Beautiful Creatures

by Lulu Taylor

  She liked the feeling she got in the building, and sensed that she could fit in here unnoticed.

  ‘Do you want me to enrol you at that one?’ Vicky asked as they headed home.

  Flora nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that’s the one. Definitely.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s going to be a challenge for me. But I’m determined to do it.’

  ‘Atta girl,’ Vicky said, delighted that Flora was finding the strength to spread her wings a little. ‘You’ll be terrific.’

  Despite her brave words, though, Flora felt sick on her first morning on the watercolour course. She had signed up to six weeks of full days of tuition. I’m going to be rubbish at it, she thought, panicking, as she dressed in clothes that she hoped would make her as inconspicuous as possible: black trousers and a long drapey cardigan in dark blue.

  Octavia had been astonished when Flora had told her what she was doing, but so pleased that Flora thought that she detected a tiny bit of relief in her sister’s face. Octavia had been out even more often ever since the party, although she didn’t seem to be with Gerry any more but with some of the girls she’d met at the ball. She’d begun to be out in the evenings, too, and Flora hated it when her sister wasn’t there to chat with as they brushed each other’s hair. She missed Octavia desperately whenever she was out of the house, and found it hard to sleep until she knew her twin was back and safely in bed. Sometimes she would wake in the night, not able to stop herself from padding quietly along the hallways and into Octavia’s room. Often, after getting home late, Octavia would wake in the morning to find Flora snuggled in bed beside her.

  Flora was so nervous on her way to art school she nearly had Steve turn the car round and take her home, but she managed to overcome her fear enough to scuttle into the classroom and take up a seat at the back, in the darkest corner she could find. Then, once the teacher had arrived and the class started, she found herself so absorbed that by the end of the day she had moved up two rows without even realising it. The teacher, a middle-aged man called Peter, was encouraging and kind, helping her with brush technique and paint effects in such a supportive way, she hardly noticed that he was telling her what to do, and he didn’t frighten her in the least, probably because he looked at her work and not at her.

  The other students didn’t bother her. Flora found the classes so relaxing and refreshing that life suddenly seemed a great deal better.

  Perhaps everything will be all right after all, she thought, and felt the first glimmerings of hope since leaving Homerton.

  The girls sat round a table in Harvey’s Diner, a big jug of iced water in front of them along with huge glasses of cold Pinot Grigio and some breadsticks. Rosie was wearing an enormous pair of Yves St Laurent square-framed sunglasses behind which her eyes looked heavy, while Jasmine’s skin was even whiter than usual, if that was possible. Sometime in the previous twenty-four hours, she’d dyed her hair pink.

  Octavia thought that it looked rather cool, even if it was something she would never do herself. Still, it worked on Jasmine, who was clearly in need of a cigarette if the way she was holding her breadstick was anything to go by.

  ‘Looks like you girls have been living it up a bit,’ remarked Octavia, taking a sip of her wine. She wasn’t sure if she wanted it at all but drinking at any available opportunity was obviously what her new friends did, and she didn’t want to appear different. No doubt she’d get used to the constant boozing in time. But how did they manage to drink so much and eat so little? Perhaps that was why they needed cigarettes … Octavia thought she ought to try harder with that habit too. She’d been attempting to take it up, but in the main was happy to shut her packet of Marlboro in a drawer and forget all about it. When the others said they were dying for a fag, she found it hard to understand how they could want that noxious smoke in their mouths. But it must be nice or why would they do it?

  ‘Just the usual,’ Jasmine said. She flicked through the pages of a magazine. ‘Oh, look, we’re in this one. Pics of us going into Templeton House for the party.’

  They all pored over the pictures, studying the ones of themselves and reassuring one another that they looked great.

  Octavia stared at the one of herself arriving at the party on Gerry’s arm. She felt a pang of guilt. ‘Gerry’s furious with me for leaving the ball,’ she said, ‘he’s giving me the cold shoulder. He is hardly called since, and he’s usually on the phone all the time.’

  ‘He’ll get over it.’ Jasmine perused the menu. ‘What shall we order? How about the salad?’

  ‘Yeah, salad,’ Rosie said. ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘I’ll have the burger,’ Octavia said, ‘and chips.’ The other two looked at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Rosie said with a shrug.

