A Vision of Loveliness

by Louise Levene

  Jane was still panting slightly when Suzy got back from the lav.

  ‘Did you get your frock?’ The look on her face. No wonder she’d been gone so long.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Larry’s a bit of a gent, all things considered.’

  Gent? That was gents, was it?

  Larry slipped back into the room with an old dress box with drawings of Harrods all over it. Strips of the patterned cardboard were missing where countless chunks of Sellotape had been ripped away. He winked at Jane.

  ‘You’ll knock him dead.’ It was hard to breathe in the tight blue velvet as he looked her up and down.

  Goldie was suddenly back in the room. Anxious. And picky. The speciality model gowns had a very nice mark-up but then they were a big investment to start with. Since Green’s – like everyone else in the London rag trade – had been caught napping by the New Look back in ’47, Lawrence and Goldie took no chances. They either bought Paris designs or stole them (having paid their ‘caution’ to see the collections). The results – the ‘Monsieur Lawrence’ Collection – were put together in the workroom by the senior cutters and machinists and usually found their way to the very smartest madam shops and department stores but it never said Green’s on the label. It was a miracle Debenham and Freebody had got wind at all. Good suppliers were a closely guarded secret. That was where Lawrence’s canny little window display came in. The queen bee of Wigmore Street had spotted it on her way to buy from a rival supplier and finally twigged where all these elegant little numbers were coming from.

  The model gown buyer at Debenham and Freebody, after two decades of buying – daywear, junior fashions, after six, evening, model gowns and finally speciality model gowns (own secretary; office with a window; Paris four times a year) – was finding it harder and harder to work up any enthusiasm for this season’s colours, or whether Paris said duchesse satin or beading or hand-cut lace or panne velvet or organza.

  But she liked the twins gimmick. So much so that she gave both girls her card. One of the house models in Wigmore Street was leaving to get married – silly little fool. She hadn’t really wanted to give up her job – ten pounds a week and a nice staff discount – but the fiancé insisted that they could both manage on an under-manager’s salary. Not in Ferragamo slingbacks they couldn’t.

  She liked a few of the gowns and placed quite a big order after a long chat with Lawrence insisting on some exclusive colours and fabrics. One of her regular suppliers had gone broke and she needed them delivered by mid March (which was asking a lot) and she wanted them ‘exclusive to London W1’ but Larry wouldn’t play. What would Dickins and Jones say?

  Jane had been enjoying herself when the morning began. She’d got the turns down to a fine art (parquet was much smoother than lino) and she’d worked out a nice repertoire of looks: Surprised, Shy, Playful and Seductive (the imaginary Johnny Hullavington played a big part in Seductive). But after the umpteenth twirl she was getting hot, sweaty and tired. She had rough red friction patches on her ribs from rubbing up against sweaty whalebones, her back ached and there was a blister starting on each heel from walking in the cheap dyed-to-match satin stilettos, all of which were at least two sizes too big. Suzy gave her some Elastoplast from her kit bag but it had rubbed away and kept sticking to her nylons and twisting the seams.

  Suzy and Jane hung up the last of their dirty hot frocks, smoothed their hair and eased back into their suits. The Debenham and Freebody lady was still finalising petticoat fabrics with Goldie when the girls left. Thirty bob had sounded reasonable three hours ago but now she’d actually done the job she didn’t quite see why Suzy should get double. Still, there was the frock in the box. She had been afraid Larry would palm her off with some misfit in chartreuse Charmaine but he turned out to be a bit of a gent after all: cherry-red velvet copied from an original Givenchy toile. The bows were a bit last season but they were only tacked on.

  Larry saw them to the door, feeling the quality of Jane’s cashmere and wool skirting as they went.

  ‘That was a nice morning’s work, Miss James. I hope we’ll see you again for the new collection in September, if not before. You take my advice, Suzy my love, and work up the heavenly twins angle. You’ll make a fortune.’

  One last pinch and they were back out in Great Portland Street. Suzy hailed yet another taxi, raising her arm in a cheery, imperious wave – like Wenda Rogerson doing spring fashions as if somewhere round the corner lurked Norman Parkinson with his fancy Japanese camera, ready to snap her mid-swank.

