“Darling,” said Lindy when she got to the office, “I want these coats taken over to Audrey Slaughter. I don’t know if they’re young enough for her, but it’s worth a try. And on the way back, you might pop into Ruban’s and buy a few yards of ribbon: white, pale blue, and lemon. I’ve got an idea for an advertising shot: kind of weaving them into a model’s hair. Nice for our wedding promotion.”
“It sounds lovely,” said Eliza. She loved going into Ruban de Paris, just off Hanover Square, with its rows and racks of ribbons and buttons.
Audrey Slaughter, an inspired young editor, had just launched Honey, the first-ever magazine for that new social curiosity, the teenager, and moreover was persuading the big stores to open up Honey boutiques within their fashion departments, stocking the kind of trendy, young clothes that teenagers would want to buy, rather than near-replicas of what their mothers wore. She liked the coats but said she really couldn’t use them, that they were a bit too grown-up and certainly too expensive.
“Pity, though, they have a really nice line. I haven’t seen anything quite so sharp anywhere.”
Eliza reported this to Lindy, who sighed.
“It’s a problem for us. Of course Vogue and Queen sometimes do young fashion, but for the most part our young clothes are ruled out of court as being too expensive. It’s such a shame.”
“The customers buy them, though,” said Eliza. “Surely that’s what matters?”
“We-ell, not as often as I’d like. The perception of Woolfe’s is still that it’s very much for the mothers rather than the daughters. And I can’t get as much publicity as I need to change that view.”
“Couldn’t you get some younger clothes made up that were just a bit cheaper?” said Eliza. And then: “Sorry, sacrilege, I know; Woolfe’s isn’t about cheap, of course.”
“Well—maybe not complete sacrilege,” said Lindy. “Not even sacrilege at all, actually. In fact, you might’ve given me an idea, Eliza. I need to think it through a bit, but meanwhile let’s have those ribbons. And I can try this idea out on your hair.”
“Please do,” said Eliza, and sat feeling almost unbearably excited as Lindy wove yellow ribbons into her hair. She had given Lindy an idea! If only the rest of her life could be as good as work.
“Oh, God. Here we go. Turbulence ahead. Now they’ll all be sick. Oh, the glamorous life of the air stewardess. Scarlett, it’s your turn to collect.”
Scarlett didn’t mind. She loved her job so much that even collecting and emptying sick bags was bearable. She still adored it, even now that she’d been doing it for two years.
Scarlett loved the fun, the glamour, the status of it all. She loved the dizzy excitement of the walk through the terminal wearing her uniform, the blue-and-white dogtooth suit, the white shirt, the jaunty cap, smiling confidently, being pointed out and stared at admiringly—anyone would think they flew the bloody planes—greeting passengers at the top of the steps, directing them to their places, settling them, flirting very mildly with the men, charming the women, walking up and down slowly, smiling reassuringly, checking they were all safely strapped in. “It’s a bit like being a mannequin,” they’d been told when they were training. “Everyone will look at you; you’re the face of the airline; you have to be calm, confident, perfectly groomed every minute of every trip.”
And they had such fun. The pilots were fantastic, glamorous, dashing figures, made so much more handsome by their uniforms. The most dashing were the ex–fighter pilots, older, practised charmers. The girls weren’t supposed to fraternise with the air crew; they were always booked into separate hotels, “as if that would make any difference, for God’s sake,” Scarlett said scornfully.
Nor, of course, were you encouraged to have anything to do with the passengers once off the plane. There was occasional trouble with the men, of course; they’d pinch your bottom, or try to stroke your legs, and some of the businessmen travelling alone would ask you to have dinner with them, but a sweet smile and an “excuse me” or “sorry, sir” usually did the trick, although now and again, lured by the promise of dinner at the Hilton, say, in Rome, they would succumb.
