A Vision of Loveliness

by Louise Levene

  She cried a lot, then blew her nose on Daddy’s handkerchief before finessing a cheque for fifty guineas. Enough for one of those new velvet evening dresses from Debenham and Freebody and a nice suede jacket from Simpsons. Twenty-three pounds – a month’s wages for the girl who sold it to her.

  The velvet – they only had butterscotch left in a size fourteen – was one of eleven identical ‘speciality model gowns’ to pitch up at a Valentine’s Day ball in some Park Lane hotel (there was quite a large party down from Manchester). Samantha was mortified and Lawrence Green was in big, big trouble with half the buyers in the West End.

  So. Henry hadn’t planned to marry Suzy but the Evening News business had rattled him. She’d seemed terribly brave and matter-of-fact about it but then he’d woken up to find her crying and decided that they weren’t going to kill any more babies. Fuck Penelope. Suzy reckoned that the invitation to the National clinched it but Jane couldn’t believe he’d really go through with it.

  ‘He’s not really going to marry you, is he? I thought they never did. That’s what you told Lorna.’

  She couldn’t quite read the angry little look in Suzy’s eyes. She wasn’t sure she wanted to read it.

  ‘They don’t marry Lornas,’ and Suzy leaned back against the sofa cushions and raised her chin to the afternoon sunlight, a smug little smile pinching those pink, unpainted lips.

  ‘But wouldn’t the scandal affect his business?’

  ‘Property people won’t care. They’re all wide boys anyway. It’s not like he’s a banker or an MP or something.’

  Besides which, most of Henry’s business associates had ‘traded the old banger in for a newer model’, as one of them put it. Not Ollie, obviously. Angela still didn’t seem to understand Ollie but, fortunately for her, nor did anyone else.

  The only thing Henry had to worry about (and there was no need for Janey to know this) was the promised knighthood (services to the building trade) which would need to be put on hold for a year or two. Not a word about that to a soul. Penelope would have liked to have been Lady Swan and she’d do anything she could to spoil another woman’s chances.

  ‘So. Will Henry be moving in here then?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. No. He’s going to rent a nice little flat in Mount Street while the divorce goes through.’

  Suzy, who already had her own nice little flat in Mayfair in the bag, was prepared to be patient about the divorce.

  ‘God knows how long it will all take but the wife won’t care so long as she can carry on as normal in her Virginia Watery way. He’s told her she can have an extra twenty grand if she does as she’s told. That ought to do the trick.’

  She tried to imagine Suzy in an apron, Suzy shopping for groceries, Suzy pushing a pram. What she forgot to imagine was Suzy discussing menus with the cook; Suzy planning drinks parties; Suzy arranging flowers by the French windows in the drawing room or Suzy playing the grand piano – all the things Suzy imagined. Almost the identical fantasy Penelope had had when she married Henry twenty-five years earlier. Suzy couldn’t really play the piano but she’d had lessons when she was very small and years ago a friend of her father’s had taught her to bash out ‘Liebestraum’ and ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ which seemed to cover most situations.

  ‘I didn’t think you wanted to get married.’

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea? Of course I want to get married. I told you, darling. You can’t live on Nice Little Presents all your life.’

  ‘I’ll have to find another flat.’ Aha. So it wasn’t about marriage at all. It was about somewhere for Jane to sleep. Still, you couldn’t really blame her.

  ‘You’ll be all right here for a while. Divorces take for ever. And you’ll be good cover.’ Oh thanks a lot. Two years listening to the pink velour bedhead banging just so Henry and Suzy could have ‘good cover’.

  ‘Anyway, you might change your mind and marry the lovely Johnny.’

  Lovely, was he?

  ‘You fancy him, don’t you? You’ve always had a soft spot for Johnny.’

  That put the wind up her. She was avoiding Jane’s eyes.

  ‘Not enough to do any damage, darling.’ She selected a violet cream from the box on the table and tried to look casual. ‘You haven’t slept with him, have you?’ Like she didn’t want her to.

  ‘No. I was in two minds but I decided not to risk it. It didn’t do the fiancée any good.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever just want to?’

  Suzy wanted to. You could tell. Maybe she really did like it. But did she like it with Henry? Heavy, jowly, cigar-smelly Henry?

