Lace

by Shirley Conran

  “That’s so you can start writing the book the morning after you get back to London.”

  “But I don’t have time,” protested Kate, “and my job takes all my energy.”

  “Set that thing for five in the morning, fix yourself a cup of instant coffee and type for two hours before going to the office every single day. . . . No, not when you get back at night, because you’ll be stale. . . . All right, all right, you can have Sundays off. But if you knock out a thousand words a day you’ll have finished it, allowing for the rewrite, in about four months.”

  Starting a book wasn’t easy, because upon Kate’s return to Britain Scotty worked her hard. One morning she answered his summons to find him standing in front of his work shelf, scowling as he groped around with one hand for his heavy, black-framed glasses; he never wore them for reading or writing, but he couldn’t think without them. In intensely cerebral moments he polished them, so when you saw Scotty whip his glasses off his nose, fish out his grubby handkerchief and start to rub his glasses, then you knew that he was about to say something that would shake you.

  “I want you to stop being a bloody celebrity and get down to interview work again. I don’t want you typecast in khaki battle jacket. Go and see this woman who’s just been found not guilty of murdering her transvestite husband. Seven hundred words.”

  Aghast, Kate looked at Scotty. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Scotty turned his attention to the page in front of him. Kate supposed that she had no real reason for not covering the story—it might even help to get it out of her system.

  Kate’s book was published in June 1967. There were simultaneous editions in Britain and in the United States, where Judy was going to promote it.

  Kate turned up late one night at Judy’s apartment in New York. She headed for the tub and disappeared in a warm fog of Chamade, snorting, “Those swine at the airport! When I told them they’d lost my special television wardrobe, they merely handed me a form to fill in and then presented me with a toothbrush and two pairs of paper panties. Not really enough for ‘Today’.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Judy, pulling a notebook from the pocket of her purple Courrèges pants suit as Kate submerged completely and lewd-sounding bubbles rose from the tub. When the dripping head reappeared, Judy started to scribble a list. “While we’re making life miserable for those incompetents at Kennedy, let’s buy you some stuff for the road. We’ll go shopping tomorrow, and remember, the less you buy the better. A couple of lightweight dresses for the South and for evenings: one good suit with at least seven blouses because you won’t have time to wash one out every night. Make sure they’re polyester, not silk, so you can hand-wash them in the hotel basin. And get some junk jewelry and scarves. Margot Fonteyn tours with hardly any baggage, just one black suit. In between interviews, she sits in the back of the limo, turns the collar up or down, undoes a couple of buttons, pulls some pearls or a scarf out of her tote bag and manages six entirely different looks in one day.”

  There was an anguished cry from the tub. “Are you trying to make me feel inferior before I start? I am not a prima ballerina. I’m here to talk about a war. People won’t expect me to look like a fashion plate.”

  “Yes, they will,” said Judy earnestly. “All those women are going to remember what you wear. If you can’t get your act together, why should they listen to you?” She shook more Chamade into the tub and added, “As for feeling inferior, wait until you get out West to the body-beautiful belt—perfectly capped smiles and twenty-four-hour immaculate hairstyles. We don’t want confidence to melt at that point, do we?”

  Kate scowled and slicked her hair back, reaching for the shampoo. Judy squinted at her. “Hold your hair back again. At least when your hair is wet we can see what you look like. Kenneth can cut it tomorrow. Tell him to get the hair off your face so that we can see those green tiger eyes.” She dodged a wet sponge. “Christ, it’s just like being back at school. You should also take one comfortable pair of low pumps and a large box of Band-Aids. On tour you have to look after your feet like an infantry man.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Vitamin pills, some eyedrops if you don’t want bloodshot eyes after long flights, and a stick of men’s deodorant. Those studios can get really sweaty.”

  “Well, you needn’t bother to get my suitcase back from Mombasa or wherever it’s gone,” said Kate clambering out, “because there’s nothing like that in it. I brought rather stately, royal-tour-type clothes. I’m glad I lost them.”

