Before I Met You

by Lisa Jewell

  Arlette peered from behind the curtain at the back of the store and caught her breath. She let the curtain drop and leaned heavily against the wall behind her.

  Godfrey Pickle.

  At Liberty.

  Bearing flowers.

  She pulled herself up straight and patted her hair. She had only this minute seen her face in the mirror – she had come to the back of the floor to check her appearance after Mrs Stamper had commented on a loose hairclip – but she felt that she now needed to check her appearance once more. Just to be sure.

  Mrs Stamper pulled open the curtain and addressed Arlette’s reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Miss De La Mare,’ she said breathlessly, ‘there is a gentleman on the shop floor. A Mr Pickle. He says that he has come to see you.’ She moved closer to Arlette and lowered the tone of her voice to a serious whisper. ‘He has flowers,’ she hissed.

  ‘Oh,’ said Arlette, lightly. ‘Yes. Mr Pickle. He is an acquaintance of mine. We are having our portraits painted by my friend Mr Worsley, the portraitist I have told you about.’ Her hand was at her throat, which was flushing an angry red.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Stamper, ‘I must say, I have never before encountered such a handsome negro. And so well-dressed.’ She smiled a half-smile and Arlette saw the skin of her neck, too, take on a mottled red hue.

  ‘Yes, Mr Pickle is a world-renowned musician. He plays as part of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra. You may have heard of them?’

  ‘No, I have not heard of them.’

  ‘They perform jazz music, Mrs Stamper.’

  ‘I have heard of that,’ she replied, looking rather pleased with herself, for although she was only thirty-two, she did like to act out the role of a much older woman.

  ‘They have played before the King of England,’ Arlette said with a rush of pride, ‘and are currently taking a break from a long tour of the British Isles, where they have performed at all the biggest music halls. I have been very fortunate to meet him at this point in his career, where he has a little time to contemplate other projects.’

  ‘Such as you, you mean?’

  Arlette blushed again and giggled. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Mr Pickle and I are nothing more than acquaintances, I can assure you.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Stamper, ‘I would go out there and witness for yourself the spectacle of the voluminous bouquet of flowers he has brought for you today before you assume yourself to be sure of anything, Miss De La Mare.’ Her eyes shone with something that Arlette took to be vicarious delight at the path of someone else’s life taking a strange and hitherto unimagined direction. Arlette returned the smile, patted her hair once more and headed through the curtain towards Mr Godfrey Pickle.

  ‘Mr Pickle,’ she said, approaching him from behind.

  He spun round at the sound of her voice and smiled at her, removing his hat with his spare hand.

  ‘Miss De La Mare,’ he said. ‘Enchanté. Once more.’ He bowed slightly and returned his hat to his head.

  ‘What a lovely surprise, Mr Pickle. And what brings you to Liberty’s this morning?’

  ‘Scent,’ he replied, his smile still firmly in place. ‘I was told that this is the place to come for scent. Have I been advised correctly, Miss De La Mare?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said brightly, ‘yes. We have a splendid perfumery. World renowned.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘And a very fine flower shop also. Here,’ he passed her the flowers, as heavy as a small child in her arms. ‘I could not resist them. And then I remembered that you’d told me you worked here, in the ladies’ apparel department, and well, to be honest with you, Miss De La Mare, I had an urge to see you again. A violent urge.’ His smile faltered a fraction as these words left his lips, betraying a note of uncertainty.

  Arlette tried to hold her own smile in place but also felt a jolt of uncertainty.

  ‘Well,’ she said quietly, ‘how lovely.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘How lovely.’

  There passed between them a small moment of awkwardness, which Godfrey Pickle broke with the words, ‘Well, my dear, if you are permitted a break in your labours here, I wondered if you might accompany me in the perfumery, maybe help me with my selection?’

  Arlette glanced at the wall clock behind Godfrey’s head. ‘In fifteen minutes,’ she said, ‘I will be free for half an hour.’

  ‘Well, now, that’s just perfect,’ he said, his smile now fully restored. ‘And if it is agreeable with you, I will sit right here,’ he gestured at a large silk-dupion pouffe in the middle of the floor, ‘and wait for you?’ He looked at her questioningly and she nodded, just once, in reply.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that would be agreeable.’

