A Vision of Loveliness

by Louise Levene

  ‘We had to get it on the never-never. It’ll cost over eighty pounds when it’s finally paid for but it was a necessity really. I can’t go shopping every day like Auntie used to.’

  ‘What do you do about her and Georgette while you’re at college?’

  ‘We manage.’ Which was just code for ‘no thanks to you’. ‘Georgette goes to the nursery round the corner every morning and Mrs Barton down the road picks her up and minds her till I come and fetch her. She wants thirty bob a week but we’ve no choice. I’ve been doing my teaching experience at our old junior school all this term so I can nip home to give Auntie her lunch. She’s not too bad really. She can use the toilet all right at least. The main thing is to stop her going out.’

  ‘The traffic must be a worry.’

  ‘It’s not that so much. It’s just that she will keep’ – dramatic whisper – ‘showing herself to people. I’ve had to have another lock put on the front door. But she does it everywhere – at The Doctor’s even. I bought her some new panties from Vanda’s – she can’t have had a new pair in donkey’s years and I didn’t want people saying we didn’t look after her properly – but of course that’s only made things worse.’

  They’d moved into the back room by now and June was laying the table for ‘lunch’. It was Scotch eggs and salad. Home Made Scotch eggs and salad. June had once made Uncle George some Scotch eggs in Home Economics not realising that pork sausagemeat was pretty well top of his blacklist of mystery foods. After the first bite he’d wrapped it in his hanky, hidden it in his trouser pocket and then chucked it in the dustbin. Trouble was, he had been so complimentary about the bloody thing that she made them all the time now.

  ‘Pass me those serviettes, would you?’

  June had made a poxy little set of embroidered napkins to go in the Bakelite rings from the sideboard (a good wipe down with spirit vinegar had seen off the silverfish). Georgette was already wedged into her high chair. She was too big for it really but it was that or let her run round the room rubbing rusk into everything. June was only laying the table for four so Jane obviously wasn’t welcome.

  ‘You’ll make someone a wonderful little wife, June.’

  A lifetime of envy and resentment was concentrated in the look that June fired at her.

  ‘Oh yeah? And what will you make them, Jane?’

  It was like getting a bite from a pyjama case. Saucy cat.

  June walked her sister out into the hall. Jane made a show of pressing some pound notes into her damp, fat little hands and June told her not to be silly just as Jane knew she would.

  Jane put her mink hat back on and popped back into the front room to say goodbye. Doreen was sat next to George on the settee murmuring incoherent love words and watching the racing from Sandown. One hand was holding her husband’s and the other was down the front of her lacy yellow nylon knickers.

  Jane sat in the back of the Bentley and dabbed the tears of laughter from her eyes, taking care not to smudge her mascara, enjoying Bob’s silent sympathy.

  ‘Where to now, miss?’

  She looked at her lovely little wristwatch. Exactly one o’clock. She’d be just late enough.

  ‘I have to meet my cousins at the hotel we passed on the main road. I’ll only be about half an hour. I’ll be in the lounge but the bar’s supposed to be quite nice if you want to wait for me in there.’

  One last check in the mirror. The perfect make-up prettily framed by the glossy little black mink hat. She slid from the car, feeling Bob’s eyes on the inches of thigh she had taught herself to show, and then she walked the walk – on full power – through the revolving door, across the busy red Axminster and into the lounge of the Nelson Hotel. The room was a riot of smoked oak and button-backed furniture and it was inhabited by a dozen or so drinkers. Friday lunchtime was quite busy at the Nelson. Men in navy blazers and women in knitted two-pieces (no slacks allowed) and pratty little half-hats that clung on to the sides of their permed heads like satin claws.

  The volume of drivel dropped as Jane came in while half the eyes registered her figure and the other half priced her costume. Joy, Carol and Eileen were gathered nervously at a corner table, giggling over their drinks. Carol and Eileen were now working full time on their weddings but Joy was at a funeral as far as the typing pool was concerned. Joy and Eileen had never been in the hotel before. Carol had because her mum and dad had had their Silver Wedding do there. Carol was wearing a home-knitted yellow angora number that made you sneeze just to look at it and a new Gor-Ray skirt – 130 colours to choose from and Carol picked olive green. She was trying out different hair-dos for the Big Day and she’d been stuck in her mum’s room all morning having it lacquered into big stiff flick-ups like the moat round a shiny peroxide sandcastle.