  ‘Do you love Henry? Do you actually fancy Henry?’

  Suzy looked very posh all of a sudden. As if Jane had left a dead mouse on her breakfast tray. A girl who arranged abortions through the personal columns getting on her high horse because someone had the brass neck to ask her a personal question.

  ‘He loves me and I’m going to make him a wonderful wife.’ She turned on Jane. ‘And what about Johnny? Do you love him? Do you even like him? What colour eyes does he have, Janey?’

  What? What was she talking about?

  ‘Ties?’ Ties she could do. He’d been wearing a nice navy silk motif tie last time she saw him. Tiny pink elephants on it.

  ‘Eyes. What colour are his eyes? You don’t know, do you? You’re too busy checking what he thinks about you to actually look at him.’

  Suzy, sweet, soft little Suzy, seemed to have gone on the turn all of a sudden. Maybe Jane would be better off living somewhere else. Maybe Sergio could sort something out. Jane pulled a grape from the bunch. What colour were his eyes? She could picture them looking at her: amusement; desire; disappointment sometimes. All kinds of looks, but she could only remember them in black and white. Proposing a toast with a saucer of champagne; admiring her work in the cigarette-lighting routine; swallowing a smile when she used one of Suzy’s lines. Laughing eyes, sad eyes but what bloody colour were they?

  ‘They’re blue,’ Suzy answered her own question, ‘Dior blue.’ And the silly bitch started to cry.

  Chapter 23

  A single unguarded moment and all

  may be lost. Serve a slovenly lunch-

  tray, bolt your food, neglect to use

  a napkin and you undermine the

  certainty of behaving perfectly when

  dining under the scrutiny of others.

  The lease on Henry’s flat in Mount Street didn’t start until the first of April so a handsome monogrammed suitcase had arrived with two Savile Row suits, a dozen Jermyn Street shirts and ties, a beautiful Sulka dressing gown and no pyjamas (dirty old bugger). He was in the pink bathroom, shaving. He always shaved (or had himself shaved) twice a day. Either he was very considerate (so Suzy said) or he just liked shaving. Suzy was using the blue bathroom while Jane began to get ready. Jane had dug out the red velvet – he liked it last time – but Suzy advised against.

  ‘None of my business, obviously darling, but he’ll never propose to you in that.’ (Men might whistle at the girl with the plunging scarlet neckline but it’s the demure little miss in blue that they ask for a date.)

  Jane didn’t say a word but she put the dress back on its padded hanger. No sense burning her bridges. There was a blob of icing on the bodice anyway. She’d been having dinner in Sergio’s suite and he wanted to eat petits fours from her cleavage. Fortunately it was bang in the middle so she could put a diamanté brooch over it.

  ‘Is the navy grosgrain fixed?’

  ‘Yes. Annie got it back from the cleaner’s yesterday. That stain came out completely. Do you have to wear that one?’

  ‘Not if you want to wear it.’

  ‘No but I was thinking of wearing the old blue velvet.’ Suzy had gone very debby and demure since Henry’s proposal – still didn’t wear any drawers, mind you.

  ‘So? Does it matter?’

  ‘No. No. That’ll be fine. We haven’t pulled that stunt for ages.’

  Suzy secretly quite liked
the double-act routine because Henry always used to play spot-the-difference afterwards: how much prettier Suzy was; how much funnier; how much sexier; how much classier. Henry was actually getting a bit fed up with Janey. The girl had absolutely nothing to say for herself. She could talk, he’d heard her do it, with the various men he’d found for her. Pale copies of Suzy’s witty chatter but Henry was already spoken for and so she made no effort at all at normal conversation – as if she’d taken her batteries out to save power. Henry would have called her a tart – only what would that have made him?

  Suzy was sat in state in midnight-blue velvet on the sitting-room sofa flicking through a copy of Architectural Review – just as Penelope Swan used to do when she first met Henry. Suzy was obviously in training for the bloody Grand National. You could bet your life she’d have Annie serving tea all week so she could practise being mother.

  Suzy slipped her magazine down the back of the sofa before a dinner-jacketed Henry came in brandishing a bottle of Moët and a fistful of champagne glasses.