  “What you’ve got to realise,” Judy said, handing her a towel, “is that you’ve really got to make a constant effort to look good for every goddamn minute of this tour.” Kate scowled, and Judy yelled, “It costs a minimum of two hundred bucks a day to keep you on the road, so you better look like a million dollars.”

  On June 5 Kate left on tour. At home, Judy suddenly stopped brewing her breakfast coffee and turned up the radio. “Lightning attack by Israel caused severe Arab losses and capture of territory, mainly from Egypt and Jordan.”

  It was the first radio report of what turned out to be the Israeli-Egyptian Six Day War.

  Judy immediately realised that One Woman’s War was going to be a best seller.

  “Just to bring you down to earth,” scowled Scotty, when Kate returned to London, “let’s see how you tackle a tits-and-ass story.” So Kate was sent to interview a continental teenage starlet who was making a film in Britain, an updated fairy story that was being shot in the New Forest, Hampshire.

  At first light, Kate was waiting on the set in the damp autumnal forest clearing, heavily wrapped up against the cold, sniffing the autumn reek of wet leaves. A yellow trailer was parked under the trees, and suddenly, in the doorway, stood the most ravishing little creature Kate had ever seen. Lili’s hands were pushed deep into a dark fur coat with upturned collar, under which she wore picturesque rags that had been carefully slashed to show as much of her body as possible.

  Kate caught her breath—Lili really was exquisite. She had flawless, olive skin, huge dark eyes, an almost perfect profile. Even Lili’s back view was entrancing, thought Kate. When she threw off the fur coat, ready for action, a black, silk curtain of hair hung down past her ribs, stopping just above the tiny waist. Her exquisitely modelled buttocks and satin thighs were visible under those ridiculous rags as she walked toward the clearing. A fawnlike innocence emanated from her, as if she might melt at any moment into the misty forest behind her.

  On the set, Kate hadn’t expected to feel anything except cold, but she was awestruck by the quietly magical quality that seemed to radiate from Lili as she moved, barefoot and graceful, through the forest.

  They had very nearly finished the movie, which was well over schedule and budget. Everyone except Lili seemed to be strained, bad-tempered and bitchy. The director was only speaking to the cameraman through his assistant, and most of the company were not speaking to each other at all. In between takes, wardrobe rushed forward with a bowl of hot water in which Lili put her frozen feet until the company was ready for the next take.

  Later, in the trailer, Kate interviewed Lili, who spoke good English. Serge had insisted that she learn to speak fluent English and ride a horse—both important, he said, to a movie career. Lili was composed and quiet when answering questions about her acting.

  “How do you start to interpret a role?” Kate began.

  “Oh, I don’t think of it that way, not at all. I just read the part over and over again, until I know how I would behave if I were that character. I . . . brood over it . . . until it’s obvious how that character behaves, and then suddenly, I feel that I am that character, and the character then becomes more real to me than my real self. I’ve always playacted this way since I was a little girl, so it’s not difficult for me.”

  Lili looked wary when Kate started to question her about her notoriety and asked if she enjoyed being in the limelight. “Of course not, but this is part of my job, so I do it,” Lili s
aid, speaking accurately but with a heavy French accent.

  “I hate these unpleasant things that are printed about me. I cannot bear what the newspapers say—always I am in bed with this man or that man. They just write lies. I would never get any sleep if I slept with all the men I am supposed to.”

  “You mean you don’t enjoy being a celebrity?” Kate asked. “You don’t enjoy heads turning in restaurants, people recognizing you at airports, kids asking for your autograph, all that stuff?”

  “If you think that is enjoyable, it is only because you have not experienced it,” Lili said in an earnest voice.

  She became a little agitated as Kate started to probe into her private life and ask questions about her first public appearances. Kate had taken Lili’s cuttings envelope out of the Globe library, and finally she produced early photographs of Lili in the notorious see-through communion dress.

  “You can’t expect to do this sort of thing and get good publicity.”

  “Those photographs were taken when I was thirteen; I did as I was told. I expect you did, when you were thirteen.”

