by Jilly Cooper
When everything was added up I still owed the tax people a couple of grand, and Seaford-Brennen’s £3,400. Both said, with great condescension, that they would give me time to pay.
The heat wave moved into its sixth week. Every news bulletin urged people to save water, and warned of the possibilities of a drought. Cattle were being boxed across the country to less parched areas. In the suffocating, airless heat, I tramped the London streets looking for work and a place to live. I never believed how tough it would be.
Just because one doting ex-lover, who’d put up with all my tantrums and unpunctuality, had directed me through the Revson commercial, I was convinced I could swan into acting and modelling jobs. But I found that Equity had clamped down in the past two years, so I couldn’t get film or television commercial work, even if ten million starving out-of-work actresses hadn’t been after each job anyway. Modelling was even more disastrous. I went to several auditions and was turned down. I seemed to have lost my sparkle. Gareth’s words about not being seventeen anymore, and it showing, kept ringing in my ears. The first photographer who booked me for a job refused to use me because I arrived an hour late. The second kept me sweltering for four hours modelling fur coats, expecting me to behave like a perfectly schooled clothes horse, then threw me out when I started arguing. The third sacked me because I took too long to change my make-up. I moved to another agency, and botched up two more jobs. After that one of the gossip columns printed a bitchy piece about my inability to settle down to anything, and as a result no one was prepared to give me work. Gareth was right anyway — it was no cure for a broken heart, gazing into the lens of a camera all day.
I tried a secretarial agency. I asked them what they could offer me. What could I offer them, they answered. Gradually I realized that I was equipped for absolutely nothing. I took a job as a filing clerk in the City. Another catastrophe — within two days I’d completely fouled up the firm’s filing system. Next the agency sent me to a job as a receptionist.
‘All you have to do, Miss Brennen, is to look pleasant and direct people to the right floor.’
I thought I was doing all right, but after three days the Personnel woman sent for me.
‘Receptionists are supposed to be friendly, helpful people. After all, they are the first impression a visitor gets of the company. I’m afraid you’re too arrogant, Miss Brennen; you can’t look down your nose at people in this day and age. Everyone agrees you’ve got an unfortunate manner.’
Unfortunate manor — it sounded like a stately home with dry rot. It was a few seconds before I realized she was giving me the boot. The third job I went to, I smiled and smiled until my jaw ached. I lasted till Thursday; then someone told me I had to man the switchboard. No switchboard was ever unmanned faster. After I’d cut off the managing director and his mistress twice, and the sales manager’s deal-clinching call to Nigeria for the fourth time, a senior secretary with blue hair and a bright red face came down and screamed at me. My nerves in shreds, I screamed back. When I got my first pay packet on Friday morning, it also contained my notice.
Which, all in all, was great on character building but not too hot for morale. One of the bitterest lessons I also learnt was that beauty is largely a matter of time and money. In the old days when I could sleep in until lunchtime, and spend all afternoon sunbathing or slapping on face cream, filing my nails and getting ready to go on the town, it was easy to look good. But now, having to get up at eight o’clock to get to an office by nine-thirty, punched and pummelled to death by commuters on the tube, scurrying round all day with not a moment to do one’s face, not getting home till seven absolutely knackered, it was a very different proposition. I lost another seven pounds and all my self-confidence; for the first time in my life I walked down the street and no one turned their heads to look at me. In a way it was rather a relief.
After the secretarial agency gave me up, I rang up a few old friends who owned boutiques. Their reactions were all the same. They were either laying off staff, or told me kindly that their sort of work would bore me to death, which really meant they thought I was totally unreliable.
In the evenings I went and looked for flats which was even more depressing. Living on my own, I couldn’t afford anywhere remotely reasonable, and in my present mood I couldn’t bear to share with other girls. All that cooking scrambled eggs, knickers dripping over the bath, and shrieking with laughter over last night’s exploits. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t face new people, I was feeling so low I couldn’t believe they’d put up with me.