  When the food came, Octavia ate most of her burger and some of her chips. As soon as she pushed her plate away, the other two, who’d already eaten their salads, pounced on her leftovers and wolfed them down.

  ‘Chips and mayonnaise,’ Rosie murmured happily as she took a bite of a long golden-brown French fry dipped in mayo. ‘God, how gorgeous.’

  ‘If that’s what you wanted, why didn’t you have it?’ Octavia asked.

  The other two exchanged looks. ‘Because we have to stay thin,’ said Jasmine. ‘We can’t pig out on chips. We’ll turn into heifers and no one will want us to advertise their stuff.’

  ‘Oh.’ Octavia frowned. This made sense, she supposed. But …

  ‘Come on,’ Jasmine said, consulting her Tag Heuer. ‘Iseult’s expecting us. We’d better hurry.’

  ‘Who’s Iseult?’ asked Octavia, but in the general rush to pay and then hail a cab outside, no one replied until the taxi was roaring its way down Oxford Street and heading east.

  ‘Iseult is like this amazing fashion guru. She used to be an editor of Elegance. Now she’s a freelance fashion stylist and consultant,’ Jasmine said. She leant forward to talk to the cab driver. ‘Hey, can we smoke out the window?’

  The driver’s gaze flicked over the long legs emerging from Jasmine’s tiny denim mini-skirt, and the breasts bobbing in her low-cut top. ‘All right then,’ he said, and the girls quickly lit their cigarettes.

  ‘How do you know her?’ Octavia asked.

  Rosie looked blank. ‘Everyone knows Iseult,’ she said. ‘We all know each other, that’s the way it is.’

  Octavia was starting to understand that the world she’d been offered entry to was indeed a rarefied place. Everyone really did know each other in the social milieu where all that mattered was to be able to belong – through fame, through money, through family connections, through beauty. And they were all so at ease with their belonging, as though confidence had been bred into them at birth.

  I want to belong too, Octavia thought. I’m going to make it happen. And she took another vigorous puff on her cigarette, determined to ignore the swirl of nausea in her stomach.

  The taxi pulled to a halt in a dirty side street in Aldgate East. Was this still London? Octavia wondered. It wasn’t like anything she’d yet seen. This part of the city was grimy and down-at-heel, there was litter everywhere, and instead of plush flats there were broken-down mansion blocks, warehouses and small factories. Every other sign advertised a wholesale garment trader and from somewhere nearby came the rattle of sewing machines.

  ‘Sweat shop or something,’ Jasmine said with a shrug as they climbed out. She pushed a twenty towards the driver with a cheery, ‘Thanks, mate!’

  The cab drove off, leaving them in the road.

  ‘I hope you remember which one it is,’ Rosie said, as they stared about them at the unappealing buildings.

  ‘Course I do,’ Jasmine announced bravely. ‘It’s over here.’ She led the way through a dark alleyway to a rubbish-strewn doorstep and pressed a button on the wall. A voice said something unintelligible through the speaker, and then there was a buzzing sound. Jasmine pushed against the door with her shoulder and it opened. ‘Come on,’ she said, and led the way
in.

  Can this be right? wondered Octavia as they entered a hallway that reeked of something vile – urine, perhaps. This doesn’t seem like somewhere we should be. How could anyone let the place get into this condition? It’s horrible. Why doesn’t someone clean it up? But the other two seemed perfectly at ease with the state of their surroundings so she followed them as they climbed up the five twisting staircases to the top storey.

  ‘At last,’ Jasmine said, puffing, as they came to a door on the landing. Unlike the others they had passed on their way up, this one was painted a dark, glossy purple. It was standing slightly ajar, obviously awaiting their arrival. Jasmine pushed at it, and in they went.

  The outside of the flat gave no clue as to what lay behind the door. The exterior seemed to promise some mean, shabby, dirty flat, with bad furniture and nasty décor. The others in the building might well be like that, but this one wasn’t. It was light, for one thing, because of the roof windows that let the rather grey sunshine outside come pouring in. For another, it was painted a pale turquoise all over: ceiling, walls and floorboards, and it was almost empty of furniture except for a large long table, six tailors’ dummies standing in the middle of the room, and a white chaise-longue against one wall. The table was littered with fabrics and pairs of cutting shears, seam rippers and chalk, and on the floor were more bolts of cloth and piles of swatches. There was also a young man, pudgy and pale-faced, kneeling down on a large piece of woven pink tweed, cutting it out carefully with a pair of large shears.

