by Pippa James
I turned to the friendly steward.
“Erm, does this dress look okay?” I asked.
“What criteria am I using?”
I paused. “General aesthetics?”
“You’re having an operation?”
“Ha!”
“If I was twenty years younger . . .” he said.
“Just twenty?”
“Cheeky!”
“Really, thank you!”
A little spray of Miss Dior.
“Daisy! There you are!” Kitty’s voice.
“Kitty! Wow. The dress is a dream! You look beautiful.” She’d found a classy evening dress in Pippa’s wardrobe, while mine was tight and tarty. I felt like going home when I saw her, looking so elegant and demure.
“You’re going to be a magnet in that one,” said Kitty. “You can leave your coat and stuff in the cloakroom. I’ll show you.”
“Enjoy the evening, ladies,” said the steward.
“Thank you!” we chorused as we clickety-clacked across the tiled floor. Traditional Chinese music played softly from the ornate balcony above us, merging with the low buzz of people mingling. I looked up to see strings of cherry-red lanterns garlanded with blossom branches across the balcony, while exquisitely decorated fans dangled daintily from the balustrades.
With my coat safely deposited, we teetered up the steps to the first-floor gathering. Welcoming us was a sign that read: Miss Wong’s Wardrobe: Shanghai-Paris Fashion of the Thirties. Gazing at the glass-encased exhibits of exotic silk cheongsams, clasped box bags, tiny satin slippers and exotic orchid hairclips, I was transported to a glorious era when girlish glamour was a given. Even the underwear was elegant and dainty.
“Oh, Kitty! I wish life was like this now.”
“Snap. It’s so romantic to dress up.”
Satin-clad girls with porcelain cheeks and ruby love-heart lips tiptoed around. Each balanced either abundant silver platters of dumplings, all adorned with mango flower art, or endless glasses of pink gin fizz.
We each took a drink and began to identify some stars.
“Poppy Cavanaugh!” said Kitty, flashing her eyes to five o’clock.
The young model wore a daring creation formed from a few grey chiffon scarves. Next to her, a pillar-box-lipped Florence Maddox, classic in black crêpe, golden curls bouncing on her narrow shoulders.
I noticed Ella Woods, looking gaunt but chic in one of her own navy shifts, posing with a frosted-pink pout beside portly Sir Eddie Macdonald, fashion king.
“Do you see that girl from Bake It looking all voluptuous in violet over there?” I asked Kitty, but her eyes were elsewhere.
8
The Frenchman
I followed her gaze.
How could it be? Yes, it certainly was.
BEAU BONAS!
He was our number three hottest guy. We’d seen every movie he’d ever starred in. He wasn’t far from us, chatting to some suits, who in normal circumstances would have been of some interest.
“Let’s shuffle over that way,” I said.
It was about an eight-step manoeuvre, by the looks of it. We edged nearer by degrees. We were close to him, so close we could hear his voice. Not clear words, but the timbre of it. While American accents sound so natural in movies, they always stand out in the middle of London.
Giddy from that closeness, I took a sip from my glass and tottered dizzily on my kitten heels for a moment, somehow listing to the left, knocking into the back of a broad man. He turned round sharply – and crossly.
Scary beast. I’m sure I’ve seen him on TV.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I said.
No obvious response from him, eyebrows knitted.
“Oops,” whispered Kitty. “He’s annoyed!”
“It’s that grumpy French chef, Michel Amiel!” I said. “He’s always annoyed.”
“Oh yeah, we saw him on the Saturday Kitchen programme.”
He towered over me, scowling, while a beautiful woman at his side, wearing a charcoal coat dress, looked me up and down. Very quickly, I recognised her as the actress Eve Berger; I’d seen her in Les Aventuriers the previous year.
Two famous French people scowling at me . . . what to do?
I did what my mother taught me to do in difficult situations. I held out my hand, smiled and introduced myself: “Daisy Delaney, good to meet you! And this is Kitty Chang.”
