummy men in New York,' Champagne continued. 'The
sweetest
English politician at the Donna Karan show last night.
Bloody
nice guy.'

Jane had seen the coverage of Champagne at this particular fashion bash in the tabloids that morning. Coverage, however, had hardly been the word. Champagne's clinging silver dress had made her cleavage look like the San Andreas Fault.

'Yah, he was really interesting,' Champagne gushed. 'We talked for hours about politics.'

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'Really?' said Jane faintly. Surely, as far as Champagne was concerned, Lenin was the guy who wrote songs with Paul McCartney. Her idea of a social model was probably Stella Tennant and dialectical materialism meant wearing a velvet Voyage cardigan with a leather Versace miniskirt. Champagne's concept of social security, Jane felt sure, was ten million a year, a country house in Wiltshire, flats in Paris and New York and a Gulfstream V.

'What's the politician called?' asked Jane, realising she hadn't thought about Westminster for what seemed like a lifetime. And what on earth was he doing at a fashion show?'

'James Morrison/ barked Champagne. 'Used to be the transport minister, apparently, and he's just been made Secretary of State for Pop. I told him I thought it was amazing that the prefects at Eton had their own minister, but I supposed it wasn't that surprising if you think that most of them end up in the Cabinet anyway. But he meant pop
music.
And popular culture in general, which includes fashion, apparently.'

'I see,'-said Jane, vaguely wondering if that meant Nick, too, was now on cheekbone-crashing terms with supermodels. She had no idea whether Nick still worked for Morrison, and didn't care. She hadn't, she realised, thought about
him
for ages either.

'Well, must dash. My masseuse is waiting,' Champagne said by way of finale. 'Oh,' she added nonchalantly, 'tell Victoria I probably won't be back for the Movers and Shakers party. I know she wanted me there, but some producer wants to talk to me about a film part.' She stifled a yawn. 'He must be
desperate
for me. He's paid for a new Concorde return ticket so I can stay on an extra day.'

Jane felt weak with envy. Film parts were falling into

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Champagne's lap now as well. If only a
real
film part would. Like the lighting rig. 'How wonderful/ she said sincerely. 'I'd
love
to go on Concorde,' she added longingly. 'Terrifically boring the tenth time, I can assure you,' yawned Champagne.

'Oh, Tish,' wailed Jane after a lunchtime spent trailing despondently round Bond Street looking at dresses she could neither fit into nor afford. 'What
am
I going to wear to this party?' Everyone else in the office seemed to be pulling glittering garments out of plastic bags and exclaiming over them. 'Look at what the others have been buying,' she moaned.

'Buying?' said Tish. 'You must be joking. No one's bought a stitch. Everyone's had the fashion department call things in for them. Apart from
you,
that is.'

'Oh,' said Jane, feeling foolish. It had never even occurred to her to borrow.

'Follow me,' said Tish.

The fashion department was a riot of racks stuffed with brilliantly-coloured clothes. Emaciated long-legged girls bobbed between them like exotic birds, clutching armfuls of shimmering dresses. Shoes lay scattered all over the floor, spilling from boxes lined with brightly coloured tissue paper. Jane was reminded of Champagne's bedroom.

'This is what
I'm
wearing,' Tish announced, producing a tiny dress made of ivory silk embroidered all over with tiny pink roses. 'Isn't it pretty? It's amazing anything's left,' she added. 'Tash has already been up here and was trying to wear practically everything at once to make sure no one else got a look-in. Oh, Tiara, Jane needs a dress for tomorrow,' Tish called as the fashion editor, a willowy

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redhead with huge green eyes and a vague air, wafted in. 'Got anything?'

Jane flushed beetroot as she submitted to Tiara's scrutiny. She doubted anyone as huge as herself had ever been seen in the fashion department before.

'Mmm,' said Tiara, putting her hands on her nonexistent hips. 'Mmmm,' she repeated, putting her head on one side and tossing her curtain of hair in a shimmering arc as she did so. Jane felt nervous. Why had she allowed Tish to put her through this? There probably
had
been something in M&S if she'd looked hard enough ...

'Mmm. You're in luck. I've got just the thing. Bias-cut.'

Tiara thrust a scrap of cream-coloured fabric into Jane's arms and shoved her into the fashion cupboard. Wispy bits of sequins and feathers tickled Jane's nose as she struggled into the dress while bent double underneath racks of clothes. She felt like a contortionist. Bias-cut, Tiara had said. Hopefully not biased against her.

'Wow,' said Tish as Jane emerged a few minutes later. That's
incredible.'
Which, thought Jane, walking resignedly to the mirror, could mean practically anything. At first glance, through half-closed eyes, it looked fine. Up close it would probably look dismal. Good from afar, but far from good.

'It really suits you,' said Tiara encouragingly. And, looking at herself critically in the long mirror, Jane had to agree. The extreme plainness of the long cream satin dress emphasised every curve and, by means of clever boning, wiring and general wizardry, contrived to give her a bust to rival Champagne's. A long slit up one side revealed a long, miraculously slender-looking and for once completely unbruised length of leg. Delight and excitement fizzed in

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Jane's stomach. She certainly looked the party part now. My cups, she thought, looking at her
embonpoint,
runneth over.