  But it was impossible to ignore the most colourful object in the room. Sitting on the white chaise-longue was a woman. She had fiery red hair cut into short sharp bob with a fiercely straight fringe falling almost over her eyelids. Swoops of dark liquid eyeliner batwinged her eyes, highlighting their yellowish-green colour. Her nose was large, almost too large for her face, but her strong hairstyle balanced it. Her lips were painted blood-red, as were her nails, and she was wearing a white silk forties-style cocktail dress and incredibly high lime green python-skin shoes with hidden platform soles and towering heels. Between two of her long white fingers was an antique jet and carved ivory cigarette holder, where a strong French cigarette was burning.

  As the girls entered she stared at them, not saying anything until they were inside and standing in front of her. The man on the floor ignored them and continued cutting his material, his tongue sticking out of one corner of his mouth as he concentrated hard. Octavia sensed that the power in the room definitely resided with the woman who was examining them all carefully as she took a long slow suck on her cigarette and exhaled a thick plume of smoke.

  What extraordinary eyes, thought Octavia, hardly able to look anywhere else. They don’t look quite human. They look like a lizard’s, that strange yellow colour … A lizard, or a snake.

  The eyes were not interested in her for the moment, they were too busy with Jasmine and Rosie. At last she spoke, her deep voice coming out in a raspy, upper-class drawl.

  ‘Darling,’ she said to Jasmine. ‘While I myself would never leave the house in a garment that even resembles a denim mini-skirt, I like what you’re doing. First, you have the legs for it. Second, you’re cleverly recherché. Those eighties itsy-bitsy things are going to come back, I just feel it. Do you know what I would do, though? Lose those sloppy ballet pumps. Put on a pair of men’s brogues, and replace the laces with ribbons. Wear one white one with a black ribbon and one black one with a white ribbon. That would look stunning. Don’t you agree, Roddy?’

  She looked over at the man on the floor, but he had now moved round so that his back was to them and didn’t even glance over his shoulder – simply grunted and carried on with his work.

  ‘Sweet Roddy,’ the woman said fondly. ‘I shouldn’t disturb him. Genius at work.’ Then she turned her attention back to Jasmine. ‘But – pink hair?’ She sounded dramatic, outraged, and rolled her amazing yellow eyes. ‘Please, darling! No! We must cling on to the few vestiges of glamour left in this world. Not pink hair.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Jasmine said cheerfully, going forward to brush the woman’s cheek with her lips. ‘It’s semi-permanent. It’ll be gone by the end of the month.’

  ‘Well, I’m very glad to hear it. If only that filthy mutilation you call a tattoo were as disposable. And how are you, Rosie?’ She smiled at the other girl, who was slouching behind Jasmine. ‘I hear you’ve just got the Recall jeans campaign. Well done. I always said you were destined for great things. Do you know why?’ She leant forward. ‘Let’s face it, you’re a charisma vacuum in the flesh, but in front of the camera, something special happens.’

  There was a pause and Rosie looked a little confused, as though she was not sure whether she had just been complimented or insulted.

  ‘But … who is this?’ The woman’s eyebrows disappeared into her fringe as she turned her gaze on Octavia. She almost shivered under its intensity.

  ‘Octavia,’ said Jasmine, pulling her cigarettes out of her bag. ‘Octavia, this is Iseult Rivers-Manners.’

  Iseult ground out her cigarette in an ashtray by her side. ‘Yes, but Octavia who? Who are you? You’re rather striking, my dear. I’m sure I would have noticed you before now. Are you a new discovery? Some little model found on a train station platform in the back of beyond or spending her Saturday job money in Topshop?’

  Octavia took a breath. ‘I’m Octavia Beaufort.’