  Suzy told the taxi to leave the meter running while they staggered up the stairs of the flat with the bag and the Harrods box. Annie stuck her head out as they passed, then dived back inside to produce a brown paper carrier bag filled with fluffy white nylon underwear. Suzy rummaged in the crocodile bag for the promised half-crown.

  ‘Annie.’

  ‘Wossat, Suzy my darlin’?’

  ‘How would you fancy a nice little cleaning job? I can’t promise anything but Janey and I are probably going to be moving to a new place and I think we might need a tiny bit of dusting doing.’

  Annie, who survived on National Assistance (having never paid a penny in Stamps), was yes darlin’ ooh not half darlin’ very very keen on a nice little cleaning job. Small-time prostitution didn’t offer much in the way of a pension. Annie could usually cadge a glass of stout from one of the old faces in the Fitzroy – at least it was warm in there – but you couldn’t live on stout.

  Suzy promised to ring Lorna with the details.

  Back in the flat they dumped the bags in one of the tea chests and did a few running repairs to their faces – a quick stroke with the pan-stick and a bit of powder and Bewitching Coral. Suzy dived downstairs to the loo just as the phone rang in the hall. Doreen answered.

  ‘Janey oo? No Janeys living ’ere. You must have the wrong number. What do you mean “brown hair, nice figure”; this isn’t a knocking shop, you know. It’s a private house. Niece? I’ll niece you.’

  So much for Michael Woodrose and his busty young models. Jane was just replacing the receiver as Suzy trolled back through the front door, freshly dabbed with Joy.

  ‘Poor Lorna. She’ll have to man the switchboard for a few weeks when we move.’ This seemed the least of poor Lorna’s worries.

  A normal person might have fretted about old employers and old boyfriends not having their new number but Suzy seemed quite pleased to be shot of them. She had the numbers of the ones she liked: the employers who paid reasonably well and were generous with their remaindered stock; the dates who bought nice little presents and didn’t make a nuisance of themselves. And as for the mistakes – the big spenders who suddenly wanted to be paid back; the lovesick widowers and randy deadbeats from the BBC pronunciation department – move house and you could wipe your wires clean and start over.

  The taxi driver had been starting to wonder. They had fire escapes, them old buildings. Cheeky tarts. But it was going to be all right after all. The two cheeky tarts had just slammed the street door behind them. Smashing-looking birds, both of them. Lovely pins. And not short of a few quid. Fortnum’s for lunch. All right for some.

  Chapter 17

  Always live as centrally as you possibly can.

  Suzy had been getting happier and prettier and lovelier from the moment they climbed back into the taxi. She told Jane a funny joke – good and loud so that the driver would laugh too. Then she gushed delightedly about Janey’s nice red-velvet present and what a great model she’d make. Then she tipped the driver two bob and waved gaily at Henry who was already installed at a window table.

  Her good mood hit Fortnum’s like a stink bomb. Even the crabby old stick of a waitress cracked her face into a smile at sir and his two pretty daughters. The house model, pacing the restaurant every lunchtime like the Flying Dutchman in daywear, made a point of stopping at their table. They ordered lobster burgers (more bloody Chablis) but were careful not to have more than a bite of the bun. Jane
tried to imagine what Doreen would have ordered. At those prices? Not likely.

  The Fountain Restaurant was full of ladies dabbing with napkins, tongues checking dentures for bits of trapped Elegant Rarebit or traces of lipstick while anaemic unpainted eyes scanned the room awarding black marks: Milk-In-First; knife held like a spoon; taking a knife to a bread roll; sips of tea taken while food remained in the mouth. No food crimes were being committed at Jane and Suzy’s table but they watched them anyway. Huntsman suit, handmade shoes, cashmere socks. Was he Daddy or Sugar Daddy? Very hard to tell. Suzy’s manner always suggested a bit of both.

  ‘Can we go and see the flat after lunch?’ Can we, Daddy? Can we?

  Suzy hardly ever asked Henry about his life away from her. ‘Did you have a nice weekend?’ would have been stupid. He probably didn’t – why else keep Suzy? – and if by any chance he did have a nice bloody weekend, if, by some incredible chance, his dearly beloved wife opened her skinny grey legs for the first time in twenty years, it would have been the last thing Suzy wanted to hear. Besides, she wasn’t that interested in what he got up to when she wasn’t there.

