by Pippa James
The customer was a bride-to-be who had fallen in love with the Edwardian nightie in the window, despite the cool £325 ticket.
“I’ve been on quite a spending spree today,” she said with a flick of her professionally blow-dried three tones of blonde hair.
“Oh?”
“Yes, I ordered the invitations at Smythson, bought Heidi Klein swimsuits for the honeymoon, and just signed up for a cookery course – £1,250!”
Ah, that cookery school again.
“Not cheap. . .”
“I know, but Monsieur Amiel said I’d be able to hold a first-class dinner party after I’ve completed it.”
“You met him in person?”
“Yes, he was working the queue. He says he’ll be teaching some of the classes himself! He’s seriously the sexiest man on the planet.”
He is?
“Don’t let your fiancée hear that!” I warned.
“Oh, now that I’ve got hold of his credit card, the fun’s gone out of him!”
Poor man!
“Amiel is naughty – it’s obvious,” she said.
Is that what women see in him? Badness.
14
The Annoying Customer
After the bride left, I went back to my half-baked book ideas, then made a pot of Earl Grey tea, which tinkled into a china rosebud teacup, and I allowed myself to imagine that the new James Bond had dropped into the shop, looking for a sleeper agent. All of a sudden, everything was fun and anything was possible.
* * *
I had not felt so optimistic in years, and continued to jog through the streets of Primrose Hill each morning, eat spelt porridge from Savannah’s Wholefoods, think positive thoughts, and mull over book ideas. There were frustrations along the way. I would think I had a bestselling idea, then find it was already out there when I Google-searched.
On other occasions, I wrote screeds of fictional words about a medical lingerie entrepreneur called Dr Sophia Fox, only to decide it was all facile nonsense and delete it. (The chief problem was my lack of medical knowledge.)
I really do hope I’m capable of being a writer because it is a whole lot harder than it looks.
The ideas were less than the half of it, and just because I could make things up this time, it still had to be based on facts.
I was, by turns, thrilled and terrified at the prospect of the awards event. I remember feeling that my biggest fear was that this period of heightened hope and excitement would end without progress. I had the strongest imaginable sense of urgency. My life had to change. My job had to change. Yes, I knew I could climb the ladder in retail, using my specialist lingerie knowledge, but if I were to take on a very stressful day job like that, in John Lewis or Victoria’s Secret, or even Rigby and Peller, I felt sure the writing dream would evaporate in the distraction and exhaustion of wage-slave daily life.
One afternoon towards the end of January, I was in the back area of Voluptas, contemplating a sewing job, with Nat King Cole’s “Cachito” playing in the background as I tried out my cha-cha-cha.
Must get some work done, Delaney!
We always had surplus stock in the back, often awaiting minor repairs. In many ways, it was more intriguing back there than in the main shop. The lingerie hung on rails in a colour-coded scheme, from white through to ivory and cream, then onto nude, beige, blush, dove grey and mocha, shifting to shell pink, pastel peach, dusky pink and powder blue, turquoise, eau-de-nil, as well as soft lilac. Black and red items had a “hot” zone of their own. Clara didn’t much like to display the hot stuff, but we had regular customers who asked for the racier numbers.
I had a plan. I cha-cha-ed my way over to the shabby purple-velvet, buttoned armchair, which we’d got from Francesca. I sat down, threaded a needle, and began to stitch a tiny ribbon-bow back into place on a pretty lace bra (Sixties), getting quite lost in the task, making the smallest, neatest stitches with nimble fingers.
It took me a few moments to realise that the doorbell chime had sounded. I got up reluctantly and went through to welcome the visitor, a wide smile on my face, still holding the lacy little bra and the needle and cotton.
There was a vaguely familiar smell of aftershave, or expensive man-soap, as I did a furtive cha-cha swish through the velvet curtains. On the other side, I froze. How could this be happening?
Monsieur Amiel.
I blushed.
He looked surprised.
Does he remember me?