  He beamed at her and then sauntered, slow as a snail, towards the pouffe where he arranged himself in such a way that he looked for all the world as if he were waiting to have his portrait painted. He spread the tails of his fine worsted overcoat behind him, tugged at the legs of his trousers so that his black silk socks and half an inch of smooth brown flesh showed beneath, and then from the inside pocket of his overcoat he pulled out a folded edition of the London News, which he leafed through absent-mindedly.

  Customers entering the ladies’ apparel department reacted in different ways to the sight of a tall, handsome negro sitting slap-bang in the middle of the shop, upright and nonchalant. Some stared in awe, some pretended that they had not seen him, one lady left him with her hat and gloves and said, ‘If I’d known you were going to be here I’d have brought some shoes in to polish.’

  Godfrey had just smiled at her and said, ‘Well, ma’am, that is a pity.’

  But the reaction of London shoppers to a negro sitting in the ladies’ apparel department was as nothing compared to the reaction of London shoppers to a negro shopping for scent with a white lady. As Godfrey and Arlette circled the perfumery together, they were greeted with jaws slung open like oven doors, loud whispers, hushed silences, some loud tutting, and, from a lady too old to know that it was impolite to pass audible comment, the words, ‘Well, I never thought I would live to see such a thing. I think I shall go back to shopping at Lilley and Skinner.’

  Arlette had never known such attention before. She felt simultaneously appalled, embarrassed and thrilled. She attempted to ignore the fuss and to focus instead on the matter in hand: the choosing of a suitable scent for Mr Pickle.

  ‘This one, Mr Pickle, says that it contains notes of sandalwood and vanilla. Shall we try it?’

  The shop-girl dabbed a drop upon the flesh of Mr Pickle’s outstretched wrist and smiled at him shyly from beneath fine lashes. ‘I’ve sold this before,’ she offered helpfully, ‘to a negro gentleman. Like yourself.’

  ‘Oh,’ Godfrey laughed, ‘then contrary to all available indications, I am not the first negro to shop in this store.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said the shop-girl, ‘not at all. I think there have probably been at least three or four others, before you.’ She nodded and smiled encouragingly, and then looked at him enquiringly. ‘What do you think?’

  He sniffed his wrist again and then offered it to Arlette.

  Arlette paused for a moment. He had fine bones for a man so tall and broad. His wrists were very delicate. She brought her nose down to his skin and she inhaled. She blinked and smiled. The scent was so evocative. It smelled of another world, another hemisphere, another climate. It smelled of Godfrey.

  ‘It’s very good,’ she said circumspectly. ‘I think it suits you very well.’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at her warmly and smiled. ‘Indeed. It reminds me of home. It smells like my father.’ He turned his smile to the shop-girl. ‘Miss,’ he said, ‘I thank you for all your assistance. I think you have made yourself a sale.’

  The girl smiled coquettishly at Godfrey, decanted the scent into a small ribbed glass bottle and wrapped it for him in purple paper.

  ‘And now, Miss De La Mare, since you still have another ten minutes until your return to work, maybe you would all
ow me to help you choose a scent, for yourself?’

  ‘Oh, no, thank you. I can’t really afford the scents here ...’

  ‘My treat, miss, my treat.’

  ‘But, Mr Pickle, you have already treated me to flowers today. That is more than sufficient. I could not in all good conscience accept another thing from you.’ She smiled tightly, feeling a slight wash of discomfort pass through her. ‘Besides,’ she finished, ‘I have always worn the same scent, since I was a very young girl.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘And are you wearing this scent today?’

  ‘I am indeed.’

  And then, before she could decide whether or not it was what she wanted, Mr Pickle had brought his face towards her neck, put his nose an inch from her skin and breathed in deeply. He pulled away from her slowly and smiled.

  ‘Jasmine,’ he said. ‘And lily of the valley.’

  She blinked at him and smiled nervously. ‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘You are right about the jasmine, but I believe it also contains notes of lavender.’

  ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Lavender. Of course. All the English ladies smell of lavender. I thought it was just your natural scent.’