  “But why did your parents allow it?”

  “I’m an orphan, I ran away from my foster parents because . . . they beat me,” Lili said, as Serge had taught her. Then suddenly she added, “As a matter of fact, I was pushed into it. . . .” And for the first time, she found herself describing that first long-ago photo session in Serge’s Paris studio.

  As Lili spoke, Kate saw the helpless girl-child, saw how easy it must have been to exploit her timid vulnerability. She sensed that while Lili seemed surrounded by care and attention, in fact, she was only getting it from people who were making money off her.

  “But don’t you have any friends?”

  “Not me, I don’t have time.” Lili sounded resigned. “But Serge knows lots of people.”

  The last thing Kate had expected to feel for a sexpot starlet was affection and pity.

  “Get cracking, I want that piece in by five o’clock,” said Scotty. Kate sat down, hashed it out and handed it in with half an hour to spare. Scotty quickly scanned her copy, then gave an exasperated groan. “I can’t use this in the page three slot! This hearts and flowers stuff won’t sell newspapers.” He read aloud: “’Strangely insecure and unsure of herself . . . quivering like a deer ready to dart back into the forest. . . .’ For God’s sake, Kate! Let’s see your notes.”

  He looked at them and grunted. “Give this stuff to Bruce, he’s just got time to do a rewrite. He can do this stuff in his sleep!”

  The article started, “ ‘Always I am in bed with this man or that man,’ said Miss Muck, known to the porn trade as Lili.” It was a scathing attack; contemptuous and—apart from the starting sentence—more or less accurate. Unfortunately, it was accidentally printed under Kate’s byline.

  “Nice,” said Scotty. “A real killer.”

  Kate hit the roof. “Why was it run under my byline?”

  Scotty shrugged his shoulders. “You know these things sometimes happen on a daily.”

  “See what happens if you’re interviewed without me?” Serge sneered angrily. “This English cunt tied you up in knots! You can’t do a goddamn thing properly by yourself, whether it’s giving an interview or jumping out of the window!”

  “I didn’t jump!”

  “No, but you were going to in Paris if I hadn’t come in and grabbed you from behind.”

  Serge threw the newspaper to the floor of their hotel bedroom and poured himself another whiskey. “Why can’t they give you a full ice bucket? Even at the goddamn Dorchester!”

  He stood looking out over the treetops of Hyde Park, watching the wet traffic slowly pass in the lamplight beneath him, ghostlike in the light London fog.

  “You know your problem, Lili? You’re fucking stupid. You don’t even know who you are unless I’m around to remind you.”

  “No,” said Lili sadly, thinking of vraie maman, “I don’t know who I am.”

  “Well, you’ll never be able to stand on your own feet unless you find out, and until that day—you need me baby! In the meantime, just remember that you’re now a high-class act, so start behaving like one!” He picked up the crumpled copy of the Globe. “You must have said it, it sounds like you, ‘always I am in bed with this man or that man’, Christ, you stupid bitch!”

  “She’s left out parts of what I said. I didn’t mean it that way. We were talking for over an hour in the evening and I find it so tiring suddenly to talk English all the time.”

  “But all this about the see-through communion dress! You sound like something from the gutter, a crude little whore.”

  “Well, aren’t I?” Lili was getting exasperated.

  “What’s the point of staying in the best places, buying you the best clothes, angling all the publicity to your acting, if you let some smart bitch of a journalist say that you’re just a cheap pair of tits?”

  Serge looked at her in disgust and drained his glass. “Even if it’s true,” he said, “it’s bad for business.”

  By 1968 “Swinging London” was in full swing. Fashion was suddenly one vast fancy dress party. The miniskirt had given reality to lustful, commuter dreams. Women dressed as tattered gypsies, Indian squaws with leather forehead bands and frizzy hair, fantasy female cowboys with fringed buckskin hot pants, wagon-train settlers in patchwork or as flower-sprigged, straw-hatted milkmaids. Laura Ashley made a fortune. Carnaby Street was fantasy land, where once-staid British businessmen now bought their tight-assed bell-bottoms, velvet three-piece suits, flowered shirts, rainbow sweaters, high-heeled boots, necklaces and even handbags.