God, this turbulence was bad. There were bells going all over the place, unpleasant noises coming from various points in the plane, someone trying to get up to go to the loo. They all begged to be allowed, but they weren’t; they had to stay in their seats, however humiliating the consequences. That was another thing you became as a stewardess: a nanny. Scarlett didn’t even mind that.
They were on the way to Rome. She was looking forward to it; she liked Rome and she especially liked Roman men. Normally it was straight back the same day, but she had a couple of days’ leave and she had decided to stay. She was having a little fling with a pilot, who’d adjusted his rotation to be with her. Well, it was more than a little fling; it was an affair. He was married, but he was getting a divorce, so she didn’t feel too bad.
Sometimes Scarlett wondered what on earth her parents would think of her if they knew what she had become. A tart, they would call her. A slut. Which would be unfair, because she never slept with anyone unless she was very fond of him; she had only one relationship at a time, and she never slept with anyone who was happily married or who had children. Of course they all lied, and said their wives didn’t understand them, but she always did her homework and checked their stories out. And she hadn’t actually had that many affairs. Three. Well, four, if you counted the first one.
She often looked back at the Scarlett who had been a strictly-brought-up virgin, who knew that once you’d slept with a boy you lost his respect forever and you’d never see him again. The other girls had put her straight on all that; the conversations in the hotel rooms late at night were barrack-room lewd. They’d told her what a lot of fun she was missing and where and how to get herself sorted out so she wouldn’t get pregnant; she was still worried about the loss of respect, but Diana said that was an old wives’ tale—or rather an old mothers’.
“Maybe when you’re really young and you don’t know the chap very well, but in a relationship, goodness, it’s fine.”
Scarlett, thinking herself properly in love for the first time, with an Englishman she had met in Paris, consulted the gynaecologist, who was kind and practical, instructed Scarlett in the mysteries of the Dutch cap, and sent her back to her boyfriend’s bed with her blessing. He was, as it turned out, as so many of them had turned out to be, married; but Scarlett enjoyed several weeks of happiness with him before making the discovery and, as a by-product, learnt to enjoy sex immensely. She just couldn’t believe anything could be so wonderful, so all-consuming, so triumphantly intense—and so conducive to self-esteem.
“So, darling, how is the job? Still enjoying it?”
“Oh, Gommie. I just adore it. And I’ve got the most marvellous news: I’ve been promoted. Woolfe’s are going to do a new young department, called Younger Generation. And they think it deserves a young PR, to talk to the younger journalists. And, oh, Gommie, you’re looking at her!”
“My darling girl, that is just thrilling. You are clever. Well done. How exciting.”
“Isn’t it? I just can’t believe it. Lindy—that’s my boss—is so generous too. She says it was something I said that gave her the idea, and she’s told Mr. Woolfe that. And she’s so young-thinking, even though she’s quite old, I mean at least thirty-five, I’d say—”
“Thirty-five! My God, Eliza, and she can still get herself about?”
“Oh, yes,” said Eliza, missing this irony entirely, “and she’s really with it too.”
“With it? What does that mean, darling?”
“Oh, gosh, well, sort of … sort of young and trendy. You can apply it to anything, cars, clothes, music …”
“I shall remember that,” said Anna, smiling at her, raising her glass. “It’s one of the reasons I like seeing you, darling, keep myself up-to-date. Well, congratulations. Now what about your love life; anything interesting happening there?”
“Absolutely nothing,” said Eliza firmly. “I’m a career girl, Gommie, and a very ambitious one. Love, getting married, doesn’t fit into my plans at all at the moment.”
“Better not let your mother hear you saying that,” said Anna Marchant.
“What you doing this weekend then, Matt?”
“Oh, not sure.”
Matt grinned at Paul Dickens, one of his fellow negotiators—well, OK, fellow trainee negotiators—at Barlow and Stein, commercial estate agents.
“Group of us going down the coast Sunday. Should be good. Going to be hot, they say. Want to come?”