I was also fast running out of Valium — only six left, not even enough for an overdose. I couldn’t go to my doctor; I owed him too much money. At night I didn’t sleep, tossing and turning, eating my heart out for Gareth, worrying about leaving my darling flat, my only refuge. At the back of my mind, flickering like a snake’s tongue, was the thought of Andreas Katz. If I took up his modelling offer, it would get me off the hook, but I knew once Andreas had something on me, or in this case, everything off me, I’d never escape. I’d be sucked down to damnation like a quicksand. Even Xander had deserted me; he hadn’t called me for days. Gareth must be working the pants off him.
I was due to move out on the Saturday. The Thursday before, I sat, surrounded by suitcases, poring over the Evening Standard, trying not to cry, and wondering whether ‘Bed sitter in Muswell Hill with lively family, £15 a week, some baby sitting in return’ was worth investigation, when the telephone rang. I pounced on it like a cat. I still couldn’t cure myself of the blind hope it might be Gareth. But it was only Lorna asking if she could come and stay the night. It was the last thing I wanted, but I had a masochistic desire to find out what Gareth was up to.
‘You’ll have to camp,’ I said, ‘I’m moving out the day after tomorrow.’
‘Well, if it’s not too much bother, I’d so adore to see you again.’
She arrived about six o’clock in a flurry of parcels and suitcases.
‘I’ve gone mad buying sexy clothes,’ were her first words. ‘Gareth’s taking me out tonight.’
I couldn’t stand it, sitting in the flat and seeing her get all scented and beautiful for him.
I showed her to her room and then went into my bedroom and telephoned my ex-boyfriend, Charlie, and asked him to take me out.
He was enchanted. ‘God, it’s great to hear you baby. Mountain’s come to Mahomet at last. I won a monkey at poker last night so we can go anywhere you want. I’ll pick you up about nine.’
‘Can’t you get here any earlier?’
‘I’ll try, sweetheart.’
I wandered along to Lorna’s bedroom. She was trying on a new orange dress she’d just bought.
‘Do you think Gareth will like me in this?’ she said, craning her neck to see her back in the mirror.
‘Yes,’ I said truthfully. ‘You look ravishing. I’m going out too by the way, at about nine.’
‘Oh, Gareth’s coming at a quarter to, so you should see him.’
While she was in the bath, the telephone rang. Trembling, I picked up the receiver. Somehow I knew it was going to be Gareth.
‘Lorna’s in the bath,’ I said quickly. ‘Can I give her a message?’
‘Yeah, tell her I’ll be a bit late, around nine-thirty.’
‘All right,’ I said.
‘How are you?’ he asked brusquely.
‘I’m fine,’ I stammered. ‘And you?’
‘Tired, I’ve been working too hard. I’m off to the Middle East with your brother next week, which should be enlightening if nothing else. Have you found somewhere to live?’
‘Yes thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m moving out tomorrow.’
‘What about a job?’
‘That’s fine too. I must go,’ I went on, fighting back the tears. ‘I’ve got so much to do. Goodbye.’ And I put down the receiver.
I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it, I thought in agony.
Lorna walked in, wrapped in a towel, pink from her bath.
> ‘Oh I feel so much better. I used your Badedas. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘That was Gareth,’ I said. ‘He’s going to be late — about nine-thirty.’
‘Oh goodee, that’ll give me more time to tart myself up.’
Suddenly she looked at me.
‘Octavia, you look awfully pale. Are you all right?’
Tears, embarrassingly hot and prickly, rose to my eyes. I began to laugh, gasped hysterically, and then burst into tears.
‘Octavia! Oh poor love, what is it?’
‘N-nothing. Everything,’ I couldn’t stop now.
‘What’s wrong? Please tell me.’
‘Oh, the usual thing.’
‘You’re mad for someone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well you’re so stunning, he must be mad for you.’
‘He isn’t. He hardly knows I exist.’
‘He couldn’t know you properly then. Here, take my handkerchief.’
‘I’d better go and get ready,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go out in a minute.’