But Tish hadn't finished yet. Next, Jane was frogmarched to Sash the beauty editor for a make-up lesson. It was astonishing how a few well-placed strokes of charcoal eyeshadow could transform her eyes from small and piggy to huge and mysterious. Sash also showed her how to fill out her lips, normally the only dependably thin parts of her body, to look plump and luscious.

'Remember to lick before you drink anything, so the lipstick won't come off on the glass,' Sash warned. 'And
don't eax..
Don't even nibble. Remember, little pickers wear bigger knickers.'

Jane grinned. She was planning to take a leaf out of Champagne's book and not wear any knickers at all. She was determined to avoid visible party line.

'Archie Fitzherbert's office called you,' Tash said casually when Jane got back to her desk. 'Wanted a word, I think,' she added vaguely.

'What, Archie Fitzherbert the managing director?' Jane's stomach was suddenly thundering with panic. A word with
me?

Tash nodded. 'You're to call his secretary.'

Jane fumbled for the phone. Visions of instant dismissal, unpaid mortgages and repossessed flats floated through her panicked mind. Had Champagne been complaining about her? 'Which secretary?' she asked. Archie Fitzherbert, she knew, had two. A dragon called Mavis and an angel called Georgie. Tash shrugged.

Jane dialled, tremblingly. She got Mavis.

'One mayment,' said Mavis sternly. 'I think Georgina is dealing with this.'

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Jane caught her breath.
Dealing
with this? What on earth was happening?

'Sorry,' said Georgie, bouncing on to the line like a friendly dog. 'I know this is awfully short notice ...'

'What is?' croaked Jane, her worst fears assuming hideous, three-dimensional reality.

'Oh, didn't Tash tell you? Tomorrow morning. Archie would like you to attend one of his staff breakfasts.'

Jane sank in her chair with relief only to sit bolt upright again with terror. Archie Fitzherbert's 'meet the people' staff breakfasts were famous throughout the industry. Or notorious. Ostensibly, they were informal meetings to discuss staff-related issues, but most people suspected their real purpose was for Fitzherbert to spot check how switched-on his employees were. Jane saw her planned evening of collapsing in front of the telly metamorphosing into a night of frantically ripping through every issue of every competing magazine in order to be able to discuss its strengths and weaknesses confidently should her opinion be sought.

As she left the
Fabulous
building that drizzling evening, Jane noticed with a pang that the road outside, as usual, looked like the most fantastic outdoor car showroom. It was filled, nose-to-tail, with the shining, glamorous vehicles belonging to the boyfriends of the magazine company members of staff. They revved impatiently as their lissom girlfriends came rushing out of the revolving doors, tossing their shining hair and throwing their expensive handbags in the back seat before sliding into the front and roaring off. Jane strode on, trying not to care that there was no one to whisk her away to cocktails and candlelit dinners. Trying not to care, too, that the rain was now smashing against the

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pavements like gobbets of wet, cold lead.

She dashed into a newsagent and bought every magazine she could lay her hands on. Clutching her slippery armful, she hurried through the downpour to the Tube station. A speeding bus spattered the contents of a deep and dirty puddle all over her from the thighs downwards. Looking with loathing at the offending vehicle, which screeched dramatically to a halt at a bus stop a few feet away, Jane saw that it bore on its side one of the posters of Champagne in her Superbra underwear. Her bra was the same level as the top deck, while the lower one lined up with her skimpy G-string. Jane watched as the men in the queue, office drones with overpadded shoulders dragged down by the straps of their laptops, gawped at the advert before clambering aboard the bus and sitting on the bottom deck. It was, Jane realised, the nearest any of them would come to getting inside Champagne's knickers. Certainly for the price of a bus fare.

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CHAPTER 17

It was over twelve hours later that Jane entered the fetid mouth of the Tube again, but it might as well have been twelve minutes. Her eyes felt as hard, dry and heavy as golf balls. She had spent half the night hunched over her pile of magazines, and had fallen asleep over them in the end. She had woken up at five in the morning to find her nose pressed against a pageful of advice on dealing with irritable bowel syndrome.

Still, no one could accuse her of not preparing, she thought. And once the ordeal of the Fitzherbert breakfast was over, there was this evening's Movers and Shakers party to look forward to. Jane thought happily about the creamy liquid perfection of the party dress hanging in the cool darkness of her wardrobe. She focused her mind firmly on it as more and more people surged into her carriage at the next station.

The stop after that brought an even bigger influx. As her head became wedged under the armpit of a plump, perspiring businessman, who was evidently very fond of garlic, Jane tried to divert herself by thinking about her party shoes as well.

She had laughed when Tiara first suggested she try on the tiny, gossamer-light silver sandals, doubting she could

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get one, ragged-nailed, unpainted, bunioned toe in them, and had been amazed to find that they not only fitted, but gave her feet a grace she had never thought possible. They had even encouraged her to paint her toenails for the first time in years. She was, Jane realised, entering dangerous, perhaps fatal waters. She was beginning to see the point of spending a fortune on looking good.