Amiel and the girlfriend smiled weakly.
“Michel Amiel,” he said with a heavy French accent.
Now, the actress. “Eve . . . Berger,” she said frostily, adding the surname as if the first name should have been enough.
We all shook hands.
There was an awkward silence. I didn’t want to say anything fawning, and besides, Kitty and I were still desperately trying to track Beau. He’d moved already. Trust me to bump into this pair of Gallic ghouls mid-mission, losing sight of the target.
“The canapés do look delicious,” I said, taking a little prawn dim sum from a passing tray.
Monsieur Amiel stared at the pretty platters as they wafted past. “Why does everyone piss around with mangos these days?”
“Ssshhh!” I said. “You have to call them ‘girlgos’ now. It’s a directive from the Commission for Sexual Equality.”
“In fact,” said Kitty, very gravely, “they really should, in fairness, be called ‘girlcomes’.”
Kitty and I almost fell off our shoes – again, in my case.
Michel Amiel looked at us disparagingly.
I scanned the room for BB. No sign.
“What do you think of the exhibition?” I asked, reluctantly giving up on Beau for the time being.
“Rather shallow,” he said, Eve Berger nodding earnestly at his side. “A missed opportunity to explore the socioeconomic relationship between Paris and Shanghai in the Thirties.”
You what?
“You do know this is a museum of decorative arts?” I said, looking at Kitty with an expression conveying: Wanker.
Eve Berger’s arched eyebrow suggested she was cranking up for action.
“I am reminded of Henry Moore,” she began with barely a trace of French accent in her brittle voice. “Between the beauty of expression and power of expression, there is a difference of function. You know, the first aims at pleasing the senses, while the second has a spiritual vitality more moving and deeper than the senses.”
Oh, wow. So, you’re clever.
“Well, as Sir Roy Strong so famously said, ‘The V&A is really just a very big handbag’ ”. (I remembered that from a chat we’d had with a curator at the Wedding Dresses launch).
I sipped what seemed to be my second cocktail. We’d lost track of Beau Bonas for this deeply annoying duo?
They reflected quietly on the handbag thing, so I seized the silence.
What’s that famous Ruskin quote again? Think, Daisy, you know this from A-level art.
I felt a little lightheaded, but wasn’t so tipsy that I couldn’t think straight.
“I prefer Ruskin to Moore,” I said boldly before I really had recalled the full quote. I dredged it up from the murky depths of my back brain.
The three H’s?
I spoke very deliberately. “‘Fine art is that in which the hand, the head and the heart go together’.”
Kitty smiled proudly. Thank-fuck-you-got-that-right was her nuanced expression.
Monsieur Amiel grabbed a glass ungraciously from a floating tray.
The Awkward Couple grew more awkward, but, joy, suddenly I caught a glimpse of Beau near the exhibits.
“Would you excuse us?” I said. “I’ve just noticed someone.”
Amiel followed my gaze.
9
Le Dancing
Kitty and I set off for the exhibition area. The warm, creeping anaesthesia of the pink gin fizz was clearly taking effect as we chatted amiably to various strangers we bumped into on the way. Everyone was craning to see BB, who was wearing the greatest suit – or is it just
that he has the greatest body?
But Beau kept us on our toes, working the room faster than he’d signed up for The Gangster 2.
Where is he now, for fuck’s sake?
The drinks flowed, the music changed to pop and the evening loosened up as the lights went down. Kitty had forsaken Beau and was chatting happily to an Oriental rug expert from the museum, who had admired her dress. Handsome enough, but a man who knows his rugs for a living?
But anyone is better than Charlie. Go, Kitty!
I decided to go to the powder room to touch up my Rosebud-red Dior lipstick and check out my dress.
I swivelled through the yabbering throngs and was deciding on the best direction to take, fantasising that I’d bump into BB, when I became aware of someone walking close to the right of me, but still slightly behind me.