  ‘Hello, Janey. How was your aunt? Young Bob get you there all right?’

  Very nice manners and all that but he didn’t stop for any answers.

  ‘Suzy may have told you, Janey, that we’re having a bit of a celebration.’ He thumbed open the bottle, poured them each a glass and then proposed the toast.

  ‘To Suzy Swan.’

  So it was true. But Suzy’s fingers were crossed as she drained her saucer just the same.

  Jane had hardly finished her first glass (Suzy had had two in the time) when Johnny arrived. Jane answered the door (Annie was spending the night in the Fitzroy). She closed the door behind him, put her arms around his neck for a long, hot kiss, all the while checking their reflection in the hall mirror. He pulled away to look at her. They were blue but more Lovat than Dior really.

  They hadn’t been out together for over a week. He’d rung several times but she’d kept finding excuses.

  ‘What happened to the Alice-blue gown? And who was the callow youth?’

  ‘A girl’s got to eat, darling.’

  It was the kind of thing Suzy said but it just sounded cheap when Jane said it.

  They joined the other two in the sitting room but after a quick hello Henry had gone back into the bedroom to make a phone call. He’d been trying to get hold of Penelope all day and he didn’t like leaving a message. You couldn’t always trust Samantha to pass them on.

  Jane sat down next to Suzy, their skirts filling the whole width of the sofa, the blue fabrics glowing in the creamy silk light of the table lamps. Johnny downed another glass of champagne and knelt on the carpet in front of them; his blue eyes looked from one to the other but it was Jane he spoke to.

  ‘I know I keep asking this, my love, but what are you doing here?’

  He held her hand in his but he had suddenly stuck the other hand up Suzy’s velvet skirt without even looking at her. She wriggled a bit and puffed nervously on her cigarette holder but she didn’t push his hand away. Johnny carried right on talking to Jane.

  ‘When I very first met you, you were a pretty girl of eighteen. Now look at you: nineteen going on thirty-nine.’

  Suzy was still squirming and there was a frightened look in her eyes. ‘You could marry me and live happily ever after or you could end up like this lovely little slag with her Mayfair flat and her middle-aged minder.’

  The Dior-blue eyes flicked across to Suzy’s panic-stricken face. ‘Or does old Harry turn you on? Who knows? Maybe she actually likes it. Maybe she actually likes fat, droopy old men. Do you, Suzy?’

  This was a lot more than two glasses of champagne talking. Johnny had been back to Gloucester Road to dress but he’d obviously been killing time in some Curzon Street drinking club for the last hour.

  ‘Suzy here’s a beautiful girl, aren’t you, Suzy? Clever, kind, sexy – very sexy – but she’s not really a model, Janey my love. She’s a tart. A Very Smart Tart. She sleeps with old men to have a nice Mayfair roof over her head. You have to get away from all this.’

  Jane half expected Suzy to rat on her about Sergio and the Mutation Mink man and the others (Jane would have) but she sat tight saying nothing, wriggling uneasily at the pressure of his fingers. For a moment she looked as if she were going to cry again. Her eyes had been glumly cast down but as the bedroom door clicked shut she flashed Johnny a look. Reproach? Hatred? Desire? A little of each, Jane suspected.

  Johnny pulled his arm out from beneath Suzy’s petticoats, carefully wiping his fingers on her stocking as Henry came back in.

  As they all somehow crammed into the lift Johnny suggested they go for a spin in the car he’d borrowed. Sports model.

  Suzy appeared to have made a complete recovery. ‘Oh you lucky thing! Henry says I can’t have a little runabout until I’ve passed my test but I can’t very well practise in the Bentley, can I? I’ll never get a licence at this rate. What breed is it, darling? Is it small enough for me and Janey to have a go in?’

  ‘If you don’t mind left-hand drive.’

  It was a brand-new red Volvo that belonged to a chap in the overseas department who had gone back to Stockholm for a fortnight’s holiday. The girls managed to bundle into the back but it was a bit on the small side and poor old Henry looked suddenly very big and old and stiff, cooped up in the passenger seat, rather than stretched out at the wheel of his Bentley. He’d got his arm caught in one of the straps at the side of the seat.

