Born of Woman

by Wendy Perriam

  Jennifer glanced at the Smith’s display stand, where twenty Hesters stared her accusingly in the eye. Matthew had found an old and faded photograph and instructed his art department to retouch and refine it. Yet, for all their pains, it had somehow come out wrong. Hester was strength, force, monument—the guardian spirit of Hernhope, yet they had watered down her vigour, removed her grit and toughness, turned her into a sweet and simple rustic. Hester was iron with a streak of gold trapped in it, not buttercups and muslin.

  Her own photo was equally misleading, although smaller and less prominent, tucked away on the back flap of the cover. The hair was false, the smile bogus; eyes and mouth retouched to make them larger, the whole thing posturing and painted. They had been obliged to make her glamorous to match all those glamorous people—journalists and disc jockeys, interviewers and publicity agents, photographers and columnists, all skilled in the art of sham.

  Lyn was jealous of the lot of them, especially as he had stayed at home while she swanned about on tour. She had gone instead with Jonathan, Cindy Scott’s assistant at Hartley Davies. Jonathan was blond, spruce, smooth and safely homosexual. Lyn distrusted and despised him. Queers made him uneasy. He had been accused too often of being one himself.

  At least Jonathan wasn’t accompanying her today. Matthew had decided to take on Rowan Childs himself. She had already accused him (in her column) of distorting history and romanticising war. He would be smiling at her now, pouring her tea and sugaring it with charm. She mustn’t keep them waiting. She hurried to the exit and joined the queue for taxis, eyes fixed firmly on the pavement. That queue was composed of readers, viewers, listeners, all eager to cross-question her, denounce her as a cry-baby. She had always hated London as an uncaring, anonymous city, but now it was the overtures she dreaded, the tapping on the shoulder, the shaking by her hand.

  A taxi swooped mercifully to a halt. She climbed in, slammed the door.

  ‘Where to?’ asked the driver, turning round and staring at her. ‘Ah—the Ritz, is it? Yeah—thought I recognised you. I knocked off early for a change last night and just caught the end of Vita Sampson. She really got you, didn’t she? Not that I blame you, love. She’s that tough she’d make me cry.’

  Jennifer mumbled some reply. She didn’t want to think about Vita Sampson when it was Rowan Childs she was about to battle with. She peered at her reflection in the taxi window, tugged at the hairpins in her coiled and uneasy bun. She hated it swept up like that, but Matthew insisted that she dress in the spirit of the book. The week before publication, Hartley Davies Publicity had packaged her like another of their products. Television was cruel to curves, they told her, so she had been forced on a rigid diet and squeezed into stern black skirts and throttling high-necked blouses. Once the tour began, she lost half a stone through nerves. Meals became not sustenance, but Sales. Up at six in strange hotels, swotting up her speeches at the breakfast table or spouting them at lunches, lashes stiff and sticky with mascara, excess lipstick bleeding on to coffee cups, five-course dinners hiccoughing into midnight over expansive port and brandy when all she wanted was Horlicks and her bed. Today, it was back to the arena—her real self left at Cobham and only a hollow mask to face the world. She felt her fear heavy like the make-up, sticky like the hair lacquer, holding all that falseness in its place.

  Trafalgar Square was choked with rush-hour traffic. It seemed extravagant to dawdle in the snarl-up with the meter ticking over, but if she got out and walked, she was bound to be accosted.

  ‘Didn’t I see you on …?’

  ‘Wasn’t it you who …?’

  She wasn’t anybody. She would only disappoint them. They’d expect a historian, an expert, a sparkling girl who could juggle words about, not a tired, jaded bungler who could neither speak nor write. Even the taxi driver was pestering her with questions as he turned into Arlington Street and pulled up outside the Ritz, where a supercilious doorman helped her out. She over-tipped them both. (At least Jonathan had spared her the intricacies of tipping.) She paused a moment at the daunting hotel entrance with its banked flowers and frock-coated lackey standing just inside. A woman in a nylon overall and yellow rubber gloves was scrubbing down the steps. Sixty years ago, she could have been a Hester. Hester had worked in a grand hotel like this, where the rich still battened on a thousand menials who rose at five to lay fires and empty slops, then crawled to bed in their cramped and chilly attic rooms, while the guests were still carousing in the ballrooms. Those were some of the saddest entries in the diaries, the ones Hester had written from her lonely garret as she stared out at the rude and unfamiliar London streets and was stunned by the city’s cackle after the velvet-fingered quiet and dark of Fernfield.