“Hello, how can I help you?” I said, hedging bets.
“I’m browsing, thank you.” He looked at things for a few minutes, while I stood still.
“I know you from somewhere?” he said, not looking at me.
“The V&A.” I signed YMCA.
A nod.
He then looked at me intensely for what seemed like ages. I was uneasy under his stare.
“So, I’ll leave you to browse,” I said.
“Thanks. Someone in the pub was telling me all about this place.”
“Ah. Very British already. ‘Pub,’ ” I teased.
“Yes, I’ll give you your ‘pubs’. ”
“Oh, you will, will you? What will you not give us?” I questioned.
“Your food.”
“Is that so?”
He looked at some of the basques. “I’ve come to London to sort out your food.”
“How gracious you are,” I mocked.
“Anything you recommend here?” he asked.
“That depends on what you like. Or what she likes. ”
He made no reply.
I felt a bit spare. “I’ll be through in the back if you need me.”
I finished the sewing job and began writing a fancy label for the newly repaired bra. I wondered if he’d managed to leave very quietly, because I heard nothing of him as I carried on working: 1960s lace bra from 10 Berkeley Square. 36C. Belonged to Lady Lydia Spencer. Worn at her wedding at Westminster Abbey.
I looked up to find Michel standing in the doorway between the front and back shop, holding back the velvet curtain, watching me intently.
I was startled. “Oh, hi. You found something you like?”
“I did,” he replied.
“That’s good.”
“How will I know that the lady in question will like it?”
“If you know her well, you are the best judge of that.”
“Could I just ask your opinion?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. I’ll come right through.”
I followed him. He held up a very cute bustier, in a rosebud silk fabric – one of my favourites. “I love that one,” I said.
He nodded. Looking at the bustier, looking at me.
I thought for a terrifying moment he was going to ask me to try it on.
He paused, then said: “But do you think a sophisticated woman would like it?”
I did not miss a beat. “More to the point, would a sophisticated woman like you?”
He choked, silently.
“I think I’ll leave it,” he said, replacing it on the rail.
Eventually, he picked out a white teddy that was to his liking.
“Let me wrap it up for you.” And tape up your mouth with this sellotape!
I wrapped it without saying a word, working expertly, as he watched.
“Very nice,” he said.
He paid and left, again without a proper goodbye.
15
The Book Awards
Waiting for the awards night was akin to anticipating Christmas as a six-year-old. At least payday happened on the way, so I was able to buy some new make-up, have my eyebrows threaded, and get some new silk stockings.
Fifteenth February. At last! I was due to meet Branwell at Claridge’s at 6.45pm. I started getting ready at four o’clock, having left work early after negotiating an early start in lieu.
It wasn’t a full black-tie event and, style-wise, I didn’t want to look like a complete try-hard. But not too grungy or edgy either. I piled my hair up i
n a chignon and used some low-key make-up – Bobbi Brown Apricot Blush and Mac Watermelon Liplast and of course, lots of retro eyeliner by Lancôme in Velvet Brown. After drawing a blank in Pippa’s wardrobe, I had borrowed a dress from Clara.
“You need to look like a world-famous author,” she’d said, producing this wondrous frock from her palace in the shires. It was a proper wiggle dress. Made from dark green fine jersey, with a very nipped-in waist, long sleeves and a simple boat neckline. I thought it looked good with some hot-pink suede heels I’d picked up in Oxfam. I remembered what Grace Kelly said: “Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to show you’re a lady.”
I think I was pushing my lady luck with that green dress.
I had made a batch of pancakes, a tray of tiffin, two banana loaves and a red-velvet cake for Prim & Proper in order to fund a taxi to and from Claridge’s, and when it arrived I thought I might explode with excitement.
In the back of the cab, I began to imagine I really was an international bestselling author:
The photographers called out to me: “Hey, Daisy Delaney, when’s the next book out?”
“Daisy! You look great!”
“This way, Daisy!”