  ‘What’s this supposed to be?’ You could tell he was getting fed up.

  ‘Safety belts. It’s a new thing. All the new Volvos have got them.’

  ‘Bloody Swedes. I don’t see why we can’t just take a cab. Or walk. It’s only a few hundred yards, for God’s sake.’

  Suzy pulled a face. She hated arriving anywhere on foot. It looked cheap. And Henry was starting to sound like someone’s dad. He’d be talking about petrol coupons next.

  The restaurant was crowded with out-of-towners but they were shown to a decent table anyway (waiters clearly had a sixth sense about good tippers). The girls got their usual admiring stares only now there was the odd whisper to go with them – Suzy might be right about Frockways. There was even some poor deluded cow wearing one of the bloody things – even the black with gold lamé wasn’t nearly dressy enough for the Coq d’Or.

  They’d all ordered oysters except Johnny but when his soup came he called the waiter over and complained that it was cold.

  ‘It’s vichyssoise, sir,’ he hissed, happily. He always enjoyed this one.

  ‘I don’t care what it’s supposed to be. It’s stone cold.’

  The waiter stayed dead pan and whisked the soup away, planning the usual kitchen revenge. Henry and Suzy had hardly noticed but Jane felt sick with embarrassment. Johnny’s soup came back hot but he had more sense than to drink it. Instead he began cutting up his bread roll with his butter knife. An old bitch in beige lace at the next table eyed him with utter contempt. Models. What could you expect?

  When Johnny’s steak arrived he took a sip of Chablis, tucked his napkin into his collar and began sawing away at it, holding his knife like a pen.

  It was more like two tables for two than a foursome. Suzy had angled her body away from Johnny and seemed determined to keep talking – or get Henry talking – anything to keep Johnny quiet. Henry was telling Suzy about a property he’d just acquired in South Kensington somewhere – a friendly little bargain he’d struck with Jane’s Mr Mutation so maybe the girl wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The house was a complete wreck at the moment, all carved up into poky little bedsits, but it would be ideal, apparently. Ideal for what?

  ‘I wouldn’t care where it was.’ Which was sort of true. Eaton Square would have been fine too.

  Johnny had dropped his napkin and was asking the waiter for another serviette.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ hissed Jane.

  He looked at her hard and drained another glass.

  ‘Doing what, Janey? What am I d
oing exactly?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what you’re doing.’

  Oh God. Don’t whatever you do complain. You sound your shrillest and look your worst when you do. She’d better keep that note out of her voice. Only married women could afford to take that tone. ‘You can’t see the look on the waiter’s face.’

  ‘I don’t want to see the look on the waiter’s bloody face, Janey darling. He could be stood there dolled up like Marlene bloody Dietrich for all I care, Janey darling. He’s there to bring my food. When I want his opinion of my manners, I’ll jolly well ask for it.’

  Christ. The beige woman was staring now and the bad language meant that her husband would have to gear himself up to complain. Last thing he wanted. It was their wedding anniversary. Twenty-eight years and she’d still never actually touched it.

  Johnny called the waiter over before the man could start.

  ‘Excuse me, garçon, could you direct me to your smallest room?’

  Suzy thought this was very funny but then Suzy had had half a bottle of Moët and three glasses of Chablis. The woman at the next table set her off laughing again. It was an attractive laugh. But loud.

  ‘Do you know,’ announced Suzy, in what she thought was a whisper, ‘I thought for one terrible moment that that woman was starkers. Her dress is exactly the same colour as her skin. Couldn’t work out why she had ruched tits.’

  By the time the baked Alaska arrived, they were all four of them plastered.

  The manager (who’d been put in the picture by the head waiter) came over for a quick ooze.

  ‘Was everything all right this evening, sir?’ Johnny might have made the booking but it was still Henry they spoke to.

  Henry, who was busy stroking the hand of the second Mrs Swan-to-be, looked up crossly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is everything all right, sir?’ He looked pointedly in Johnny’s direction. Johnny was holding his coffee cup in a very poncey way. Suzy went to powder her nose without waiting for Jane like she normally did. She hadn’t said one word to her all evening. Henry got up and headed off in the direction of the Gents’.