  As a tiny child Suzy had believed that other people only existed while she was in the room – which explained why they were always so bucked up when she arrived. She’d never quite shaken this feeling and anyway it was true. Rubbish evenings came to life when Suzy told a joke or suggested champagne or, later, more softly, said that no one had ever cared about her this way since Daddy died. No wonder people were pleased to see her.

  Henry handed them nicely into a taxi which whizzed along Piccadilly then up into Mayfair. They stopped outside a big once-white stone block of flats round the back of the Dorchester Hotel somewhere. Henry introduced the girls to the porter as his nieces who had just moved up to London from the country and said he hoped Jim – it was Jim, wasn’t it? – would look after them. Yes sir he would sir thank you very much sir. Nieces his arse but enough five-quid tips and sir could have all the nieces he liked. Five quid down the drain, of course, if Suzy didn’t like the nice little flat.

  She liked it.

  The front door of number fifty-two opened into quite a big square hall with a crystal chandelier in the middle and shelves all round it with books and fancy china – not the kind with ‘Foreign’ stamped on the bottom. There was a door in the near corner leading to a guest cloakroom which had a toilet (lavatory, lavatory) and washbasin and a big linen cupboard full of fluffy matching towels and starchy sheets and room enough at the bottom for a huge Mayfair Laundry box.

  The double doors on the left led into a twenty-foot sitting room, two more doors to the bedrooms and a swing door to the kitchen. The kitchen (which didn’t have a bath in it) had walls of white cupboards and a door leading on to the fire escape (which might come in handy in a bedroom farce-y sort of way) but who cared about the kitchen? People who lived in Massingham House only went there on the maid’s day off.

  There was no washing machine. Even Doreen thought washing machines were common. Mrs Grant next door had one. Dirty great mangle on top of it and a garden full of drying sheets and shirts. The woman on the other side wheeled hers down to the laundrette in her wicker trolley then pegged it out when she got back. But Doreen had a magic cardboard suitcase from the electric laundry company that turned dirty clothes into clean. It wasn’t cheap but Doreen had Better Things to do with her time than wash bloody sheets. What Things?

  Suzy’s bedroom was pink and white and gold. The whole of one wall was fitted wardrobes with enormous great mirror doors showing a second king-size bed, a second fancy white and gold dressing table, another chandelier, another mile of fat, furry white carpet, another Suzy.

  Suzy watched herself do a basic turn into Henry’s waiting arms – no joke in high heels on shag pile – while Jane went off to explore her own room which was the same only blue: hyacinth blue. Jane’s king-size bed covered in silky satin; Jane’s dressing table; Jane’s hand-blocked blue and gold wallpaper. You opened the curtains by pulling a brass pineapple on a string. The view wasn’t up to much – just the windows and fire escapes of the other half of the block – but the raw-silk floor-length drapes shimmered so beautifully in the light that you didn’t want to see out anyway.

  Through the white door and into Jane’s very own private bathroom which was blue to match the bedroom, even the bath was blue and it had gold-coloured taps – hot and cold, but no sign of a water heater – and a boiling hot chromium-plated rail covered in half a dozen soft, fat bath towels in exactly the right shade. The whole of the right-hand wall above the bath was one big mirror and the mirror over the washbasin had tiny lightbulbs all round it. Jane checked her reflection for damage, only there wasn’t any. Only a pretty young face rising from the neatly tailored shoulders of a cashmere suit. Very pretty. Pretty enough for a flat of its own.

  Jane sat down at the dressing table and began opening each of the little drawers. They smelled of Quelques Fleurs and hair removing cream. The imaginary Mrs Collins had left quite a lot of stuff behind in the top drawer: a powder compact: a lot of hairpins and some nice twist-up lipsticks: Pango Peach; Cuban Rose. The drawer underneath was full to the brim with about two hundred bookmatches, shiny blue ones with Mayfair 3515 embossed on them in gold lettering. Jane had read about these in the News of the World. Call girls had them. They’d have been handy for lighting the gas – only there wasn’t any gas.

  Suzy was still thanking Henry so Jane had a nose round the sitting room: no plastic fruit; no atomic magazine rack; no cheap prints (Reproductions of ‘Sunflowers’ or the Annigoni royal portraits or Rédoute roses have no place in the Good Taste Home); no sideboard and not a pouffe in sight.