  London was a boom town and the stock market was soaring. Kate had eventually persuaded her mother’s lawyer to change stockbrokers, her persuasion having consisted of a list of share comparisons over the previous ten years and a threat to take the matter to court on the grounds of gross negligence. Having had to study the figures herself, Kate finally became intrigued by them and decided that she might as well play the stock market on her own. She borrowed from her bank, using her house as collateral, took a quick, lucky plunge into the Australian nickel market with Western Mining and found that she had made more than two years’ salary in one month.

  After that, Kate had no time to think about anything except her work because Scotty gave her a new job. On the theory that nobody does much on Sundays and therefore there isn’t always much news on Mondays—which meant a dull paper—Scotty gave Kate a new section to edit, called LIFE + STYLE. It was intended to cover the whole frenetic new scene and the people who were making it. Kate knew little about editing, but she had now been working for Scotty for five years and she took to it quickly, working far into the night, arguing with Scotty over the content, the photographs and the articles. She no longer had time to leave the office during the day. She sat in a small, windowless cubicle behind a large desk with five telephones in front of her. Her secretary and three assistants were located in further little cubicles, opening off the corridor. Kate planned, argued, listened and gave briefings. She cut copy and dealt with crises and problems.

  LIFE + STYLE was a success from the first day it was published. Advertisers lined up, the section was immediately copied by all the Globe’s rivals and women wrote to L + S in droves.

  “You’ve hit on a winning formula,” Scotty told her one night. “It’s about time you had a night on the town. Me, too.” He reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. “Hunter Baggs has just bought a vast house in Campden Hill and he’s giving a party tonight. I can’t find it, but the invitation promised a fantastic housewarming or something like that. Why don’t I take you?”

  So they ate supper at San Freddiano and arrived at the party around eleven that evening. Lights beamed from uncurtained windows, cars swarmed around a pillared porch and the noise was a bit like being on a battlefield again.

  Once inside the door, Kate blinked. It wasn’t a fantastic party, it was a fancy-dress party—but a bizarre one. Several showgirls wore pi
gtails, short gym suits, frilly panties, black stockings and garters. A nun wore a long black habit that was slit to the thigh, revealing fishnet stockings and frilly red satin garters as she danced with a youth who wore only a golden G string and a halo around his sprayed golden curls.

  A lethal champagne cocktail was being served from a big silver punch bowl by their host, who was dressed as Count Dracula, immaculate in tuxedo, red-lined cloak and vampire teeth. He said, “Hello and welcome, darlings.”

  “Hunter, what is this?” Scotty asked.

  “Don’t you read your invitations, darling?” asked Baggs pleasantly. “It said ‘Dress as your own favourite sexual fantasy,’ and as you see almost everyone has.”

  He waved a hand around the entrance hall.

  Kate looked around. Two lady SS officers danced together wearing black peaked hats, black shirts, black tights and jackboots. There seemed to be a great many black leather garments, whips, see-through plastic macs and the odd brandished dildo. One man wore an old gray mackintosh, sockless shoes and a furtive look. A couple of devils danced with two black bunny girls in thigh-high satin swimsuits with little white cotton tails.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs?” suggested Baggs. “There’s a poker room, a roulette room, a blackjack game and a blue-movie room with a water bed.”

  A tall, familiar figure dressed as a schoolgirl whirled past Kate, and—feeling slightly sick—Kate saw that it was her former husband, Toby.

  Kate said to Scotty, “I think I’ll give it a miss and turn in early.”

  As she walked toward the entrance she almost collided with a beautiful girl in a white lace catsuit who was angrily saying to her escort, “No, sorry—I have to put up with this sort of thing in my work, but I’m damned if I see why I should do it in my free time!” She tossed her luxuriant dark hair, which fell to her waist from a demure white lace cap tied under her chin with a satin bow.