I put on a black trouser suit with a high mandarin collar and huge floppy trousers. It hung off me. I tied my hair back with a black bow. Were those dry lips and red swollen eyes really mine? Charlie wouldn’t recognize me.
Lorna answered the door when he arrived. She came rushing into my bedroom.
‘He’s absolutely gorgeous. The campest thing I’ve ever seen,’ she said excitedly. ‘I’m not surprised you’re wild about him.’
It was too much effort to explain to her he wasn’t the one.
‘Can you give him a drink?’ I said. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’
I hung around, fiddling with my make-up, trying to summon up enough courage to face him. I’d lost all my confidence. Finally I realized if I didn’t get a move on I’d go slap into Gareth.
Charlie looked exquisite, and, to me, absurd. He had already helped himself to a second whisky and was settling down on the sofa to chat up Lorna.
He got to his feet when I came in and pecked me on the cheek.
‘Hullo baby. Playing it in the minor key for a change,’ he said, taking in the black suit, the dark glasses, the drawn-back hair. ‘I like it, it’s great.’
‘Shall we go?’ I said, going towards the door.
‘Already?’ said Charlie. ‘I haven’t finished my drink.’
‘I want to go now,’ I snapped.
‘The lady seems to be in a hurry, so I’ll bid you goodnight,’ said Charlie, theatrically, bowing from the waist to Lorna. ‘I hope you’ll come into the shop one day now you’re in London.’
‘You’ve got a key, haven’t you?’ I said to her. ‘Have a good evening. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Hey, what’s bitten you?’ said Charlie, as we went down in the lift.
It was a hideous evening. In three short weeks I seemed to have grown a world apart from Charlie and his flash trendy friends, waiting round in Tramps all night for something to happen, only interested in being the first ones to latch on to the latest fad. Suddenly their values seemed completely dislocated.
We went to Annabel’s and I couldn’t stand it, then we moved on to the Dumbbells, then on to somewhere else and somewhere else. Finally Charlie took me back to his flat and we played records.
I have to hand it to Charlie; he seemed to realize instinctively that I was at suicide level and didn’t attempt to pounce on me in his usual fashion. Perhaps it had something to do with his having a new girlfriend who was off modelling in Stockholm for a couple of days. I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock.
‘What’s the matter baby?’ he asked. ‘Have you fallen for some bloke at last? I’ve never seen you so piano, you’re not even bitching how bored you are by everything this evening. You look different too.’
He took off my dark glasses.
‘Boy; you do look different. I must say I rather go for the Ave Maria look.’
It would have helped if I could have cried on his shoulder, but I’d gone beyond that stage now, I was just numb with misery.
‘Take me home, please Charlie,’ I said.
Next day, life picked up about half an inch. For an hour I endured the torture of listening to Lorna babbling on at breakfast about the marvellous time she’d had with Gareth.
‘After dinner, we went up to the top of the Hilton for a drink, and looked out over the whole of London, it was so romantic,’ she said, helping herself to a third piece of toast and marmalade. Her mascara was still smudged under her eyes. I hoped it wasn’t sex that had given her such an appetite.
Then she started to ask me awkward questions about the new job I’d lied to Gareth that I’d got.
‘It’s in Knightsbridge,’ I said.
‘Well you must give me the telephone number because you’ll be moving out of here.’
‘I’ll be travelling a lot,’ I said hastily. ‘And they’re always a bit dodgy about personal calls to start off with. I’ll write and tell you.’
‘It sounds marvellous,’ said Lorna, selecting a banana. ‘But if by chance it doesn’t work out, Gareth says there’s a marvellous new agency started up in Albemarle Street called Square Peg. They specialize in placing people who want to branch out in completely new fields.’
‘I’ll take the address just in case,’ I said.
As soon as she’d gone, pleading with me to come and spend the weekend soon, I had a bath, painted my face with great care, took my last two Valium, and set out for Square Peg. They turned out to be very friendly and businesslike, and despatched me straightaway to a public relations firm in the City.