  Jennifer stopped. How could she swan into a hotel built of gold-dust where a single night could set you back a hundred pounds? That was more than a whole year’s wages for a Hester in the ’twenties. She trailed down the steps again, stood on the pavement surrounded by a pile of dustbin bags overflowing with rubbish. Those were the Ritz’s faeces, its excrement and phlegm—rotting strawberries grey with cigarette ash, broken bottles bleeding into mouldy bread.

  She stood dithering on the kerb, watching the flies buzzing round a fishbone. Matthew would be waiting for her, frowning at his watch, Rowan Childs glaring there beside him. She turned again towards the lights and flowers.

  ‘May I help you, Madam?’ The doorman looked suspicious. Visitors to the Ritz didn’t paddle in the rubbish.

  ‘I’m … er … meeting someone.’

  ‘In the foyer, Madam, or out here?’

  ‘I’m not sure. We’re … er … having breakfast.’

  ‘Ah, you’ll want the restaurant, then. Go right along the corridor and you’ll see it straight in front of you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Did she tip him again? If only Matthew had arranged to meet her here, instead of leaving her to face those sneering lackeys with their gold braid and their tailcoats, those miles of hostile corridor.

  She walked through the revolving doors and was assaulted by the glare of lights, the gleam of gold and marble, the echoing dazzle of gilded mirrors repeating and repeating her. A priceless Chinese carpet stifled her footsteps, towering ceilings reduced her to pygmy scale. The scent of hot-house roses made her own cheap perfume seem vulgar and oppressive. Everyone else was grander, glossier, gift-wrapped—tourists with calf-skin cases and cashmere cardigans, businessmen in Cardin suits. The corridor seemed endless. Chandeliers beamed at themselves against the mirrored backdrops, marble pillars framed a shell-niche fountain where a goddess garbed only in gold-leaf stared at two cherub mermaids. The restaurant itself looked more like a salon in a French Renaissance palace. It seemed almost blasphemous to eat eggs and bacon amidst all that swagged and gilded decoration. The painted beauty of the cloud-swept ceiling echoed the real white clouds beyond the ruched and tasselled curtains with their froth of nets. Pink tablecloths and napkins matched the chic rococo chairs. Jennifer thought of Lyn perched on a packing-case in their Cobham kitchen, drinking cut-price instant coffee and trying to scramble eggs.

  ‘Good morning, Madam. Are you taking breakfast? Mr Winterton? Ah yes, he’s waiting for you.’

  She stumbled after the waiter. The restaurant was already busy, tycoons and tourists propped behind their newspapers. Someone was sure to recognise her. She should have worn dark glasses, except they made you still more conspicuous. Only pop stars or major alcoholics took breakfast in dark glasses. The waiter was still striding across the red-medallioned carpet. She could feel a hundred eyes stalking after her.

  ‘Ah, Jennifer. At last.’

  She jumped. It was Matthew rising from his table in the corner, immaculate in thunder-grey.

  ‘Am I late? I’m sorry. The traffic was really awful. Oh gosh—you’ve brought the papers.’ There they were, piled beside his table, screaming headlines, sobbing photographs, invading this pretty-pretty, never-never world where no one talked above a whisper, let alone burst into vulgar tea
rs.

  ‘Well done, my dear. This is the best coup we’ve had yet and just when our publicity needed a final boost. I’ve been swamped with calls already.’

  ‘Where’s … er … you know …?’

  ‘Rowan? She phoned to say she’s been delayed in traffic and she’ll be a little late. That’s all to the good. It gives us time to prepare. I won’t order breakfast until she comes, of course. But how about a cup of tea? There’s plenty in the pot.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Cheer up. We’re all thrilled with you. It’s not quite what we planned, of course, but things often work out better when they’re—well—spontaneous. You’ve always had that gift, Jennifer, to be entirely natural.’

  ‘Matthew, you don’t understand. I feel an utter fool. All those people watching me break down like that. And losing control and …’

  ‘It was delightful, Jennifer, a proof of your genuine involvement and integrity. People warmed to you. They felt you were human, someone like themselves. It was exciting for them, in a way, to see real emotion on the screen, instead of the prefabricated kind, or poker-faced reactions.’