“Daisy, they’re saying your latest novel is the fastest-selling book of all time.”
“Daisy, did you know you’ve outsold Michel Amiel and you’re the number one bestselling author?”
“Fifteen quid, love,” said the driver.
I giggled as reality interrupted my reverie.
“Oh, that was quick,” I said.
“My wife always says the same thing!” the driver joked.
I laughed.
“You were miles away. Something fancy, is it, by the looks of you?” he wondered.
“Yeah, a book thing.”
“You a writer?”
“No, but I’d like to be,” I admitted.
“As long as you want it bad enough, love . . .”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
When I got out of the cab, there was a battery of flashes up ahead. The canopy of the hotel was studded with pretty lights and, from what I could see, known authors were posing for press photographers on the steps as they went in. I teetered towards the entrance, and as I did so, I glanced over to see who was being snapped.
At first, it was short-listed thriller writer Brian Jackson and his wife. They turned to go inside. Next up, cookery writer Edie Greene. I waited and saw Michel Amiel arrive, posing in a designer suit, with Eve Berger at his side, looking exquisite in a black body-con dress. I was a bit startled to see them together.
I just can’t see her in the white teddy . . .
I snuck into the hotel, looking around for Branwell. I’d sent him a small photo as an attachment, whereas I knew how he looked from his website. I felt very insignificant, all the more so due to coming down from the dream sequence in the cab. Invisible little me. I could melt away from this glamorous scene and not a soul would notice. Surely there was some mistake. Was I really supposed to be here?
“Daisy?” said a male voice from behind. I swung round.
The great agent himself.
“Branwell, nice to meet you!” I said, offering my hand.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” he replied, shaking my hand firmly. He had a voice like God’s, booming and yet velvety at the same time. “You look lovely! Let’s get to the bar, my dear.”
As we walked through the foyer, everyone stopped to say hello. Branwell Thornton was quite the magnet in the publishing world.
He pointed out important people as we walked.
“Most of these successful people are crime writers,” he explained. “Everybody loves crime, that’s the thing, Daisy. That’s where the serious money lies. And readers never tire of it. Maybe they tire of a particular detective, but never the subject matter, you know?”
I nodded, not revealing my dislike of crime stories, unless they involve nice period clothes and lashings of red lipstick, Agatha Christie-style. Posh murder I can just about take.
But what about lingerie and classy crime combined? Silk camisoles and revolvers. Could work, actually.
There was no time to mull over creative ideas once in the bar area, as Branwell commanded the bar, passed me a chilled Kir Royale, and began to introduce me to some of the authors who were going to be at our table for the evening. There was a pleasant-faced sports journalist-turned-author who wrote about sporting scandals, especially to do with gambling and match rigging. (That stuff can’t be true?) And a sophisticated lady with a chignon, apparently a modern-day Georgette Heyer, firmly in the Regency-rom bodice-ripper category.
“Those women can make piles of cash,” whispered Branwell. “Producing a novel a year for an adult lifetime, all of them doing a bit more than okay in a few languages. The odd thing to television. That works as a model. At least it used to, before the obsession with Top Tens.”
Next up was an ex-soldier called Gary Hopper. “That’s not me real name, darlin’, ” he’d said. “If I told you I’d have to ’old you prisoner in my cave-side lair for the next twenty-five years an’ make you do fifty press-ups a day.”
Everyone was buying drinks for Branwell, which he threw down his neck with one flick of the wrist.
I was mid-chat with Gary Hopper, secret agent extraordinaire with the biggest mouth in Britain (yet somehow quite a sexy man), who was telling me about his selfless, single-handed humanitarian work for the education of girls in Afghanistan (getting smoother), when Michel Amiel and Eve Berger arrived in the bar with a silent fanfare. They were accompanied by a nervous-looking gooseberry of a man who, according to Branwell, was Michel’s Parisian manager, Auguste Flaubert. As a sea of people parted biblically to clear a path to the bar for them, they charged past us ungraciously. No sooner had Michel Amiel received his drinks than he was clearly complaining about the standard of them to the poor young barman.