“Well …” Matt did want to go—a lot. But he’d promised Mr. Barlow he’d work on Saturday, and if he didn’t finish he was quite prepared to work Sunday as well. He wanted to get promoted, and fast.
It wasn’t exactly a difficult job; there was a stack of letters to go out to a great many small businesses in the area, asking them if they were looking to expand their offices and letting them know that Barlow and Stein had every type of premises to show them if they were; it would save a lot of money if they could be delivered personally.
Barlow and Stein was a small agency, based just off Great Portland Street and specialising in commercial property. Their clients were the fast-expanding businesses cashing in on the boom in every area of commercial life. London was the place to trade, and its commercial heart, the city itself, was the centre of world finance.
Matt knew that he was on the brink of doing well. He knew, too, that he had the army to thank for much of his progress. He’d chosen to go into the Royal Engineers, and learnt stuff that he could see he could find very useful in his future life as a property tycoon. They’d done things like constructing Bailey bridges and studying mechanics and road building, and he’d played every sport available, fraternised with the locals—he tried not to think what his father would have to say if he knew he was snogging (and worse) with Germans—and some of the ATS girls were very … well, friendly.
He’d left the army as Corporal Shaw, RE, and he went to the Labour Exchange on the very day of his demob, got a temporary job as an office boy, and spotted an advertisement for the job with Barlow and Stein a few weeks later.
“We want someone with energy,” Mr. Stein had said at the interview. “Energy and common sense. And nice manners, of course.”
Matt said he had plenty of energy and a fair bit of common sense, and that he hoped they could see he had the other commodity.
“My mum used to box my ears if I was cheeky.”
“Good for your mum,” said Mr. Barlow.
Matt got the job and felt immediately as if he had come home. This was a world he was completely comfortable in; he seemed to understand the way it worked in the most fundamental way. Wherever you looked there were new buildings going up, or old ones being refurbished.
There were the big boys, of course: Jack Cotton, Charles Clore, Joe Levy, and Matt’s personal hero and role model, Harry Hyams, who’d made twenty-seven million by the time he was thirty-nine. That’s what Matt was going to do, possibly rounding it up to thirty million. It wasn’t a dream or even a hope; it was what he planned with a hard-edged certainty: he was going to build and own properties and fill them with the thousands of new companies that were also being spawned by the booming economy.
“It’s a bit like a blind date,” said Mr. Stein when he was explaining the business to Matt. “There they both are, girl and boy, building and tenant, both perfect for each other, not knowing the other exists, needing an introduction. That’s where we come in. You don’t have to be a genius, Matthew, just a bit sharp. You’ll soon learn.”
Matt didn’t have to learn sharpness; it was in his bones. Within weeks Mr. Stein was leaving him to show clients round premises on his own.
He didn’t realise until much later how fortunate he had been in Mr. Stein: how excellent was his grounding, how profound was his advice.
“Two things count in this business, son,” he said over a pint of warm beer one evening. “One is that you have to be a gentleman. Your word is your bond. You can’t let someone think they’ve got an office and then a week later tell them they haven’t, just because someone’s come in with a higher offer. This is a small world, Matthew, and people have to trust you. And you’ve got to be able to get along with people, mix with all sorts. All gossip, this business, especially at the higher level.”
There was one thing that Mr. Stein didn’t mention and that Matt had no need to learn either, and that was the importance of hard work. He decided regretfully that he couldn’t go down to the coast with Paul Dickens.
He set out for the city as soon as the offices closed that Friday evening, reckoning it’d be better to get that side over so that he could be in the West End on Saturday; he’d delivered about fifty letters when he heard someone calling him.
“Matt! Over here, Matt, it’s me, Charles Clark.”
And there he was on the other side of Lombard Street, waving at him. He’d never have recognized him, Matt thought; he looked exactly like all the other toffs round here: rolled umbrella, bowler hat, pinstriped suit. But he seemed genuinely pleased to see Matt, grinning and waving him over.