  Arlette glanced at her wristwatch. It was five to one.

  ‘I’m afraid, Mr Pickle, that I really must get back to work now. But it has been a pleasure to see you today.’

  Godfrey Pickle removed his hat and tipped his head towards her. ‘Miss De La Mare, I had a violent urge to see you and I am afraid that that urge has not been sated today. I believe we have another sitting with Mr Worsley on Saturday. Maybe you might consider the possibility of accompanying me afterwards to a club? I have the night off.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Arlette.

  ‘Oh,’ repeated Godfrey Pickle, with an amused look.

  ‘Well, yes. I suppose. And maybe we could ask Gideon to come with us?’

  He looked at her strangely and was silent for a moment. ‘Absolutely,’ he eventually concurred. ‘Mr Worsley must come with us too. Indeed. Thank you so much for spending your time off with me today, Miss De La Mare, and I shall look forward tremendously to seeing you on Saturday at the studio of Mr Worsley. Au revoir, Mam’zelle.’

  He bowed his head again and then returned his hat to his head, adjusted his worsted overcoat, tucked his purple parcel under his arm and sauntered through the shop towards the street, every single pair of eyes on him as he did so.

  Arlette stood for a moment, like a sapling in a river, letting the shoppers pass by her on either side. She waited a while, for the colour to pass from her chest and face, letting the oddness and the exhilaration of the last thirty minutes settle within her. And then, before returning to the second floor, she headed towards the shop-girl who’d sold Mr Pickle his scent.

  ‘Excuse me, please,’ she began. ‘Would it be possible, at all, to take a drop of that scent on a muslin?’

  ‘The one I just sold to your gentleman friend?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one.’

  ‘Of course, miss.’

  She pulled the large glass bottle from a shelf behind her and let three large drops fall from the glass dropper onto a small square of muslin. She handed the square to Arlette with a knowing smile. ‘Lovely-looking fellow,’ she said, ‘your gentleman friend.’

  Arlette did not correct her. Instead she tucked the square of muslin under the sleeve of her jacket and headed back to work, the scent of Mr Pickle a heady secret hidden within the folds of her clothes.

  30

  1995

  ‘SWEETIE, COME UP!’ The buzzer went on the door to Alexandra Brightly’s studio and Betty pushed her way in. It was strange being back here again after all these weeks. The girl who’d come here clutching a fur coat back in early May seemed like a figment of Betty’s imagination, a silly skinny wisp of nothingness. No wonder no one had wanted to give her a job.

  Alexandra stood at the top of the stairs, a plastic cigarette in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, her wispy blond hair twisted on top of her head and held in place with a bulldog clip. She wore layers of black chiffon with leather trousers and leather flip-flops, and her reading glasses on a chain around her neck.

  ‘So timely,’ she said, holding the door open for Betty and pointing at a vintage railway clock on the wall. ‘Dead on ten.’

  Betty had called her an hour ago, asking if she could pop round to see her, to talk about the Soho Historical Society. She’d been talking to John last night at the Windmill about Arlette, and Clara Pickle, and Peter Lawler and the jazz club, and John had said, ‘You should talk to my sister. She’s a complete jazz nut, and she’s a member of the Soho Historical Society. I bet she’d be able to help you.’

  Alexandra had sounded thrilled on the phone when Betty had said she wanted to talk to her about Soho jazz clubs in the 1920s, and was fizzing with excitement now as she buzzed around making Betty coffee and pulling out information leaflets from a reclaimed plan chest.

  ‘So,’ Alexandra said, putting the coffee and a pile of papers on the pattern-cutting table between them and pulling up two stools, ‘what is it you need to know?’

  ‘Well,’ said Betty, pulling her own papers from her shoulder bag and spreading them out in front of her, ‘remember that address on that piece of paper you found in my grandmother’s fur?’

  ‘Ooh, yes, I do indeed. The start of a grand mystery, I seem to recall ...’

  ‘Yes, well, kind of. Actually it was the name and address of a private detective. My grandmother was paying him to find a woman called Clara Pickle, the woman in her will.’