  Joy and Carol were both having gin and orange because this was what their mums always had but Eileen was letting the side down with a Babycham. Only prats drank Babycham. They looked up nervously as Jane approached. They didn’t recognise her – if they had she’d have shot herself.

  The waiter reached the table almost before she did.

  ‘Dry gin and tonic, please, with ice and lemon.’ Only there wasn’t any ice and the lemon slice came out of a jar. ‘Oh, and do you think we could have some nuts or olives or something? Thanks.’ Big, only-you-can-make-today-perfect smile. A cut-glass four-leaf clover arrived filled with Twiglets and bloody cheese footballs. Huntley and Palmers were taking over the bloody world.

  ‘These are nice.’ Carol’s hand was already loading Cheeselets into her mouth. She’d put on so much weight that her mother had had to exchange the French brocade wedding dress for a sixteen. You could see her fat round knees when she crossed her legs. Scorch marks from a winter spent hogging the coal-effect two-bar fire showed through her stockings like scar tissue.

  Norma hadn’t been able to come. Her sister was getting married that afternoon to a quantity surveyor from Maidenhead and she was maid of honour – primrose Vilene complete with flower basket. She looked like a little fat haystack. Her sister (purest white Charmaine, gently lifted in front) hadn’t actually planned on a March wedding in Croydon Register Office on a Friday but her sister was in no condition to argue apparently.

  No one said anything about Jane but saying nothing said it all really. They had to keep talking about themselves in case one of the unasked questions slipped out – Did it hurt? Did they respect you afterwards? Did you have to keep the lights on? How did she stop the eyelashes falling off?

  Carol steered them safely on to kitchenware and there they stayed. Her new kitchen in Crawley was going to be pale-blue Formica and could she find canisters in the same blue? Could she fuck. When she’d stretched this topic twice as far as it would decently go, she revealed that there was a very economical recipe for ox-liver casserole and a lovely pattern for a hostess apron in this month’s Woman’s Moan. Carol had graduated from True Love now, putting away childish things like make-up and petticoats and Billy Fury. She was only eighteen, for God’s sake, but then Carol had been in training for a life of domestic service since the moment she got engaged. She hardly bought clothes any more but filled her bottom drawer instead: lacy pillow cases; fancy tablecloths; even baby clothes. When trying on winter coats she’d been spotted pulling out the front to see if they’d ‘be suitable’.

  Jane slowly took a Cocktail Sobranie from her enamel case – a bit on top with tweeds but this lot weren’t to know that and besides, the lilac ones almost matched her dress. One of the men at the next table was at her side in a moment – ‘allow me’ – which meant she could give the girls the Suzy St John masterclass in flirting your cigarette alight.

  ‘Haven’t seen you in here before.’

  He had dark hair and had done his level best to grow a moustache. He was wearing an Old Whitgiftian tie although only another Old Whitgiftian would have known this (and you wouldn’t put money on all of them knowing, quite honestly). It was like a film. You could practically hear the wiggle of the clari
net as his eyes ran appreciatively down her professionally-crossed legs.

  ‘I’m just down for the day.’ ‘Down’ was nice. Screamed ‘Flat in Town’. She smiled and turned back to the table. Carol was going to have a candlewick bedspread – Dream rooms begin with Candlewick – and brushed-nylon sheets apparently. Ten pounds seven shillings the pair was a Big Investment but they Saved Work. She could have bought herself a nice little outfit for that kind of money. Or put a down payment on a nice little Co-op funeral and have done with it. Jane could feel her face congealing into contempt and she had to watch herself from the chaps’ table to keep her eyes bright, her smile serene. As if Carol Norton’s kitchen curtains were holding her spellbound.

  Finally Joy cracked.

  ‘So. Jane. Tell us what you’ve been doing with yourself. You’ve got a little flat up in town, so June says.’ ‘Little’. Bitch.

  And out it all came. Very casually. And God had put this month’s Vogue on one of the hotel coffee tables and Jane sat back while they tried not to look impressed.

  ‘Is that you in the red?’

  ‘Yes.’ Well it could easily have been.