“It’s jolly good to see you, old chap,” said Charles, slapping him round the shoulders. “What are you doing here? Got time for a pint?”
Matt said he thought so and followed him into the King’s Head on Lombard Street.
“Remember Matt Shaw?” said Charles to Eliza next day. “He was in the army doing basic training with me.”
They were having a drink in the Markham in the King’s Road—the newly dressed King’s Road, filled with pretty young people, glamourous cars, and the clothes boutiques that were replacing the old food shops, all following their leader, Mary Quant, who had opened Bazaar, the very first of them, as early as 1955. No one would believe it had been there that long, Lindy had told Eliza. “It seems so absolutely brand-new, but it’s just one more proof of Mary’s genius.”
“Yes, course I remember Matt Shaw,” Eliza said. “He was quite tasty, as I recall.”
“I ran into him in the city. He had quite a sharp suit on, filled out a bit, his hair’s longer. It was really good to see him. He’s working for an estate agent. Commercial variety. He’s doing well.”
“Oh, really? Well, good for him.”
“Typical Matt, he was delivering letters by hand, seemed embarrassed about it. I told him not to be so bloody silly. He’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but I do like him a lot. We thought we’d try to track down a couple of the others, have a real reunion.”
“Yes, why don’t you?” Eliza sounded distracted suddenly. “Charles, I was talking to Mummy last weekend. She’s desperately worried. Summercourt needs a lot of money spent on it—not just painting and general refurbishment; they might need a new roof as well. They had it patched up a couple of years ago, but now it’s getting really bad. And they haven’t got a bean; she’s even talking about selling a bit more land.”
“They can’t do that! Anyway, the trustees won’t let them. What does Pa say?”
“Not a lot, as far as I can make out. Reading between the lines, his head’s firmly in the sand. Just denies there’s a real problem. I can’t think what we can do to help, but at least we must show her some support. When are you going down next?”
“Well, I could pop down tomorrow. Could you come too?”
“I could, actually. OK, let’s do that. It would cheer her up, if nothing else. She’s really worried, can’t sleep.”
“Poor Mummy. Yes, let’s go and see her. I’m sure we can come up with something. Now, how’s the job? I want to hear all about it.”
Eliza was even less inclined towards marriage than usual that summer; gearing up for the autumn opening of Woolfe’s Young Generation was consuming all her energy.
Jan Jacobson, the brilliant young buyer hired to work exclusively for Young Generation, had brought in some beautiful clothes; comparatively established designers like John B
ates (of Jean Varon) and Sally Tuffin and Marion Foale would hang on rails alongside entirely new talent. He had discovered Mark Derrick, who designed apparently shapeless little shift dresses that still flattered girls’ bodies: the bodies that had seemed almost overnight to have been transformed from the shapely curves of the late fifties to something almost boyish, with neat, small breasts and flat, hipless torsos; and Eliza herself had discovered Maddy Brown, who had reinvented the sweater so that it continued downwards from the waist to somewhere above the knee.
Eliza liked Maddy; she was fun, with a sweet and deceptively gentle manner. Beneath it was an ambition as steely as Eliza’s own. She was the child of working-class parents, had won a scholarship to a grammar school and then to art school; she was small with long fair hair and huge green eyes, and she still lived at home and used her tiny bedroom as a studio workshop.
Slightly unwillingly, Jan had agreed to see Maddy, fell in love with the clothes, and persuaded Bernard Woolfe she was worth the risk. Maddy and her one knitter, also working from home, found a couple more girls who met her exacting standards; all four of them now were installed in the unfortunate Mr. and Mrs. Brown’s front room.
One night that summer, she and Charles went with a party of friends to Brads, the newest of the new nightspots. Soon after midnight Eliza, lying back temporarily exhausted after an energetic bossa nova, heard someone shouting above the din.
“Charles, old chap! Lovely to see you.” And into view, smiling and waving just slightly drunkenly in their direction, came the most glorious-looking man.
More Than You Know Page 4