I turned round.
And jumped in fright, clutching my throat.
It was the infuriating French guy, Michel Amiel.
“I’m that scary?” he asked, chuckling.
“Yes.”
“Did you get to chat to Bonas?”
“No. Not yet. Alas.”
“That might be because my girlfriend is pigging him.”
“Huh? Oh, you mean ‘hogging’?”
“Yes. She knows him. They were in a film together. I left them to it. You know, in-jokes from a movie you weren’t part of.”
“Not that funny?”
He nodded.
We stood silently for a few moments.
“You want to dance?” he asked.
YMCA was playing.
“Sure. Why not?” I replied.
I realised that he was just using me to annoy Eve, and I was a bit upset that my lipstick would have to wait, but a dance seemed like a fun idea, so we made our way over to the busy dance floor. There were scores of people garlanded around its edges. We pressed through conversations to left and right. Finally, we squeezed our way onto the wooden-floored square.
“You know the actions?” I asked.
“Actions?”
“YMCA.” I showed him.
“No. We’re not in kindergarten.”
“Oh, go on. I’ll teach you. You have to do it.”
He gave me a “oh, go on then” look.
He was hopeless. “That’s not even a ‘Y’!” I complained.
“Oh, so we’re supposed to mime the letters? C’est ridicule!”
The evening took on that magical quality, where the lights began to glow quite hypnotically, and I knew that my cheeks were flushed a warm pink despite my earlier attempts to look pale and interesting. My eyes were wider, sparklier and crazier than in the cold of morning, and everything was ten times funnier than in reality. I giggled so much that I toppled over again, and he caught me heroically.
“I must admit, jiving is my absolute speciality,” he said as the band struck up with “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”.
I threw back my head and laughed some more.
“Don’t be rude,” he said, seeming very insulted.
“Okay. Are you quite sure you can jive?” I asked.
But before the jiving began, beautiful Eve Berger returned, blushing and excited. They vanished into the crowd without so much as a goodbye.
10
The E-mail Exchange
All weekend I daydreamed about Beau Bonas. He would most likely be living in a rented house in Primrose Hill, and I’d bump into him when shopping (with leftover euros, buttons and farthings) at Mrs Taylor’s corner store, which in my imaginings was a lot like Nellie Oleson’s store in Little House on the Prairie. He’d say, “I saw you at the party but I just couldn’t get to you.” I’d say, “Really? I’m afraid I didn’t notice you.” He’d say, “That’s disappointing.” I’d say, “I’ve just baked a cake . . .”
I was still hoping I’d hear good news by e-mail about my book. I had googled Branwell Thornton so many times I’d convinced myself I knew him.
He’ll need a few days back at his desk before he writes to would-be authors about submissions.
Monday morning began badly: in the Metro I picked up in Prim & Proper there was a photograph of Beau Bonas at Heathrow, bound for JFK, having an altercation with a photographer. The reveries had been so real I was disappointed that he’d left London without saying goodbye. I picked up a coffee and chocolate-filled croissant as compensation – just one of each, as Clara wasn’t expected in until later.
I was in Voluptas nibbling the pastry and bidding on eBay for a Chantilly lace 1930s teddy (I had authority to make purchases up to £200) when my phone vibrated.
That’s an e-mail shudder. Probably Groupon. I must unsubscribe to all pointless organisations. False hope is killing me.
But it wasn’t Groupon. It was a message from one Branwell Thornton.
Is this a hallucination?
I gulped, swallowed, choked. Please may this be it!
From: Branwell Thornton
Cc: Bea Gibson
Subject: Submission
Dear Daisy,
A Brief History of Briefs (& Other Underwear)
Thank you for the above-mentioned submission which I read over the holiday period with interest. While your knowledge of lingerie is impressive and your writing style rather charming, the history angle has, alas, been done before. (1000 Dessous et al). I don’t feel that I could sell this concept as it is, I’m afraid to say. The market for non-fiction is very niche-driven, admittedly, but I can’t see this working commercially. Sorry, I realise you have worked hard on this submission, and I wish you well with it elsewhere.