  ‘We’ve got that typewriter in the office,’ boasted Joy.

  Jane let another cigarette be lit. The Old Whitgiftian and his pals had been lying in wait but the waiter beat them to it this time. And then Henry’s Bill’s Bob arrived in his chauffeur’s cap to ice the morning’s cake and she kissed their cheaply powdered cheeks goodbye, smiled vaguely at the men at the next table, paid the bill with a ten-bob note – ‘keep the change’ – then back into the Bentley, warmed by admiring eyes.

  They oozed back through South London and home to Mayfair and the bloody double date.

  *Norbury: The Story of a London Suburb, J. G. Hunter and B. A. Mullen, 1977)

  Chapter 22

  Your lift home may have its

  own perils in store.

  Jane had been planning to give Henry’s Bill’s Bob ten shillings but from the way he’d been eyeing her up in the rear-view mirror, she decided to economise.

  ‘Can you do me a huge favour, Bob? And see me up to the front door? The key sticks sometimes and my flatmate might be out.’

  He still had that sexy little peaked cap on. She waited for the lift to start – it always got going with a lurch – and she pretended to stagger slightly on her pointy shoes. He put out his hands to steady her and suddenly she was in his arms being passionately kissed. He’d obviously had plenty of practice back in Ilford, pretty boy like that. He’d already copped a feel of her breasts and started hitching up her dress. He’d bathed specially and his soft almost girlish skin still smelled of his mother’s cheap yellow soap and medicated shampoo. The lift shuddered to a stop at the fifth floor and she pulled away sharply as if he had been forcing himself on her, checking their reflection in the lift mirror: the pretty uniformed boy, the glimpse of black lace suspenders. She straightened her skirt with trembling fingers. Tears squeezed easily to the rim of her eyelids (any further and she’d have to re-do her mascara) and she flashed him a reproachful look.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He didn’t know what had come over him. Jane bloody did, though. You never knew when you might need a lift somewhere.

  Henry and Suzy had spent the morning wandering around Mayfair arm in arm, mostly in Fortnum’s and Simpsons. Henry usually only bought Suzy evening things and shortie nighties – given that was all he was ever going to see – but he’d switched to suede and cashmere and tweed all of a sudden. They had lunched around the corner at the Connaught and by the time they got back all the deliveries had arrived and the pink bedroom was full of fancy cardboard boxes – one was from Drayke’s (more commission for Brigitta). Suzy had put ‘A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody’ on the gramophone and given Henry a one-woman dress show and a very big thank you. Henry was now fast asleep on the big pink bed and Suzy was lying all anyhow on the sitting-room sofa, wearing pedal pushers and a gingham blouse, munching hothouse grapes and watching the afternoon dog racing. She switched it off as Jane came in.

  ‘How did it go, darling?’

  Jane was still so full of how the mink hat had gone down in the Nelson Hotel that her brain had to work fast to find the right answer. The right face to wear.

  ‘She’s quite poorly. They won’t really tell me anything but I think it was some kind of stroke.’

  A look like pain winced through Suzy’s eyes but a jerk of her chin and a tiny sniff soon wiped it clean. She leaned across and took Jane’s hand.

  ‘Poor you. Daddy had something like that.’

  But not quite like that. Daddy, who could walk into any half-decent bar in the West End and safely order ‘the usual’ (double brandy, easy on the ginger), bled to death internally in a small flat in the Pimlico Road.

  ‘Will she get better, do you think?’

  Tricky one. On balance Jane thought it would be easier for all concerned if June rang (while Suzy and Annie were out, obviously) to say that her aunt had passed away and let that be the end of it. Otherwise they’d be offering her rides to bloody Norbury once a week: the dutiful niece, all that rubbish.

  ‘She’s in a rather bad way. I think it’s only a matter of time.’ Then she (bravely) changed the subject. ‘Looks like you had fun this morning.’

  The sitting room was still prettily littered with monogrammed tissue paper.

  ‘Henry didn’t think I had enough day clothes. He’s taking me to Paris on Thursday to get some things for the Grand National. We’re going to be spending the weekend with some people he knows up north somewhere. He’s told them about me so I’ve got to look decent. Nothing too popsified.’