The firm’s offices were scruffy, untidy, and terribly hot. The secretary who welcomed me looked tired out, and her hair needed washing, but she gave me the sort of smile that all those personnel bitches I’d worked for were always banging on about.
‘It’s been a hell of a week,’ she said. ‘The air conditioning’s broken and the heat’s been terrible. It’s crazy hard work here, but it’s fun.’
The boss was a small dark Jew called Jakey Bartholomew, who seemed to burn with energy. His foxy, brown eyes shone with intelligence behind horn-rimmed spectacles. He had to lift a lot of files, a box of pork chops, and a huge cutout cardboard of a pig off a chair before I could sit down.
‘We’ve just landed the Pig Industry account,’ he said grinning. ‘I’m trying to persuade them to produce kosher pork. We’ve been going for nine months now, and we’re taking on new business all the time because we provide the goods on a shoestring. Do you know anything about public relations?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Just as well. You haven’t had time to pick up any bad habits.’ He ripped open a couple of beer cans and gave me one.
‘We’re a small outfit, only ten people in the firm, and we can’t afford passengers. We need a girl Friday — you can see this place is in shit order — to keep it tidy, make decent coffee, and chat up the clients when they come. Then you’d have to do things like putting press releases into envelopes, taking them to the post, organizing press parties, and probably writing the odd release. It’s very menial work.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said, trying to keep the quiver of desperation out of my voice. ‘I’ll do anything.’
‘If you’re good we’ll promote you very fast.’
Suddenly he grinned, reminding me of Gareth.
‘All right, you’re on, baby. Go along to the accounts department in a minute and get your P.45 sorted out. We’ll start you on a three months trial on Monday.’
I couldn’t believe my luck; I hardly concentrated as we discussed hours and salaries, and he told me a bit more about the firm. He was very forceful. It was only when I stood up to go that I realized I was about four inches taller than he was.
‘The agency was right,’ he said. ‘They insisted you were a very classy looking dame.’
I didn’t remember the agency saying any such thing when they telephoned through. They must have rung again after I’d left.
I then took a long 22 bus ride out to Putney where the Evening Standard had advertised a room to let. Everywhere I could see the ravages of the drought, great patches of black burnt grass, flowers gasping with thirst in dried-up gardens. As I got off the bus, a fire engine charged past, clanging noisily. Although it was only the end of July, a bonfire smell of autumn filled my nostrils.
The house was large and Victorian on the edge of the common, the front rooms darkened by a huge chestnut tree. A stocky woman answered the door. She had a tough face like dried out roast beef, and muddy, mottled knees. She was wearing a flowered sleeveless dress that rucked over her large hips. Rose petals in her iron grey hair gave her an incongruously festive look. At present she was more interested in stopping several dogs escaping than letting me in.
‘I’ve come about the room,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said, looking slightly more amiable. ‘I’m Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor. Come in, sorry to look such a mess, I’ve been gardening. Come here Monkey,’ she bellowed to a small brown mongrel who was trying to lick my hand.
‘Mind the loose rod,’ she said as we climbed the stairs. In front of me her sturdy red legs went into her shoes without the intervention of ankles. Her voice was incredibly put on. I was sure she’d double-barrelled the Lonsdale and Taylor herself.
The room was at the top of the house; the sofa clashed with the wallpaper, the brass bed creaked when I sat on it, rush matting hardly covered the black scratched floorboards. On the wall were framed photographs cut out from magazines and stuck on cardboard. The curtains hung a foot above the floor like midi skirts. It would be a cold and cheerless room in winter.
I looked outside. In spite of the drought Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor had been taking great care of her garden. The mingled scent of stocks, clove carnations and a honeysuckle, which hung in great honey-coloured ramparts round the window, drifted towards me. A white cat emerged from a forest of dark blue delphiniums and, avoiding the sprinkler that was shooting its rainbow jets over the green lawn, walked towards the house at a leisurely pace. It was incredibly quiet.