  Henry and Suzy had slipped out of the bedroom. He’d had as much gratitude as he was getting for a weekday afternoon.

  ‘Now then, you two. Have you got everything packed? If you give me the keys I can send my man round right away if you like. No need for you to go back to that place ever again.’

  He squeezed Suzy’s sticky little hand. Suzy had been having another think about schlapping back to St Anthony’s Chambers and smuggling the gear down to street level so that Henry’s driver wouldn’t see the state of the flat and she had decided it was more trouble than it was worth. Who cared what some driver thought? She’d already told Henry it was a slum but that it was all she could afford (after Daddy died) and how she felt sorry for her poor pregnant flatmate and Henry had been very, very understanding. The bigger the contrast, the more generous and magnificent the Mayfair flat seemed, the bigger and better Henry would feel.

  ‘Bill will bring all your bits and pieces over in an hour or two. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty. I thought you and I could have a bite to eat somewhere and then go on to the River Club. What are you up to this evening, Janey?’ He had a very polite voice, he was a very polite man but it wasn’t an invitation.

  ‘Janey’s got a date.’ Definitely not an invitation.

  ‘I’m sure she has.’ Henry ran his eyes over Jane in her expensive suit. Any floozie could wear a smart evening dress but dollies in daywear were in another league. ‘So, Janey. Do you like the flat?’

  ‘I don’t like the flat at all, Mr Swan. I love it.’ Service with a lick. Did he believe her? He didn’t look as if he believed her somehow. His smile seemed to dry on his face, shrinking slightly at the edges, but he kissed her hand anyway.

  Once Henry was in the lift, Suzy kicked off her shoes and threw herself on the big white sofa. This was definitely the life. She reached across to the side table for the phone – white with gold trim – and dialled Big Terry. Then she rang Lorna at work to give her the new number and see how the professor was shaping up.

  Lorna obviously couldn’t talk – in a roomful of graceless eggheads from Romano-British antiquities the typist could go whole days without speaking to a living soul – but she obviously had something to say. There was also the danger that the switchboard was earwigging.

  ‘About the newspaper cutting we di
scussed?’

  ‘Oh yes. Are you going to put the ad in?’

  ‘I think that would be best.’ Lorna’s voice was tight, resentful even.

  ‘Would you like me to do it?’

  ‘If that would be convenient?’

  ‘I’ll do it right now. Now can you do me a little favour, darling. We’re living at Fifty-two Massingham House and our new phone number is Mayfair 3515. I don’t want you to pass it on to any of the pests, obviously, but could you be an angel and pop in and see Annie on your way upstairs and get her to give me a ring? Oh yes and can you give the address to Janey’s Johnny when he rings?’

  As soon as she’d hung up she found a bit of paper in the desk drawer, tore the letterhead off the top and wrote out half a dozen words in neat block capitals. She then buzzed down to the porter to send up the messenger boy – like she’d been doing it all her life. Would he be a darling – given half a chance he would. He was only sixteen and his eyes were on stalks at the sight of two pretty popsies and all that shag pile – and take this to the classified ad department of the Evening News in Fleet Street? Thirty bob should cover it. He could keep the change. And the following evening, in a pub round the back of Gower Street, young Dr Tom would check the personal columns, make the call and save another young life – that was how he liked to look at it, anyway.

  Jane wandered back into her beautiful blue bedroom. The smart fitted wardrobes were filled with empty coat hangers covered in padded satin. Some of them had scented net sachets still dangling from them. She hung her suit on one of the hangers and laid her black cashmere crew neck on one of the empty shelves.

  She decided to have a bath while they waited for Henry’s Bill to arrive with their things. The bathroom cupboards were full of goodies. The one under the washbasin was mostly medicinal: Andrews liver salts; aspirin; a funny rubber tube with a squashy bag on the end and three packs of French letters. There was another stash of things behind the bathroom mirror: soap, body lotion and bath essence and two pots of Helena Rubinstein Beauty Overnight cream. Jane decided on Stephanotis – Lily of the Valley was a bit mumsy. She was so used to the slow, pissy stream of Doreen’s dodgy Ascot heater that she nearly let the bath run over.