  Henry was married and until very recently had always looked like staying that way. He’d never made any promises about divorce. He never even said his wife didn’t understand him.

  Penelope Swan met Henry at a golf-club dance in Sunningdale just before the war when he was twenty-four and she was a sort of sub-deb, programmed to go to dances and tennis parties, meet eligible young men and bang one up for life in a six-bedroomed stockbroker Tudor detached in the right part of Berkshire.

  Penelope (and her beady-eyed mama) wasted no time at all. She was pretty, she played tennis and bridge very nicely, she had a fetching wardrobe of dresses that artfully supplied whatever her figure was missing (Don’t, for goodness sake, let yourself appear flat-chested) and her father owned the best part of Staines – if Staines had a best part.

  Two babies and a reasonably safe corner of Virginia Water meant that Penelope had a fairly quiet war, while Henry – ‘a born leader of men’ – worked his way up to captain in a uniform exquisitely remodelled by his man in Savile Row (who actually farmed out this sort of thing to a jobbing tailor over the butcher’s in Brewer Street). After three years’ active service, Captain Swan came home with a dozen pairs of nylons, two bottles of Mitsouko liberated from a passing brothel and a nasty dose of the clap.

  It was separate bedrooms after that but Penelope was a good hostess (six months being finished by the Swiss had taught her to manage menus and servants in a grand, bland manner). She was a good mother (or Nanny was, anyway) to the boy, Peter, and to Samantha, a sullen, overdressed blonde two years older than Suzy.

  Samantha Swan was useful cover, Henry thought. Any present he bought Suzy (give or take the odd pair of baby dolls) could be ‘for my daughter’s birthday’. He didn’t see the salesladies’ smiles. Daughters never got nice presents like that.

  Very, very occasionally someone would take Samantha out to dinner somewhere decent – as opposed to a dinner dance in some god-forgotten Berkshire country club. Her favourite places ‘up in town’ were Simpsons-in-the-Strand or the RAC Club in Pall Mall then Edmundo Ros for dancing afterwards so Henry was pretty safe but he and Suzy did once bump into her in the White Tower. Henry handled it very smoothly, introducing Suzy as ‘Miss Massingham from the Paris office’ but this was obviously codswallop, particularly as Samantha had spent most of her own dinner date c
locking the pair of them, watching Suzy’s whole glorious repertoire of hand-holding, fag-lighting and head-tossing, aching with envy at the way her father laughed out loud at yet another funny story. How could he? Cheap little tart – only, of course, Samantha could see that whatever kind of tart she was, she didn’t come cheap. Samantha stole another glance at that ravishing gown – strapless faille with a jet-embroidered lace overblouse – at that tiny waist (twenty-one inches in a brand-new killer waspie) and Suzy herself: as lovely and confident and pettable as a pretty young cat.

  Samantha, despite six months’ hard finishing in Montreux and three years on the Berkshire circuit, still just looked stuck-up and sex-starved. She did get dates – Henry owned most of Hammersmith, for Christ’s sake – but it was bloody hard going.

  She decided not to tell Mummy. It would break Mummy’s heart, she thought. She thought wrong. Mummy’s main concern was that no one in Virginia Water should get wind. She knew Henry would never divorce her. It was Just Sex, she told herself, with the misplaced confidence of a woman who Just Hated It.

  Nobody really liked Penelope – apart from her friends, obviously, who never actually thought about whether they liked each other or not. If you kept the talk small enough – children and delphiniums were safest although it was best to go easy on the children – she could get through a dinner party and she could complain about servants with the best of them but she had no real conversation any more and she thought the property business was a tiny bit vulgar (her mother was from Cirencester). She didn’t even talk about clothes. After the pre-war mantraps by Molyneux and Schiaparelli had done their work, she retreated to her mother’s dressmaker who had a rare gift for turning handsome lengths of silk and worsted into mumsy little frumps and who thought any sort of padding was common.

  Just the same, Samantha did quite fancy a scene with Daddy after that chance meeting in the White Tower. She practised her lines in the dressing-table mirror, modelling herself on Deborah Kerr in Beloved Infidel, or possibly Jean Simmons in Elmer Gantry. But Henry wouldn’t play. He just told her she was being cheap and provincial, that her mother knew all about it and that it was none of Samantha’s bloody business.