  ‘But everybody’s looking at me. I mean, even on the station, total strangers came up and …’

  ‘That’s good—the sort of publicity publishers dream about. It can only help the book.’

  Book, book, book. Sometimes it felt so large and omnipresent, it was as if it were pressing her down like a gigantic metal clamp, squeezing all the life and joy out of everything she touched. Take breakfast at the Ritz. In any other circumstances, she would have enjoyed it as a treat—munched her way through the menu, marvelled at the marble walls, the glittering golden carvings on the ceiling. Instead, she felt sick with dread.

  ‘Matthew, please put those papers down. I don’t want people staring. Look at that waiter over there. He can hardly tear his eyes away.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, my dear. They’re far too well trained to stare. Famous people are two a penny here. Now how about a glass of orange juice?’

  ‘No, really, I’m …’

  ‘Well at least have a look at the menu and decide what you want to eat. Once Rowan arrives, we don’t want to waste precious time on non-essentials. Her paper’s got a circulation of three-and-a-quarter million, which means an actual readership some three or four times that. You see, if you take the average newspaper, it’s read by …’

  ‘Yes, Matthew, I know. You explained all that before.’

  Jennifer stared at the people eating and drinking all around her, American tourists with three fried eggs apiece, Japanese businessmen tackling melons filled with strawberries. Hester had fed on broth and scraps when she had been working as a maid. One unplanned pregnancy had tipped her from a teeming white-clothed table to a quick crust in the scullery. Babies had such power. Even in her own case, one unformed embryo had endless repercussions. If she hadn’t fallen pregnant, they might never have left Hernhope, never got involved in publication, never … She closed the menu.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Well, just have a slice of toast, then. You’ll need something to keep you going. I’ve arranged an on-the-line interview with BBC Radio Ulster as soon as this one’s finished.’

  ‘Oh no, Matthew. I thought you said I’d …’

  ‘Jennifer, please be sensible. It’s better than flying to Belfast, isn’t it? The whole thing will be over in less than half an hour. Jonathan will drive you to Portland Place, so you haven’t even got to hail a taxi. We want to make the very most we can out of last night’s … episode. You’re Big News now, and it would be unforgivable not to take advantage of it. Now, have you got it straight? You cried because of the grief of Hester’s life, the horrors of the war. You identify with her—so much so, that you are aware of her as a living presence still. Don’t forget that aspect, please. It always rouses interest. Whatever Rowan asks, return to the point of how strongly Hester’s life affects you, how you feel involved with her, linked with her. All right? Remember what I told you, Jennifer. Your aim is to control the interview. A skilful interviewee can always choose her own subjects.’

  ‘Not with Rowan Childs, she can’t. She’s such a cynic, Matthew. She’s already called me a traitor and a prig.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what she calls you, so long as it sells the book. Do you realise you could … Ah, she’s coming now.’

  Matthew arranged his features somewhere between dignity and welcome. Rowan Childs was loping towards them in a magenta boiler suit which made the pink chairs blanch, her fringed silver ankle boots matching the streak of silver in her hair. Jennifer’s beige polyester dress lay down and died against the competition.

  ‘Hi, Matthew! Nice to see you again. Sorry I’m late. I got stuck behind an agoraphobic learner driver on his first day out. Jennifer—hallo. So glad to meet you at last. Congratulations on the book! You seem to be making quite a stir with it. Those tears were most original.’

  Matthew unfolded his napkin and swathed it on his lap. ‘Rowan, I’d like to try and explain to you how …’

  ‘Haven’t you started breakfast yet? You should have gone ahead without me. I’m on this fearful diet—black coffee and fresh air, with the odd raw mushroom thrown in as a treat. You’ve probably read about it—the Dr Schreiber Shrink-Plan. I was at the party for his book last night and I promised to give it a whirl and then write up the results.’

  Matthew frowned. He had planned to weaken Rowan through her stomach. ‘What are you eating, Jennifer?’

  ‘Er—just a slice of toast, please.’

  The gleaming array of cutlery looked suddenly superfluous—porridge spoons and grapefruit spoons, heavy silver fish forks, steak knives and butter knives, salt and pepper shakers. Jennifer’s stomach was already full with apprehension.