“Tosser,” said Gary loudly.
Agree. What is worse than people in positions of power talking down to those who serve them? Nothing.
Branwell leaned in: “Quite possibly the most obnoxious man in the business. But, pains me to say it, a world-class cookery writer. Deserves his success, handles it badly.”
Branwell gadded off to chat to yet another author who had arrived – a woman with drawn-on eyebrows who wrote all about massage parlours.
I wonder how she researches that stuff?
Gary glanced over to the French trio and shook his head.
“Bloody hate men like that.”
“He’s a horrible man,” I said.
“You know him?” asked Gary, sounding surprised.
“Slightly. Met him at a party, then he came into my shop. His new cookery school isn’t far away, worst luck.”
“You have a shop?”
“It’s not mine. I work there,” I explained quickly.
“What do you sell?”
“Guess.”
He looked me up and down.
“It’s gotta be classy, I reckon. Is it them pottery mugs and jugs wif polka dots on them?”
“Nope, try again.”
“Cakes! Fancy little cakes with more icing than cake? Went out with a skinny girl once who could make one last a month.”
“Also wrong!” I giggled. Why am I encouraging this man?
“Shoes and ’andbags?”
I shook my head.
“You’re goin’ to have to tell me. I’m intrigued now.”
“One last guess,” I said, looking at him flirtily.
“Knickers.”
I gasped. “That’s right. Lingerie.”
His eyes widened. “Thought so. Makes sense.”
“Does it?”
“Yeah, there’s something quietly racy about you,” he informed me.
I laughed. “I have an academic specialism in bras, is all.”
“Sure you do.”
Gary moved in a bit closer. “About this lingerie shop . . .”
The Frenchman’s Revenge
But before I could say “silk stockings”, someone jostled into me and my Kir Royale cascaded over the glass, a blackcurrant splosh narrowly missing my green dress.
I swung round.
Quelle surprise!
“Ha! This time you’ve bumped into me!” I said, seeing Michel Amiel standing there, Eve Berger at his side.
There was a pause. He looked at me menacingly, which made Gary put his arm round me.
“Watch what you’re doin’, mate,” he said with a muttered, “Fucking French klutz.”
Michel Amiel recognised me, for sure. As did Eve. But from him, only this: “Sorry, do I know you?”
As much as I wanted to slap that arrogant French face – which was not even handsome in the normal sense, with its overly large nose and madman eyes, and its Picasso asymmetry – I resisted and took another tack.
“Ah, I’m sorry too. I thought you were someone I knew,” I said, turning my back on them abruptly, then saying very loudly to Gary Hopper: “About the basques . . .”
“Tell me more.”
But Branwell was rounding up his flock. “Everyone in my gang, time to go to our table!” he announced.
I glanced over my shoulder as I left the bar, and it looked as if Michel Amiel and Eve were squabbling, as Auguste Flaubert watched helplessly, still gooseberry-like.
Gary looked at Auguste. “That poor guy’s like a spare prick at a party,” he said. He was full of old-fashioned expressions, clichés and terrible puns and jokes – I just knew he’d be capable of saying, “Done that, been there. Got the T-shirt,” but I liked him.
Branwell led the way to our table. It was circular, covered in dazzling white linen with lots of little candles in glass pots, and posies of pretty gypsophila dotted here and there. I was seated with Gary on one side and Branwell on the other.
Gary was underwhelmed by the food: “A fish should be a fish, not a fucking mousse, surely?” “A medallion of beef? A garland of green beans? That’s two things that should be worn round your neck, innit? Twats.”
The more wine I drank, the funnier I found Gary. As coffee was served, Belinda Seton, the host for the evening, who presented Fully Booked on BBC2, came onto the platform. She looked stunning. Demure. Intellectual but human. Sexy but girl-next-door. How does she do it?