You might want to consider fictionalising the content in some way.
Best wishes,
Branwell
My last hope. Dashed. Tears pricked in the corners of my eyes, and my face crumpled like a paper bag.
Where would I go if I didn’t live in London? What would I do? My head throbbed with thoughts, my heart raced in panic. It was irrational to feel that my world had ended with that e-mail from the last of the agents, but stupidly I had placed all my hope in the fact that he was taking so long to get back to me – “No news is good news” and all that. No, it really isn’t.
Francesca’s back shop adjoined ours and when the linking door was open, we could walk quite easily between the two places. She popped through to see what the sobbing was all about. I showed her the message.
“Oh, not the ‘slow no’, ” she said. “I fucking hate that. So rude. False hope.”
“I don’t know what to try next, Francesca. That book took two years to write.”
“But it’s not wasted,” she said. “Really, it’s not. You can build on that. Turn it into something else. Come on, let’s think this through calmly.”
She read the e-mail, which was still on the screen.
“He does say to consider fictionalising it. Maybe your current book is just the research for a future bestseller. Come on, I know it’s January, and I know you’re broke, but don’t lose spirit. Fight for your book, Daisy. You must!”
Francesca had to get back to a Liberty print creation next door. “There’s a Russian battleaxe coming to view it at two o’clock. I’ll need to push on, but come and get me if you need me.”
“Thank you, Francesca!” I answered. “Appreciate it so much!”
“You’ve done it for me before. Let me know how it all goes.” Her pre-Raphaelite red curls bobbed out of sight as she went down to her basement workroom on the other side of the door.
Francesca was right. I had to fight. I knew it. But I didn’t know where to start.
I played one of my favourite old recordings, Ella Fitzgerald’s “All the Things You Are”, a nice little foxtrot number, and reread the message from Branwell.
What would most people do in response to such a message? Ignore it? Reply politely? Or, maybe, challenge it?
When I stopped to think, I considered that it was very decent of the famous Branwell Thornton to write to me in person. Most of the other agencies had sent a gene
ric three-line message from personal assistants. I decided to compose a reply.
Be bold but not pushy. Show self-belief but not self-importance.
I wrote him the following e-mail:
From: Daisy Delaney
To: Branwell Thornton
Subject: Re: Submission
Dear Branwell
Thank you for your message. Disappointing though it is, I do accept your professional opinion totally, and I would like to thank you for such a personalised response. It really helps to know that it’s not the writing but market conditions that are the problem. Also, the generic rejections are very depressing. So, many thanks.
I do think I have a unique area of expertise and I could, as you say, put it to use in a fiction work. I will give that some thought and if anything springs to mind, would it be acceptable to get back to you for your opinion once again? I hope that wouldn’t be troublesome and I certainly won’t send too many “half-baked” things.
Yours sincerely
Daisy Delaney
I pressed “send” without too much procrastination. I knew that dithering would lead to a “delete” situation. A customer came in, so in the mirror surrounded by palest pink pearly seashells, glued on by Clara’s gorgeous little daughter, Tashi, I checked my eyes for smudged mascara and went through to the front of the shop.
It wasn’t a bad day for trade: I sold two sets of wedding underwear and an embroidered satin robe. The robe was exquisite, white duchesse satin with red poppies and cobalt cornflowers stitched near the shoulders. It was £480.
Who are these people who can buy stuff like this in January? Or in any month of the year?
When I went through to check on e-mails during a lull, I found that a further e-mail had arrived from Branwell.
I allowed my heart to soar. It doesn’t matter what it says. The simple fact is that he has messaged me twice in one day. I love this man.
From: Branwell Thornton
Cc: Bea Gibson
Subject: Re: Re: Submission
Dear Daisy,