  Rowan was fumbling in her handbag, which had been torn from some rare animal, then muzzled with silver clasps. ‘You don’t mind if I smoke, do you? Matthew, I know you don’t indulge, and I suppose you can’t, Jennifer, with your healthy living line.’ Rowan drew out a cream and scarlet cigarette carton with Cartier emblazoned on the front. ‘Actually, I quit myself last week—went two full days without a single puff—but then I was invited to a Cartier launch and they sent me a whole crateful. I didn’t even know they made the things. I must admit I’d rather have had the odd diamond-studded watch.’ Her own watch was a man’s one—big and blatant—dwarfing her wrist to sparrow’s leg proportions.

  Matthew passed the ashtray. ‘Perhaps you’d allow me to fill in some of the background to last night’s …’

  Rowan ripped the cellophane with purple-varnished fingernails ringed with nicotine. ‘I’d rather have Jennifer’s own words. It’s more spontaneous, isn’t it? And shall we have our coffee first? I’m never quite compos mentis until I’ve had at least two cups. I was most intrigued, Jennifer, to read about Hester’s home-made brew. What was it now—dandelion and daisies?’

  ‘D … dandelion root and chicory.’

  ‘Ah, yes—delightful! You must give me the full instructions. In fact, our Women’s Page Editor is very chuffed with Hester’s recipes. She thought there might be some mileage in the economy angle—you know, finding free ingredients in the hedgerows instead of … Ah! Here’s our own coffee—hardly free, I fear.’

  Jennifer spooned sugar into her cup. Rowan wasn’t as alarming as she had feared. She was obviously the chatty type—even seemed quite human. Any woman on a diet roused her instant sympathy, especially one as Twiggy-thin as Rowan. Her own cottage cheese and grapefruit fortnight had been gruelling enough.

  ‘Look, er … Rowan.’ She tried to toss the name off casually. Christian names were still a hurdle for her when the person was a virtual stranger, but in the media world a surname was regarded as a strait-jacket. ‘I don’t know whether you’re interested, but there is another coffee substitute—a milder one—which really tastes quite nice. It’s a sort of fruit and grain mixture which Hester invented herself. It might be better fo
r you, because it doesn’t have the caffeine. I could make you up a pound or two if you think it would help your diet.’

  ‘Jennifer, how kind! I’d be absolutely thrilled. I must admit though, I didn’t know you still had time for that sort of domestic detail. From all I’ve heard, your life is rather different now from the one you recommend in Born With The Century.’

  Matthew put his cup down. ‘Not at all, Rowan. Of course, there has been the distraction of the publicity campaign, but apart from that …’

  ‘Do let Jennifer speak. She speaks so well.’ Rowan flashed a purple-lipsticked smile. Lips and nails looked as if they had come from the same high-gloss paint-pot. ‘Jennifer, I know you say you model your life on Hester’s, but I must confess, I can also see some differences. I mean, take something very basic like where you live. Your book’s essentially a back-to-nature thing, so I took it you’d be a country girl yourself, living in the wilds, yet I understand you have a small town-house in a built-up street of a rather fancy suburb.’

  ‘It’s a … cottage, actually.’

  ‘On a commuter line to London?’ Rowan drew out a notebook from the bottom of her bag, whose contents were now spilling on the table—a passport in a snakeskin case, an impressive clutch of credit cards, a tiny bijou pill-box carved in jade.

  Jennifer stowed her own British Home Stores leather-look safely out of sight.

  ‘Well, yes, but …’

  ‘You see, after reading your very persuasive preface, I assumed you’d have taken over Hernhope. Yet I gather Hester’s home is lying empty—even in danger of becoming derelict. Why’s that?’ Rowan had her note-book poised.

  Matthew cut in again, frowning into his dry toast and sugarless tea. ‘Of course it’s not derelict. There was a … er …’ He faltered.

  ‘A … bit of trouble with the generator—that’s all. It needed some attention, so …’

  ‘I see. And when it’s fixed, Jennifer will move there, will she? Make it the sort of place your book suggests?’

  Matthew paused a moment, drained his cup. ‘Her plans are very … fluid at the moment. They have to be. The book is already proving so successful, that alone may affect where and how she lives.’