  ‘Oh, wow,’ said Alexandra, her pale blue eyes bright with exhilaration. ‘Wow. Go on ...’

  ‘Yes, and I tracked him down, but unfortunately he’d died. Leaving the case unsolved. But I’ve got all his research, all the stuff my grandmother must have given him to work with. It’s not much ...’ She fanned it out. ‘Nothing concrete. Just some memorabilia, some photos, and this.’ She pulled out the programme for the jazz trio at the White Oleander. ‘See,’ she said, ‘Great Windmill Street, just round the corner from my flat. I was there last night with your brother, some club called the Matrix. I asked the manager if he knew anything about the history of the place but he had no idea, said it had been a sex dungeon before he took over the lease.’

  Alexandra grabbed the programme greedily. ‘Wow,’ she said, ‘look at this.’ She turned it over and smiled dreamily, and then she held it to her nose and breathed in deeply. ‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘Seventy-five years old. Such good condition. Sandy Beach and the Love Brothers. Wow, look at them. They’re so handsome.’ She turned it over and read the back copy. ‘Hmm,’ she said, gazing at it through her half-moon glasses, ‘Southern Syncopated Orchestra. Yes. I think I’ve heard of them; sound familiar.’

  ‘I’m guessing it’s, you know, relevant in some way. She obviously kept this programme for many, many years; there must be a reason.’

  Alexandra lowered her half-moon glasses and held them at her chest. ‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. ‘Maybe she met the love of her life here? Maybe something seismic happened that night? Gosh, it’s just so tantalising, isn’t it? I love this kind of thing. What else have you got?’ She put her glasses back on and took some photos from Betty. ‘So this is ...?’

  ‘That’s Arlette. Yes, my grandmother.’

  ‘The owner of the amazing fur. Incredible.’ She pored over the photo in minute detail. ‘What a beauty,’ she said. ‘What an exquisite beauty.’ She ran a thin finger across Arlette’s image and took a drag on her plastic cigarette. ‘She looks like you,’ she said, turning to Betty.

  Betty laughed. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say, but it couldn’t possibly be true. She wasn’t my real grandmother. I mean, not in terms of blood. She was my stepfather’s mother.’

  Alexandra squinted at her over her glasses and said, ‘Well, then, your stepfather must subconsciously have chosen your mother because she looked like his mother. The resemblance between you both is quite startling, especia
lly in this one.’ She pushed towards Betty the photo of Arlette sitting on the floor in front of the black men on the sofa. ‘Here,’ she tapped the photo with her plastic cigarette, ‘around the eyes.’

  Betty looked at the photo and tried to see what Alexandra could see, but failed. She had always felt not quite pretty enough to be considered in the same league as Arlette.

  ‘So,’ said Alexandra, coming to the end of the pile of photos, ‘looks like your grandmother had a whale of a time in the twenties, and I do recognise some of the locations. This, here,’ she pulled out a photograph; ‘that’s the Royal Albert Hall. Good seats, too – front row. This here is Kingsway Hall, Holborn; used to be a famous recording venue. I think some famous jazz acts performed there in the twenties. Turned it into a hotel now, I think. Might be worth popping up there, see if anyone can help with the history? And this,’ she pulled out another one; ‘this is Chelsea Embankment. I recognise this little row of cottages. It’s about halfway down. I wonder who these other people are?’ She pointed at a tall leggy man with a dark moustache and wearing a rather scruffy overcoat, and a pretty young girl with her hair braided on top of her head and a delicate chiffon dress on. ‘They all look so happy, don’t you think?’

  Betty nodded. That was the most overwhelming thing about the photographs: the sense of joie de vivre that emanated from them, the sparkle in Arlette’s eye that Betty had rarely seen in all her years living with her.

  ‘You know, if I could go back to any period in time,’ said Alexandra, ‘it would be then. The twenties. Bright Young People, jazz. Everything new and fresh and semi-illicit. I mean, the fact that your grandmother was socialising with black men – it would have been unthinkable before, and for a long time after, too – but the twenties were this little window of optimism and broad-mindedness. And the clothes, sweetie,’ she raised her eyes blissfully towards the ceiling, ‘the clothes. To die for ...’