  ‘Are you?’ The yellow-green eyes flickered with interest. ‘I know that name … but how?’ She frowned, pouting out her red lips. Then her face cleared. ‘Of course … Beaufort! I know all about you, darling! You’re the little girl who’s been shut away all her life, aren’t you? Roddy, Roddy – this is the Beaufort girl! The one that you-know-who has been lionising all over town. That ball.’ She looked sour for a moment. ‘He didn’t even invite me. I went anyway, though it meant I had to bypass the introductions.’

  Roddy continued to ignore them all, and Iseult looked back at Octavia. She smiled, and her severe, quite plain face softened into something almost pretty. ‘I can’t fault his taste, I’ve never been able to do that. You’re rather exquisite. Not just your face or your figure – there’s something about you. Something fresh and unspoiled that’s increasingly rare in this knowing world of ours.’ She stood up and walked towards Octavia, moving with careful elegance in her towering high heels. ‘So you’ve been shut away from the world for years and years, like a Sleeping Beauty? What do you make of this world now that you’re out in it, Sleeping Beauty?’

  ‘Oh, I love it,’ Octavia said breathlessly.

  ‘Do you?’ Iseult’s face hardened and she laughed mirthlessly. ‘How strange. I hate it.’ She stared deeply at Octavia again and then said, ‘Do you know? I don’t think I’m going to let you go, if that’s all right. I declare you to be a find.’

  Jasmine and Rosie glanced at each other with meaningful looks and Octavia felt herself obscurely honoured, though she wasn’t quite sure why.

  The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. The girls, it turned out, were being fitted for outfits they were modelling in a fashion show. They were doing it as a favour to Iseult, who was Roddy’s mentor and had arranged the event to showcase the designs of her protégé.

  ‘With models like Jasmine and Rosie, the press coverage will be guaranteed!’ declared Iseult as Roddy began to swathe Jasmine in the pink tweed he’d been cutting. ‘And with my contacts, the people who matter most will be there to see Roddy’s first major collection. The fashion editors, the heads of luxury labels, the buyers for the major stores – all the people who shape our zeitgeist. Once your name is on their lips, we’ve almost won the battle.’ The tweed looked like nothing but a strangely cut piece of fabric when Roddy picked it up, but as he pinned it around Jasmine’s shape, it became a stunning dress, like a toga with more structure. He fastened the shoulder with an oversized kilt pin.

  ‘Fantastic,’ breathed Iseult as Jasmine posed in front of a large mirror, jutting out one hip and st
anding on tiptoe. ‘Exactly right.’

  ‘Yeah … yeah … that’s all right,’ Roddy said, speaking almost for the first time. His voice was rough, with a deep Glaswegian accent. ‘Okay, I’m happy with that one. Rosie.’ He beckoned to her. ‘You’re next.’

  He dressed her in a shredded baby-blue tweed miniskirt over a tartan muslin underslip and a string vest with tiny jet spiders sewn on to the threads as if they were roaming all over Rosie’s chest. He pronounced himself satisfied with the result and Iseult applauded wildly. Then she took him into the kitchen space at the side of the studio and whispered to him frantically for some minutes. After a while they emerged, Iseult looking triumphant. ‘Octavia,’ she cried, ‘Roddy’s got some wonderful news for you!’

  Roddy came up to her. His head was shaved almost bald, with just a light brown fuzz covering his pale skull. A cigarette was tucked behind one ear, she noticed, and a pencil perched behind the other. ‘Do ye wanna model for me?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘I … I don’t know,’ Octavia said, her heart beating faster at the idea. ‘I’ve never modelled before, I don’t know if I could do it.’

  He looked her up and down with his hazel and grey eyes. ‘Yeah, ye could. I can see that already. An’ I need a bride, see?’

  ‘To close the show,’ explained Iseult, her eyes glittering with excitement. ‘Say you’ll do it, please!’

  ‘You’ve got to,’ cried Jasmine. ‘It’s a real honour. I’m, like, so jealous.’

  ‘You never said there was a bride,’ Rosie added sulkily.

  ‘I’ve persuaded him,’ Iseult said. ‘And I’m going to teach Octavia how to carry it off. It will be simply marvellous!’

  Octavia didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Good!’ cried Iseult, clutching her arm, digging her red nails into the flesh so that it was almost painful. ‘I knew you would! It’ll be divine, you wait and see.’